Category Archives: National

1996’s Privatization of Government Background Screening has Been a 29 Year Dumpster Fire

May 3, 2023 David Obelcz 1 Comment

Recent failures in background checks of new and existing service members have been thrust into the spotlight with the arrest of Air National Guardsmen Jack Teixeira for the leaking of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents and former U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Sarah Bils for engaging in what she called hybrid warfare against the United States since 2014. Despite rising demand for security clearance background checks by the U.S. government and military, the process to protect America’s secrets has been dismantled piece by piece over a 29-year period.

Before 1996, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) did most of the background screening for the United States government and military. The Department of Defense was a secondary agency. Through 1994, OPM had a quality assurance staff of 80 employees that reviewed 100% of all investigations for errors. Due to budget cuts, 50 jobs were eliminated in 1995, and OPM moved to spot screening of 10% of background checks.

Former Senators Richard Shelby (AL-R) and Paul Simon (IL-D) led a committee to investigate and ultimately approve an OPM plan to privatize security clearance background checks. In 1996, U.S. Investigation Services (USIS) was created. Approximately 5,000 employees were given shares in the new company and additional responsibility for conducting a larger portion of background checks for the Department of Defense (DoD).

The transfer of most DSS screening to USIS was fueled by the events of September 11, when members of Congress, including former Senator Slade Gordon (WA-R), had his background investigation held up for months, preventing him and other Congressional leaders from reviewing sensitive documents related to the 2001 terrorist attacks. At the time, the FBI claimed it had lost Gordon’s paperwork, but the bottleneck wasn’t resolved until media reports shined a spotlight on the delays. In 2003, most DoD screenings were moved to USIS. While it appeared the company had earned the trust of government leaders, OPM was already facing criticism for using USIS as an exclusive provider.

Within four years of its spinoff from OPM, USIS attracted the interest of private equity. In 2000, the Carlyle Group invested $172 million ($307 million in inflation-adjusted dollars), followed by Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe purchasing a controlling interest for $545 million ($895 million in inflation-adjusted dollars) in 2003. In 2007, Carlyle sold their stake to the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners for $1.5 billion. Two years later, USIS was folded into a new firm called Altegrity, which included background screening providers HireRight, Explore Information Services, and Labat-Anderson, purchased shortly after Altegrity was formed. In August 2010, Altegrity purchased Kroll, Inc. for an all-cash transaction of $1.13 billion.

While private equity firms were reaping large profits, by 2008, USIS couldn’t keep up with government demand for screening services. In the four years that followed, the company utilized computer software called Project Blue to purge 665,000 background checks for security clearances as completed, even though no activity had been done. Allegedly, the faked background checks included National Security Agency whistle-blower and now Russian citizen Edward Snowden and 2013 Washington Naval Yard mass shooter Aaron Alexis. In the case of Alexis, USIS missed a 2004 Seattle, Washington arrest for malicious mischief where he shot out the tires of another man’s car during a “blackout.” Alexis was never prosecuted for the incident or another arrest in DeKalb County, Georgia in 2008. In Congressional testimony and through their public relations arm, USIS denied that either background check was part of Project Blue and called the claims a “myth.”

In January 2014, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against USIS alleging fraud for submitting fake background checks to the U.S. government. Five months later, USIS discovered it had been hit in 2013 by a cyberattack resulting in the leak of highly sensitive information for 25,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees. In 2015, Onapsis Research Labs determined that the hack was conducted by China using what cybersecurity experts call a lateral attack. The hack used SAP software linked between USIS and a third-party vendor but wasn’t discovered until almost a year later and wasn’t publicly revealed until July 2014. After the breach, the U.S. government suspended background screening and announced on September 9 of the same year it would not renew its contracts.

In 2015, USIS’s parent company, Altegrity Risk International, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Altegrity settled with the United States government for $30 million and reorganized under Kroll Inc. On October 16, 2016, Carlyle Group-owned LDiscovery purchased Kroll for an estimated $410 million and, in 2018, sold Kroll to Duff & Phelps for an undisclosed amount.

In January 2016, the Obama Administration returned background screening to OPM, creating the Federal Investigative Services (FIS). However, years of missed reports, legal wrangling, and an increasing demand for security clearances created a growing backlog that, for some personnel, was stretching beyond a year. In September 2019, the Trump Administration liquidated FIS and moved background screening to the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency within the DoD. An additional requirement was the maximum amount of time permitted for a background screening was shortened from 150 days to 80.

When COVID-19 struck, many local, county, and state courthouses became virtual, causing delays in providing information to background screeners and preventing in-person review of court records, which are needed in edge cases.

During this period, Teixeira was denied a firearms identification card by the Dighton, Massachusetts Police Department twice because, in 2018, he was suspended from high school for making racist threats and had talked about attempting an attack using firearms and Molotov cocktails. In 2021 after joining the Massachusetts National Guard and receiving his government security clearance, he applied for a third time, citing his government responsibilities as a reason he should be approved. Dighton officials gave Teixeria a gun permit.

U.S. Navy non-commissioned officer Bils would have received her security clearance during the Project Blue era at USIS and could have faced a renewal screening between 2019 and 2022, depending on when she gained her original clearance. A 10-second Google search shows that Bils created a personal YouTube channel in 2008, with one video implying the use of recreational drugs. The video is still public today. While views on marijuana use have changed significantly in the last decade, at the time Bils would have received her first security clearance, it would have likely disqualified her. In interviews with the Wall Street Journal and Russian state media agency Russia Today, she professed she was engaged in information warfare against the United States since 2014. Bils, also known as the “Donbass Devushka,” has not been charged with any crime but is under investigation by the Department of Justice and NCIS for her conduct during and after her time with the Navy.

