Media – Center to Advance Security in America

Defense Officials Pushed Climate Plan Amid Afghan Pullout

As the Biden administration was overseeing the botched military withdrawal from Afghanistan, top Pentagon officials were scrambling to finalize the Department of Defense Climate Adaptation Plan (CAP), emails obtained by The Daily Wire show.

From the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on Aug. 15, 2021, to the final U.S. military flight out of Afghanistan on Aug. 30, Pentagon officials were working to get the Secretary of Defense to sign the major climate initiative, which identifies climate change as a major national security risk.

According to the Wire, the officials’ frustration at the difficulty in getting the plan signed is evident in the emails. Ultimately, however, their perseverance paid off: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed the climate document on Sept. 1. Six days earlier, 13 Americans were killed by a suicide bomber during evacuation efforts at the airport in Kabul.

Read the rest at Newsmax

Pentagon Officials Worked To Finalize Climate Plan During Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal, Emails Show

(Brent Scher, The Daily Wire)

In the midst of the Biden administration’s disastrous military withdrawal from Afghanistan, top Pentagon officials were working to get the Secretary of Defense to sign a major climate change initiative, according to emails obtained by The Daily Wire.

In the two weeks between the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, and the final U.S. military flight out of Afghanistan on August 30, Pentagon officials were scrambling with the White House to finalize the Department of Defense Climate Adaptation Plan, a document that declares climate change a major national security risk.

The emails indicate frustration from climate change-focused Pentagon officials at the difficulty of getting the plan signed — but that ultimately their determination to focus on climate change even during the Afghanistan withdrawal paid off. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed the climate initiative on September 1, just six days after 13 Americans were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber.

Read the rest at The Daily Wire

FOIA records: Jan. 6 House Select Committee investigator consulted with FEC commissioner, sparking ethics questions

(Juliette Fairley, Legal Newsline)

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – A nonpartisan think tank has obtained documents that show a Federal Election Commissioner (FEC) communicating with a Jan. 6 committee investigator.

An email obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) shows House Select Committee senior investigative counsel Amanda Wick asking FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub to help in exploring a potential connection between campaign fundraising activities and the Jan. 6 Capitol rally.

“As part of the investigation into the events on and leading up to the January 6th attack on the United States capital, we are looking into certain fundraising activities and practices that were used to support and execute the events,” Wick wrote to Weintraub on Oct. 26, 2021. “One of our team members suggested reaching out to you for your expertise on federal fundraising laws, which would be incredibly beneficial. Would you or a member of your team have a few minutes to talk with me this week about some questions we have regarding federal campaign laws and the rules surrounding campaign fundraising?”

Read the rest at Legal Newsline

Biden Admin Withholds Info on Bungled Afghanistan Withdrawal, Lawsuit Says

(Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon)

The Biden administration is illegally withholding information about its bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, including information that could show senior U.S. officials knew prior to the withdrawal that the Taliban would quickly rise to power and trap scores of Americans, according to a nonpartisan advocacy group focused on U.S. national security issues.

The Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) is petitioning a district court in Washington, D.C., to force the State Department to release communications records related to the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation. This would include information “related [to the] vetting of Afghan refugees, and the number of U.S. citizens and lawful residents that were or were not evacuated from Afghanistan,” according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The Biden administration has yet to provide the American public with a full accounting of those who were left behind in Afghanistan once the Taliban took over and American troops left the country, including the exact number of U.S. citizens and Afghans who aided the American government during the 20-year war. U.S. officials also have evaded congressional investigations into the matter and misled lawmakers for months about the number of Americans trapped in the country once the Taliban cut off access to airports. The Biden administration has thus far rebuffed congressional efforts and those from outside groups to determine how it is vetting scores of Afghan refugees that have been brought into the United States since the withdrawal, including how these individuals are being screened for terrorism ties.

Read the rest at Washington Free Beacon

When ‘Fact Checking’ Fails, There’s Always Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

CASA Director Adam Turner’s op-ed at Townhall

The media likes to lecture Americans about the increasing threat to democracy posed by ‘conspiracy theories.’ The term, historically relegated to UFOs and the JFK assassination, has picked up steam in recent years as it seems to have obtained some political usefulness. Early examples include the Hillary Clinton private email server, spying on the Trump 2016 Presidential campaign, and the contention that Trump-Russia collusion was a product of the Clinton campaign’s opposition research. In each of these instances, dismissing allegations of wrongdoing as conspiracy theories proved more useful than trying to dispute what later turned out to be reality.