In 2023, security clearances are still the responsibility of the DoD, and while the backlog has shrunk since 2019, it remains in the hundreds of thousands.

Breaking News, Local, National

FBI Interviews Sarah Bils, the Donbass Devushka, as the DOJ and NCIS Probes Her Past

April 18, 2023 Malcontent News Staff 5 Comments

[Oak Harbor, Wash.] – WBHG/MTN – Former United States Navy Chief Petty Officer Sarah Bils, better known as the Russian propagandist Donbass Devushka, was interviewed by FBI agents at her Oak Harbor, Washington home on Sunday, according to a report by Newsmax, and is also under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

An open-source intelligence investigation spearheaded by NAFO, a loosely affiliated group of pro-Ukrainian social media users who are united in their fight against Russian disinformation, identified Bils as the person behind a Twitter and Telegram disinformation empire that started in 2014 while she was in the U.S. Navy, and exploded after Russia expanded its war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Malcontent News was the first to report on Ms. Bils’s alter ego and was able to verify the self-declared “Russian Jew” Donbas maiden was actually born in Voorhees, New Jersey, according to her 2011 marriage license.

On Monday, Bils told the Wall Street Journal, after an exclusive interview with the newspaper on Saturday, that she was “forthright and honest with the FBI and NCIS in regards to what my clearances were and what I had access to, which was literally nothing.” The FBI interviewed her on Sunday.

In early April, investigators with Bellingcat determined the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel was the first to publicly leak edited secret and top secret documents from the Pentagon allegedly distributed by U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeria on a private Discord server called Thug Shaker Central. Teixeria, who has no connection to Bils, was arrested without incident by federal officials on April 13.

On Monday, an unnamed source with the U.S. Department of Justice said that “she is actively under federal investigation, but the circumstances of the content of the investigation is unclear at this time.”

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh was peppered with questions about Bils during a Monday press briefing. When asked if the Department of Defense was aware that the former Navy chief petty officer had been posting Russian propaganda since 2014 and if she had been under investigation prior to the revelation of the document leak, Ms. Singh replied, “Because this investigation is ongoing, I would refer you to the DOJ for that.”

Ms. Singh did confirm that Bils had not been under investigation by the U.S. Navy “while she was in uniform,” adding, “as far as I am aware,” and referencing additional questions to the Department of the Navy. On Tuesday, an NCIS spokesperson told the South Whidbey Record that the NCIS “is continuing to work jointly on an investigation of her activities with the Department of Justice.”

On April 5, four poorly edited top secret Pentagon documents were posted on her Telegram channel, with Bils claiming that she was not responsible for the post, that it was done by another admin who was “disciplined,” and the documents removed. However, on April 14, the documents, which have since been deleted, were still available contrary to her claims during her Wall Street Journal interview.

Over the last two days, a clearer picture of Bils’s life has started to form. At the end of 2020, she was promoted to E7, chief petty officer, which is a senior non-commissioned officer rank. But just under the surface, her life was falling apart. She was already involved in a bitter divorce battle over custody of her daughter, and in court papers reviewed by the South Whidbey Record, Bils declared she was suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a “substance abuse disorder.”

In 2021, court papers show the U.S. Navy sent Bils to a substance abuse treatment program in Utah. In September 2021, she was in a serious car accident where she rear-ended another vehicle while traveling at a high rate of speed. Drugs and alcohol were not a factor in the daytime crash, and Bils was cited by the Washington State Patrol for speeding. According to her mother, the Donbass Devushka was seriously injured in the crash, and she traveled to Washington to help her daughter recover.

Two days after the accident, Bils posted on Twitter that she totaled her car and lost custody of her child. She was honorably discharged from the Navy on November 27, 2022, with a demotion to E5, petty officer second class. In the U.S. Navy, a petty officer is a non-commissioned officer and would be equal to a sergeant in the Army, Air Force, Marines, and Space Force.

Bils had previously filed for divorce in 2014 and requested a temporary restraining order, which was delivered to her husband by the Island County Sheriff on June 13, 2014. The 14-day temporary order was not extended by the court. In 2016, Bils withdrew her petition for divorce.

Since she left the Navy, Bils has made various claims on why she was discharged, including telling the Wall Street Journal that she was suffering from PTSD, writing on social media it was due to her “leftist views,” and, in another Twitter thread, claimed she stopped showing up for duty. In a series of Tweets on Monday, which are currently protected from public view, Bils, or one of up to 15 people that she claims helps run her social media empire, posted a Tweetstorm defending her actions, declaring that no laws had been violated, while calling out numerous news agencies for sharing and analyzing the top secret documents released by Teixeria. At the time of publication, the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel remained active, posting dozens of times a day.

The investigation by the FBI and NCIS comes at a time when the U.S. government appears to be cracking down on Russian influence in American politics. In a separate case, the DOJ announced on Tuesday that four U.S. citizens and three Russian nationals have been charged with “conspiring to covertly sow discord in U.S. society, spread Russian propaganda, and interfere illegally in U.S. elections.” A federal grand jury alleges that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents recruited, funded, and discredited U.S. political groups to act as unregistered Moscow agents. Omali Yeshitela, Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel, and Augustus Romain Jr. of St. Petersburg, Florida, have been charged with violating the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and each faces up to five years in prison.

Moscow resident Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov was one of the three Russians charged with a FARA violation. He’s accused of using foreign influence to “create the appearance of American popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories in Ukraine.”

Malcontent News’s research for our initial report on Bils included potential legal consequences; a legal expert advised that an area of potential trouble for the Donbass Devushka lies with FARA.

FARA requires certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents.
United states department of justice

Bils’s social media work is endorsed by the Telegram channel Rybar, which has over 1.1 million followers and is one of the most influential Russian military-aligned social media brands on the planet. Rybar is led by computer programmer Denis Shchukin and former Russian Ministry of Defense press officer Mikhail Zvinchuk, according to Kung Chan of the Chinese thinktank ANBOUND. The pair are alleged to be connected to the FSB, although they insist that they receive minimal funding from the Russian government and have an operating budget of $20,000 a month.

On social media, the Donbass Devushka frequently praises and defends the Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner Group led by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin. In November 2022, Prigozhin opened a new headquarters for PMC Wagner in St. Petersburg, Russia, which included plans for material and financial support for journalists and bloggers. Prigozhin has bragged publicly about interfering in the 2016 and 2020 United States elections and was using his company, Concord Management and Consulting, as early as 2014 to manipulate U.S. elections. 2014 is the same year Bils became more active in posting anti-Ukrainian and anti-United States content, and is the same year the DOJ alleges Ionov first violated FARA.

Bils has periodically complained about financial trouble on social media; for years she solicited donations of cash and cryptocurrency through CashApp and Buy Me a Coffee, claiming the money was going to support Russian causes. Online and in her interview with the Wall Street Journal, she claimed that no money went to Russia, and what little funds were raised went to cover her personal technology and equipment costs.

A critical question that the Department of Defense needs to answer is how an individual with a documented history of substance abuse, mental illness, financial problems, and a troubled marriage involving custody battles and restraining orders was able to maintain their top security clearance.

Bils has blocked us on social media and did not respond to a request for comment.

Mental illness and substance abuse are sensitive topics that can release strong emotions. If you are depressed, despondent, or having suicidal thoughts, there is help available. In the United States, you can dial 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Hotline. You can also call 800-273-8255 24 hours a day. If you’d rather not talk to a person, you can text 741741, and for U.S. veterans, you can text 838255.

Editor’s Note: It is Malcontent News’s editorial policy to use an individual’s most current legal name. Sarah Bils changed her legal name to Lyudmila Mikhailova Karakova on March 31, 2023. Given the particular circumstances of this story, we chose to use her previous name for clarity.

Breaking News, National, Russia-Ukraine War

A Russian Disinformation Empire in Oak Harbor, Washington

April 16, 2023 Malcontent News Staff 52 Comments

Updated April 16, 2023 – Sarah Bils Naval NOS and rank were verified.

Updated April 17, 2023 – NAFO involvement in this investigation was clarified. Story has been lightly edited for clarity.

In late 2021, a nascent social media influencer based in Oak Harbor, Washington, embarked on a clandestine career spreading Russian propaganda. Starting on Twitter under the moniker Donbass Devushka, they would eventually expand to Telegram, a podcast, and a YouTube channel. Donbass Devushka gained a much larger following after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The person behind the social media account made incongruous claims. They were born in Russia. They were born in the Ukrainian city of Luhansk during the Soviet era. They were born in Gaza. They immigrated to the United States at a very young age. None of it was true.

Things started to unravel for Donbass Devushka when reputable members of the pro-Ukrainian online movement “NAFO” collaborated with reporters from Malcontent News. Our investigation into Donbass Devushka included analyzing open-source material, conducting interviews with multiple sources, and obtaining public records. We confirmed the true identity of the mysterious woman born in three places: former United States Navy Legal Clerk Sarah Bils. She was recently released from active duty.

Bils was born not in Russia, Ukraine, Gaza; less exotically, she was born in the United States. Nor were her parents abroad; they grew up in South Philadelphia. Bils now lives in Oak Harbor, Washington, in the shadow of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island where she once served. According to public court records, she legally changed her name to the more Russian-sounding “Lyudmila Mikhailova Karakova” on March 31. Bils could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.

A Make-Believe Past and Present Masks a Strange yet Mundane Reality

A March 2011 marriage license shows that Bils was born in Voorhees, New Jersey, a world away from the Soviet Union. In a phone conversation, Bils’s mother denied any knowledge of her daughter’s online activity and was unaware of her recent name change. Her parents also refuted they were from Russia, or that Bils had any national connection to the former Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, or the so-called Luhansk or Donetsk People’s Republics.

Bils enlisted with the United States Navy in November 2009, according to the Department of Defense’s Manpower Data Center (DoDMDC). In November 2022, her active duty status with the Navy ended, but the DoDMDC did not list a discharge date. An archive of her LinkedIn page listed her Navy Occupational Specialty (NOS) as Legal Clerk, but did not provide her specialist code or additional details.

Update – A reader shared documentation that shows in Fiscal Year 2021, Bils was promoted to the rank of Chief Petty Officer with a NOS of ATC – Chief Aviation Electronics Technician. We have been advised this role would still require a security clearance.

Bils’s social media persona claimed that in 2014, she traveled between the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and the Ukrainian city of Luhansk “while Kyiv dropped shells and sponsored Nazi marauders.” Bils was certainly in a conflict zone, but it wasn’t in the Donbas. Instead, it was in an Oak Harbor courtroom where she was embroiled in a domestic court case with her husband of three years.

While serving with the Navy on Whidbey Island, Bils ran Cascadia Aquatics, selling tropical fish and specialized food imported from Poland. By 2018, within the tight-knit community of freshwater tropical fish enthusiasts, Bils’s had cultivated a reputation for being knowledgeable and trustworthy. COVID isolation and her prior interviews for Cascadia Aquatics would allow Malcontent News, years later, to expose her other side hustle: a Russian propagandist targeting a Western audience.