The response proved so effective for politicians and campaigns that now mainstream media and technology companies have adopted it as a key tactic to suppress politically damaging stories. But what happens when these conspiracy theories turn out to be true? It seems to be happening more often and consistently in one ideological direction.

Read the rest at Townhall

China Lurks Behind Most Crises Facing America

CASA Director Adam Turner’s op-ed at American Thinker

Since the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last August and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has felt like the world is on fire. But in the midst of these attention-grabbing crises, there is an even more pernicious threat facing the United States and the signs are all around us. Behind most major foreign policy issues lies China.

Take the Iran nuclear deal. Media reports indicate that Iran’s fleet of tankers has ferried at least $22 billion worth of illicit oil to the People’s Republic of China since 2021. This has provided the Iranian regime with a major source of revenue and raised questions about the Biden administration’s lax enforcement of sanctions.

Read the rest at American Thinker

Playing Politics With National Security is Never A Good Idea

CASA Director Adam Turner’s op-ed at Townhall

After more than two years it appears to still be too much to ask for consistency with federal COVID policies. While on the one hand, the Biden Administration continues to fight in court to protect its federal employee vaccine mandates and extends mask mandates on airplanes, on the other it is removing an order that helps keep illegal immigrants who may be infected from entering the country.

Even without this apparent contradiction, the Biden administration’s decision to rescind Title 42 on May 23 (officially known as the CDC’s Order Suspending the Right to Introduce Certain Persons from Countries Where a Quarantinable Communicable Disease Exists issued pursuant to Title 42 of the U.S. Code) is controversial, to say the least. This order allows the federal government to remove illegal immigrants who cross the border and could be infected with COVID-19. Under the measure, the majority of asylum seekers apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border have been expelled immediately back to Mexico or their country of origin, without the chance to file asylum claims.

Read the rest at Townhall

Biden courts enemies and punishes allies

CASA Director Adam Turner’s op-ed at American Thinker

Recently, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, a Shia Islamist terrorist group backed by Iran, struck targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates using drones and missiles. The attacks, on two of America’s erstwhile allies, prompted Saudi Arabia’s oil chief to say markets are going through a “jittery period” and that cross-border attacks have put to question “our ability to supply the world with the necessary energy requirements.” Oil prices, already at their highest in years, shot up further as a result of these strikes.

These incidents represent another piece of evidence pinning at least part of the blame for the rise in oil prices on President Joe Biden. To paraphrase the famous sticker — he did that!

Read the rest at American Thinker

A Nuclear Deal at Any Cost

CASA Director Adam Turner’s op-ed at Townhall

The recently-released Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Annual 2021 Report disclosed that ICE “significantly disrupted IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) and QF (Quds Force) funding through the sale of Iranian crude oil, resulting in the seizure of 2.6 million barrels of IRGC-QF fuel and crude oil, $64 million in U.S. currency, and the indictment of two Iranian nationals.” All of this is illegal because of U.S. sanctions on Iran, its oil, and the IRGC.

ICE is doing what it should – cracking down on the Iranian terror force known as the IRGC. (The QF is a branch of the IRGC that focuses on extraterritorial actions.) Among other things, the IRGC is responsible for the murder of over 600 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, sponsoring anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Western world terrorism through the creation and/or funding of other terror organizations like Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas, and taking Western hostages. Just recently, the IRGC was firing ballistic missiles at the U.S consulate in Erbil, Iraq, and its QF was reportedly plotting to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Read the rest at Townhall

Is Gain of Function Research a National Security Threat?

Exclusive to WND: Adam Turner poses questions about U.S.-funded labs in Ukraine, Wuhan, elsewhere

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed many challenges facing the West and particularly the U.S. One rather unexpected challenge is the revelation that U.S.-funded biological research facilities in Ukraine may be targets of Putin’s military strategy. Conspiracy theories aside, statements from a senior State Department official, Victoria Nuland, confirming that these facilities could pose a serious threat only elevate the need to look deeper into U.S.-funded gain of function (GOF) research.

Read the rest at WND