As a Legal Clerk, Bils would have been required to hold a security clearance and was obligated to report foreign contacts, including online friendships through social media and even her business contacts in Poland for the specialized fish food. It is unclear if she made the proper security disclosures to her chain of command.

In June 2020, she appeared on a since-deleted episode of the Aquarium co-op Podcast. Recorded over Zoom, the video showed her face, voice, and accessories in her home. Open-source intelligence shared on Twitter would zero in on all three of these details. The accessories in her former home match the home décor to her current apartment. Bils’s face and voice match the face and voice of her alter ego. These three details outed Bils as the person behind a spreading and influential social media footprint.

On the morning of September 14, 2021, the Washington State Patrol reported that an Audi SQ5 driven by Bils at a high rate of speed rear-ended a Ford Econoline van as it attempted to turn onto Highway 20 in the sleepy town of Coupeville. Bils and the male driver of the van were injured and taken to the hospital.

In a Twitter Space with No Experts on Ukraine, a participant alleged that a former Navy co-worker claimed Bils was dismissed due to a drunk driving incident related to the 2021 crash. In a phone conversation, her mother denied that Bils faced drunk driving charges. A review of court records did not show a previous criminal case in Island County Superior Court for Bils under any of her current or previous names. Her mother added that Bils had suffered significant injuries, and she traveled to Washington to assist her while recovering.

Bils claims she was “kicked out” of the military due to her “leftist views.” Former associates expressed concern about Bils’ mental health and described her as a habitual liar. In talking with her mother, she indicated that her daughter frequently made up stories and that she was somewhat disconnected from Bils.

After the car accident, Bils started to express anti-American views more publicly, embracing a pro-Russian persona and claiming to be from the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. She presented herself as an expert on geopolitics and history, maintaining a profile on ResearchGate. Although the website is used for tracking academic publications, no publications to her name are listed. Bils’ profile, still active on publication, displays her photo, and claims she attends Arizona State University’s School of Politics and Global Studies. Her social media persona claims to hold two additional degrees, with her archived LinkedIn profile listing one degree earned while with the Navy. However, she was never promoted to the officer corps.

From Fish Food and the Navy to a Western-Facing Russian Propagandist

When Russia expanded its 2014 invasion on February 24, 2022, Bils created multiple personas on Twitter and, starting in April, added Telegram. By the summer of 2022, despite only having an audience in the tens of thousands, she started hosting a podcast that included Jackson Hinkle, Scott Ritter, Garland Nixon, and Russian state media journalist Fiorella Isabel as guests. Some of the interviews occurred while she was still on active duty with the Navy and would have required a foreign contact disclosure.

She cycled through several social media accounts on Twitter, which were reported and suspended for community guideline violations, before repurposing PeImeniPusha, created in July 2012. In a year, her small following grew into a small disinformation empire on Twitter and Telegram under her brand of Donbass Devushka: “a girl and a cat against the world.”

Her Telegram channel shares more graphic and offensive content, including memes, doctored and misattributed images, and ultra-violence. Posts include celebrating the killing of a retired United States Marine who went to Ukraine as a foreign volunteer, graphic videos of dead Ukrainians, and defending a video that showed a Ukrainian POW decapitated by Russian mercenaries with the Private Military Company Wagner Group.

The activity across these accounts and access to people like Jackson Hinkle, Scott Ritter, and Russian state media journalists indicates that Bils is part of a larger and coordinated organization targeting a Western audience with Russian disinformation, antisemitism, and racism. It is highly unlikely that one person could conduct all of this work independently.

A co-host on her podcast is the person behind the former social media channel, AZ Geopolitics. On April 13, they deleted their Telegram and Twitter accounts, claiming their Telegram was being mass reported. On the same day, Bils announced that going forward, AZ Geopolitics would align with her personal brand.

In a tangle of posts, videos, and graphics, Bils has claimed that English is either her first, second, or third language. She has claimed she was born and raised in Russia, eastern Ukraine, and was an immigrant to the United States during her childhood. With social media users alleging she has misappropriated solicited donations to help support Russian causes for her own use, she insisted on April 15 she never made any financial requests and disclosed what little money was collected was for herself and her work. Yet numerous posts across her social media profiles show requests to transfer money to her through cryptocurrency, CashApp, and Buy Me a Coffee so that she can donate the funds to support Russia. We cannot confirm any allegations of financial misconduct on the part of Bils nor if any money was transferred to Russia.

For now, her supporters are standing by her.

A Leak of Pentagon Documents, Doctored Photos, and Frozen Fish Stick Heir Tucker Carlson

As early as January 2023, the U.S. government alleges that hundreds of secret and top secret documents were shared by Airman First Class Jack Teixeria of the Massachusetts National Guard on his Discord server, Thug Shaker Central. Teixeria, who federal officials arrested on April 13, appears to have shared the documents to chase Internet clout, despite knowing up to a dozen members of his private server were foreign nationals – including from Ukraine, Brazil, and Russia. It is unclear which individual or individuals leaked the information from Thug Shaker Central to a broader audience, and at least two people who are among his inner circle are cooperating with federal authorities.

An investigation by Bellingcat traced the spread of the documents from Teixeria’s Discord to 4Chan, Telegram, and Twitter. Dueling versions of key documents were circulating, with one showing Russian losses far exceeded Ukrainian losses, and the other, poorly edited version showing the opposite. Bellingcat alleges the doctored versions originated on the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel on April 5, a claim Bils denies.

On April 13, Tucker Carlson, the host of the Fox News show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” claimed that Ukraine was suffering a 7-1 troop loss ratio and was “losing the war.” The doctored versions showing the 7-1 troop loss ratios for Ukraine were also amplified by other high-profile, anti-American propagandists such as Joe Flynn and Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was recruited by Steven Bannon to run as a spoiler in the upcoming 2024 election.

Bils’s channel has also been endorsed by Russian milblogger Rybar. The leaders of Rybar are two former Kremlin information officers with an operating budget of over $20,000 per month. Rybar runs a social media empire documenting and praising Russian military activity around the world, including the Middle East and Africa.

In a series of Tweets and two long posts on Telegram, Bils confirmed some of the details of her past. She also claimed that an admin of her Telegram channel shared the top secret documents. She added that the images had been removed once discovered by her, and the person who posted them was “disciplined.” However, on April 14, images of the documents, and a denial that she had edited them, were still on her Telegram channel.

Ironically, if the intent was to damage Ukrainian and United States credibility by editing the materials distributed by Teixeria, it created deep mistrust in the integrity of all the documents among the Russian milblogger community and the Kremlin. Publicly, the Kremlin has mostly dismissed the documentation as a psychological operation.

A Cloudy Future

It is unclear if any laws were broken by sharing the secret and top secret documents on the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel. If Bils was fully discharged from the Navy when they were posted, it is highly unlikely she would be subject to the UCMJ. Even if she never made appropriate disclosures to her foreign contacts while serving with the Navy, even the casual fish food business contacts back to 2018, typically, the punishment would be the loss of security clearance.

Experts we talked to said that if federal agencies investigate Bils, they will likely look at when the documents were acquired, her role in the distribution, and her broader connections in the anti-American and pro-Russian information space. There is no evidence of any direct links to Teixeria.

In Washington, D.C., a bi-partisan chorus of American politicians is asking how the lower ranks of the United States military can be so compromised after the revelation that an Air National Guard E3 had such easy access to sensitive information. In comparison, Bils’s anti-American and pro-Russian work was out in the open while she continued to serve in the Navy and likely held a security clearance. The American justice system has determined that a military uniform does not negate Constitutional protections for Americans, but at least one legal expert we talked to who examined her content suggested that Bils may have legal exposure.

It is ironic that if Bils, now going by her new, more Russian-sounding name, had taken the same actions in the Russian Federation with Russian military plans, she would be charged under the so-called “don’t say war laws,” and would be facing criminal charges for discrediting the Russian Armed Forces. The sentence for this crime is up to 15 years in a Russian penal colony. The very freedoms she claims are part of a global conspiracy to take away freedom enables her to maintain her public illusion of just a girl and a cat fighting for her life in the Donbas.

Meanwhile, detached from Voorhees, New Jersey, or Oak Harbor, Washington, the Ukrainian people continue to fight for their existence, while the damage caused by the leaked Pentagon information remains unknown.

Breaking News, Health and Lifestyle, National

Investigation Into COVID Test Firm Lab Elite Leads to Federal Indictment for Co-Founder

March 17, 2023 David Obelcz

[CHICAGO, Il.] – (MTN) A January 2022 investigation into Chicago COVID-19 testing firm Lab Elite resulted in the federal indictment of Zishan Alvi, 44, of Inverness, Illinois, on ten counts of wire fraud and one count of theft of government funds.

The federal indictment alleges Alvi “knowingly devised, intended to devise, and participated in a scheme to defraud the government by causing Laboratory A to submit fraudulent claims and delivering inaccurate and unreliable test results to the public. The fraudulent claims sought reimbursement for purported tests when Alvi knew that (a) Laboratory A had not performed a test for COVID-19; (b) Laboratory A had modified a test for COVID-19 such that the results were unreliable; and (c) Laboratory A already had collected payment from the individuals who purportedly had been tested.”

On February 4, 2022, Malcontent News released its investigation into Lab Elite, co-owned by Nikola Nozinic and Zishan Alvi. Our investigation found that Lab Elite was stepping in to provide lab services at former Center for COVID Control and FCTS locations operating under the Testative brand. The Center for COVID Control closed while under multiple state and federal investigations, and Testative was closed by Northshore Clinical Labs when the company caught the attention of state and federal regulators.

Our investigation found that Nozinic and Alvi used a series of shell companies and acquired struggling testing firms to secure NPI and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) numbers required to receive over $80 million in federal reimbursement for COVID testing through the HRSA Uninsured Program created by the CARES Act. According to the Testative website and our investigation, Lab Elite was providing lab services for pop-up testing firm Testative. A second investigation by Malcontent News, published on February 5, 2022, found that Testative sites in Delaware had “deficiencies including not having a CLIA number.” The test sites were ordered closed by a Delaware judge and never reopened.

The indictment alleged “Alvi directed Laboratory A employees to falsely indicate in Laboratory A’s records that COVID-19 tests had been performed for these individuals when Alvi knew that the test specimens had been discarded at his own direction and had not been tested. It is further part of the scheme that, in order to conceal the fact that tests were not performed, Laboratory A did not release positive COVID-19 results on specimens where tests were eventually performed because a purported negative result had already been released.”

“The charges, in this case, allege that the defendant disregarded public health concerns in favor of personal financial gain. Doing so by compromising taxpayer-funded programs intended to fight the spread of coronavirus was particularly reprehensible,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual. “I commend the work of our law enforcement partners who investigated this complex fraud scheme. Our office will relentlessly continue to bring to justice those who defrauded the government’s pandemic relief initiatives.”

Alvi is accused of redirecting federal funds “for personal expenditures, including for vehicle purchases and investments in stocks and cryptocurrency.” The federal government is seeking the forfeiture of at least $6.8 million in allegedly ill-gotten gains, in addition to five luxury cars and funds from trade and investment accounts.

A promotional video created by Lab Elite showed multiple violations of United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) lab and testing protocols. The video showed the door to the lab open to the reception area, no sinks or handwashing stations in the lab area, unmasked technicians, including one person in a designated BLS2 area, and people administering COVID tests without wearing eye protection and using ill-fitting masks that were not N-95 rated.

“The defendant defrauded the American people at a time when we were most vulnerable, in the midst of a global pandemic. This indictment shows that the FBI, along with our law enforcement partners, is continually working to keep Americans safe and uphold the Constitution as our mission demands of us,” said Special Agent in Charge Wheeler.

Each count of wire fraud is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, and the count of theft of government funds is punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison.

BIPOC, Breaking News, National

President Joe Biden wipes $10K of student loan debt away for almost 43 million

August 24, 2022 Myca Hinton

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – (MTN) Fulfilling his campaign trail promise, President Joe Biden announced his student loan forgiveness plan early Wednesday afternoon.

President Biden forgave or canceled the expected $10,000 in federal student loans for those who make less than $125,000 a year or $250,000 for married couples and heads of households. According to the Education Department, the relief is capped at the amount of a borrower’s outstanding eligible debt. In his Tweet, the president also extended the payment pause on federal student loans for “one last and final time” through December 31, 2022. But in one surprising move, President Biden also canceled an additional $10,000 for recipients of Pell Grants.

According to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz, at least 9 million Americans could have their balances entirely cleared by Biden’s plan. More than 40 million Americans are in debt after perusing higher education, accumulating about $1.7 trillion. Biden’s plan for student loan forgiveness will cost the federal government an estimated $300 billion but could prove to be less than that, as most debt is rarely paid in full. In 2019, about half of borrowers were in repayment. Roughly 10 million Americans, 1 in 5 student debt holders, were in delinquency or default. The rest had applied for temporary relief, including deferments and forbearances, and this was before the pandemic relief payment pause was put in place.

Loan forgiveness is expected to go into effect on January 1, 2023. The White House fact sheet, mentioned those who meet the income requirements could fill out a simple application. There currently isn’t a date for when the application will open, but you can subscribe for notification at the Department of Education subscription page.

This initative has been a long time in the making and will help millions of Americans tackle their debt.

Breaking News, National, Russia-Ukraine War

Intel on planned Russian attacks leads to State Dept. advising Americans to leave Ukraine

August 23, 2022 Malcontent News Staff

August 23, 2022, Russia-Ukraine War Update

[UKRAINE] – MTN It has been 3,099 days since Russia occupied Crimea on February 27, 2014. Here is our latest update. You can visit our Russia-Ukraine War Center to find more news about Ukraine. You can also listen to our in-depth podcast, Malcontent News Russia Ukraine War Update, hosted by Linnea Hubbard.

Breaking News

The United States Department of State has urged all Americans to evacuate Ukraine due to specific intelligence of Russian plans to launch widescale attacks on civilians and government centers through the upcoming week.

“The Department of State has information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days,” according to the embassy’s website.

“The U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to depart Ukraine now using privately available ground transportation options if it is safe to do so.”

Bakhmut

Near Bakhmut, fighting continues on the outskirts of Soledar. Russian forces have been unable to advance past the KNAUF-GIPS sheetrock plant.

Russian forces continued their attacks on Zaitseve, 10 kilometers southeast of Bakhmut. Two advances were attempted, a storming action and a reconnaissance in force assault; neither was unsuccessful.

In the Svitlodarsk bulge, Russian forces only attempted an advance on Kodema but failed to dislodge Ukrainian defenders.

Southwest Donetsk – Zaporizhia

North of Avdiivka, DNR separatists attempted to advance on Krasnohorivka but did not gain any new territory.

Separatist troops made another attempt to advance on Pervomaiske but failed to improve their tactical positions. The village of Nevelske came under attack by DNR separatists, who could not find a way to move through the exposed, artillery-blasted fields. Skirmishes in the area of Pisky continued.

An ammunition depot in Rozdolne was hit by rockets fired from HIMARS.

South of Donetsk, Russian forces continue to advance further into Novomykhailivka without success.

On the Donetsk-Zaporizhia administrative border, Russian forces attempted to advance on Zolota Nyva again but did not move the line of conflict.

There are reports from reliable sources that Ukrainian forces have launched an offensive in the area of Polohy.

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Izyum

There is growing evidence that Russian forces in Izyum are experiencing shortages of artillery munitions, having to use antiaircraft guns for direct fire.

Kherson

Rockets fired by HIMARS hit the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson. There are unconfirmed reports that the strike occurred as a Russian column of supply trucks carrying ammunition was on the bridge.

An S-300 antiaircraft missile fired by Russian forces to attack Mykolaiv failed after launch and crashed in Russian-controlled Zelenivka, near Kherson.

Dnipropetrovsk

Ukrainian forces accused Russian troops of shelling the thermal plant in Enerhodar. A video showed the water feed lines damaged, and a man slumped over in the driver seat of a taxi with shrapnel damage.

Valentyn Reznichenko, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administrative and Military Governor, reported that Marhanets was hit by artillery fire wounding two people. Nikopol was not attacked with Grad rockets for the first time in more than six weeks.

Sumy and Chernihiv

Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, Sumy Oblast Administrative and Military Governor, reported a border skirmish involving light arms fire at an unspecified border village in the Shostka district.

Odesa, Crimea, and the Black Sea

Two cruise missiles were fired at the previously disabled Zatoka Bridge southwest of Odesa.

Beyond Ukraine

Moldova and Ukraine worked collaboratively to reopen the Berezyne-Basarabeasca rail connection. The completed upgrades have restored rail connections from the rest of Europe, bypassing the damaged Zatoka Bridge over the Dniester estuary.

Daily Assessment

There wasn’t any reported ground combat in northeast Donetsk, Kharkiv, Izyum, or Kherson, which may be due to Russian staffing and supply challenges or a standdown order due to looming more significant attacks.
The United States Department of State warning from the embassy in Kyiv validates our assessment that there is a very high chance of multiple and significant punitive strikes against Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure planned for the week of August 22.
There is growing evidence that Russian forces on the Izyum axis are suffering from ammunition shortages, hampering their ability to hold the current lines of defense.

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Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

Polio detected in New York, London, and Jerusalem wastewater – King Co not Testing

August 15, 2022 David Obelcz

[SEATTLE, Wash.] -MTN The poliomyelitis virus has been detected in the wastewater of the international travel hubs of New York, London, and Jerusalem, indicating that the disease is spreading through the community. King County tests wastewater for several diseases but polio, long eradicated in Washington state, isn’t one of them.

“At this time, we are not testing King County wastewater for poliovirus,” Kate Cole, communications representative for Public Health of Seattle and King County, said.

Polio once struck fear into the hearts of parents until the 1950s, when the first polio vaccine brought the disease, which has no cure, into check. Thanks to widespread vaccination campaigns, the disease, which can cause paralysis and death, was declared vanquished from the United States. By 2016, the complete eradication of polio appeared to be within grasp, with cases numbering in the hundreds appearing in two nations – Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The virus spreading in New York and London is a revertant Sabin type 2 virus, which originates from the Sabin orally administrated polio vaccine. The oral polio vaccine was discontinued in the United States in 2000 but is still used in other nations, mainly to contain polio outbreaks. When a person is vaccinated with the oral vaccine, which uses a weakened version of poliomyelitis, they can shed the virus in their feces for up to a month. If an unvaccinated person comes in contact with a contaminated surface, they can become infected. Eventually, if the weakened virus sickens enough people, it can revert to a more virulent version.

On July 21, the New York State Department of Health reported the first case of community transmission of polio in the United States since 1981. The infected Rockland County resident suffered from paralytic polio, which state officials identified as a “revertant polio Sabin type 2 virus.” In a fully vaccinated population with strong herd immunity, the story would have stopped there. But due to declining vaccination rates, it didn’t. In the following weeks, polio was detected in the wastewater of three New York regions, including New York City.

While polio appearing in the wastewater of two of the largest cities in the world and three travel hubs is alarming, most of the infected have no idea they are a carrier. Up to 75% of people who get infected are asymptomatic – they never experience a single symptom. While many will never know they had polio, they are contagious and quietly spread the disease for up to a month.

For those who get sick, symptomatic polio resembles the flu or a mild case of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Fatigue, body and joint aches, weakness, stomach distress, and fever. That makes it even harder to spot because many physicians haven’t seen a case of polio in their lives, and mild symptoms mirror more common diseases that are active in the community.

In less than 2% of cases, polio crosses from the digestive tract to the nervous system. One out of two hundred who catch polio will develop paralytic polio, which can be fatal. The chances of experiencing paralysis increase the older a person is. Polio thrives in areas with warm water and populations with poor hygiene, especially children.

According to the National Library of Medicine, in 1981, over 90% of Americans were vaccinated for polio, creating so-called herd immunity. Vaccination rates peaked in 2008. The journal Nature published a study in 2019, reporting the rate had dropped to 80%. Preliminary data indicates that vaccine disinformation has dropped the rate even lower. In some conservative and religious counties, the rate is below 70%.

Travelers who took the oral vaccine, or in rarer cases, are infected with a vaccine acquired case of polio unwittingly spread the disease to the unvaccinated. In closed communities, the disease can spread quickly and silently.

Some epidemiologists believe because polio is spreading in New York City, it has likely spread to other major travel hubs in the United States. Americans have taken to the skies in near-record numbers after two years of COVID-related travel declines. Orlando. Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle could have cases silently spreading without carriers even knowing.

BIPOC, National

Federal civil rights charges leveled against four Louisville cops in Breonna Taylor case

August 13, 2022 Myca Hinton

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – MTN After almost two years of radio silence on the Breonna Taylor case, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced four Louisville Metro police officers involved in the fatal 2020 no-knock warrant raid on Taylor’s apartment had been charged with violating her civil rights. The four officers charged were Detective Joshua Jaynes, Detective Kelly Goodlett, Sargent Kyle Meany, and Brett Hankinson.

Attorney General Garland said the Department of Justice alleges that the civil rights violations “resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death.” Late on Friday, detective Goodlett announced through their attorney they would be entering a guilty plea on one count of falsifying an affidavit.

The federal charges allege that members of the Place-Based Investigations unit falsified an affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. Taylor’s home,” Garland also mentioned that the search warrant was sought after, despite officers knowing they lacked probable cause for the search. The investigation into the conduct of the officers found Jaynes and Goodlett falsely claimed officers verified the target of the warrant had received packages with drugs at Taylor’s address.

Detective Goodlett, who was is a member of the Louisville police unit that investigated drug trafficking, and Meany, who supervised the unit, were charged with falsifying an affidavit. Detective Jaynes procured the warrant used in the search of 26-year-old Taylor’s apartment on March 13, 2020. Jaynes and Goodlett are accused of misleading FBI investigators who were looking into the deadly shooting. Former officer Hankison was charged with using excessive force while executing the search warrant in question in a separate indictment.

According to a statement given by Louisville police, Hankison was terminated from the department in June of 2020, and Jaynes was terminated in January 2021. The department also commented that they were looking to terminate Goodlett and Meany. A Louisville Police spokesperson announced on Thursday, “Today Chief Erika Shields began termination of Sgt. Kyle Meany and Officer Kelly Goodlett. While we must refer all questions about this federal investigation to the FBI, it is critical that any illegal or inappropriate actions by law enforcement be addressed comprehensively in order to continue our efforts to build police-community trust.”

Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump gave a statement after the press conference, saying it has been a difficult two years since Taylor’s death. “Today was a huge step toward justice. We are grateful for the diligence and dedication of the FBI and the DOJ as they investigated what led to Breonna’s murder and what transpired afterward,” said Crump.

During the fatal early morning raid, officers opened fire, killing Taylor after her boyfriend, who believed an intruder was trying to break in, fired a gun at the door. Attorney General Garland reaffirmed that Taylor’s boyfriend had legally obtained the gun. After he fired and struck an officer, two officers proceeded to fire 22 shots into the apartment, one of which was the fatal blow that struck Taylor in the chest.”

The raid was meant to target Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, a convicted drug dealer who was not at the apartment. According to Glover, Taylor had no involvement in the drug trade. Garland clarified that the officers directly involved in the raid were unaware of the falsified statements in the search warrant affidavit.

Garland further clarified that Hankison was the sole officer charged with excessive use of force because after Taylor was shot, he moved from a doorway and fired 10 additional shots into a window and a sliding glass door that was covered with curtains. Hankinson was previously charged with endangering a couple and their 5-year-old son in a neighboring apartment on the night of the raid when. He was found not guilty on all accounts in March.

While Breonna Taylor’s death was a horrible tragedy and a prime example of the gaps in the U.S. law enforcement and justice systems, the officers involved will have to answer for their actions in federal court. “There are still so many families who are fighting and praying for justice and accountability in situations where their loved ones were wrongfully killed by the police.” Crump stated, “We need to stand with them, pray with them, and do whatever is possible for them.”

BIPOC, Breaking News, Local, National

Lynnwood man indicted for hate crime and interstate threats

August 4, 2022 David Obelcz

[SEATTLE, Wash.] – A 37-year-old Lynnwood, Washington man was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury for a hate crime and four counts of interstate threats, announced U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. Joey David George will be arraigned on the indictment on August 11, 2022, in Seattle Federal Court. George remains detained at the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac, Washington.

“By law, the decision to charge a hate crime is appropriately deliberate – with consultation and approval from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division in Washington DC,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. “In this case, the hate-filled threats to kill, based on race, are fittingly being prosecuted as a hate crime.”

The probable cause court filing on July 21 outlined the alleged incidents. According to records filed in the case, on July 19 and 20, George allegedly telephoned a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and threatened to shoot Black people in the store.

“On July 19, 2022, an individual called a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The caller, who identified himself as “Peter,” spoke with an employee at the store. The caller asked how many Black people were in the store. He said he would make the news if he shot and killed all of the Black people, including all of the women, children, and babies. He asked if the employee had cleared out the building. He said there was a chance he was already in the store or somewhere nearby. He said that if he did not see anyone at the store, he would travel to the Jefferson Tops store,” the court filing said.

The Tops Friendly Market store in Buffalo had reopened on July 14, two months after a racially motivated mass shooting left ten dead and three injured. In the second call, George allegedly ranted about a “race war.” Law enforcement traced the phone number and identified George as the person who made the call. The second Tops location in Buffalo on Jefferson Avenue, had a grand reopening on July 16 after an extensive renovation.

In addition to the calls to Buffalo, George is charged in connection with a May 2022 call to a Shari’s Restaurant and Pies in San Bruno, California. In that call, George, using the pseudonym “Tony Sumorrah,” talked to a San Bruno, California police officer. George told the officer that he called Shari’s restaurant because “he wanted to attack Black people and strike fear into the Bay Area’s Black community. He stated Black people are not human but rather “sub-humans.” He said he was proud of his actions because he instilled fear in the employees and customers of the restaurant.”

The San Bruno police department obtained location data for the origination point of the call. The call was made from Lynnwood, Washington, using a T-Mobile-provided cellphone number with Joey George as the subscriber. T-Mobile confirmed the May 12 call to Shari’s came for George’s number and phone. In the eyes of the law, a restaurant is a place of public accommodation, which added the hate crime charge: Interference with a Federally Protected Activity.

Additionally, George is charged with making interstate threats to a business in Maryland, saying he intended to shoot Black people at the store. The fourth count of the indictment charges him with making interstate threats to bomb a restaurant in Connecticut.

On January 16, 2022, George threatened marijuana dispensaries in Seattle and Skyway. An employee answered the call, and the male caller asked if there were any Black employees at the business. The male caller stated that he carried a gun and would go to the business to shoot any Black people who were there at the time of his arrival. According to the dispensary, a similar threat was made to their Skyway location. T-Mobile records show the call to the Seattle business came from George’s cellphone. George is not facing charges for the January 2022 incident, and it is unclear if the Seattle Police Department was contacted about the threat and if they were if they initiated a case and performed an investigation.

George is facing up to 30 years in prison based on the five charges.

National, Russia-Ukraine War

Russians secure critical Ukrainian defensive position – August 3, 2022 Ukraine update

August 3, 2022 Malcontent News Staff

[UKRAINE] – MTN It has been 23 weeks since the start of the Russia-Ukraine War and 3,078 days since Russia occupied Crimea on February 27, 2014. Here is our latest update.

Northeast Donetsk

On the Luhansk-Donetsk administrative border, Russian forces attempted an advance on Ivano-Darivka and were unsuccessful.