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Peter Thiel has worn many hats over the years: Silicon Valley founder, Trump megadonor, cryptocurrency booster, democracy skeptic.But there is yet another facet to Thiel, one that has remained secret until now: FBI informant.In the summer of 2021, Insider has learned, Thiel began providing information as a "confidential human source," or CHS, to Johnathan Buma, a Los Angeles-based FBI agent who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign-influence campaigns. Charles Johnson, a longtime associate of Thiel's and a notorious figure in the far-right movement that Thiel has subsidized for a decade, told Insider in a statement that he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.A source with knowledge of Thiel's relationship to the FBI, whose identity is known to Insider but who insisted on anonymity, corroborated Johnson's account, telling Insider that Johnson brokered a relationship between Thiel and Buma. Insider was able to confirm through an additional source that the FBI added Thiel to its formal roster of registered informants.Another source close to Thiel told Insider that while they could not confirm that Thiel was a CHS, Thiel did speak to Buma occasionally. The source said that any assistance Thiel might have provided to the FBI should be understood as part of Thiel's gradual distancing of himself from Trump and the broader MAGA movement, which has vigorously criticized the FBI and other federal law-enforcement agencies.<h2>Valuable information on a recurring basis</h2>The FBI maintains a vast network of informants to keep tabs on organized crime, terrorist threats, extremist groups, and other criminal and intelligence targets. These sources, according to the bureau's <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/confidential-human-source-policy-guide-1018pg/confidential-human-source-policy-guide-1018pg-part-01-of-01" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Confidential Human Source Policy Guide</a>, are more than casual tipsters. Confidential human sources enter "into a relationship with the FBI, and that relationship will forever affect the life of that individual," the guide says. "[They] will be either an 'FBI source' or a 'former FBI source' and, in turn, his or her conduct or misconduct will reflect upon the FBI." As such, the process for recruiting and maintaining such sources is highly regulated, requiring multiple layers of approval. Only people who are able to provide "valuable information … on a recurring basis" are granted CHS status, according to the policy.<div type="image" title="Mike Pence, Donald Trump, Peter Thiel" height="618" width="824" msid="104557326" hostid="261" sizebytes="61874"></div>As a CHS, Thiel was assigned a code name and an internal serial number to track his reporting. The information he passed on about foreign contacts and Silicon Valley intrigue was reviewed and "validated," or cross-checked against other sources, by his case agents and their colleagues.Thiel did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A Thiel spokesperson stopped responding to inquiries after being told that Insider was reporting on Thiel's relationship with the FBI. The FBI's national press office and Scott Horton, an attorney who represents Johnathan Buma, both declined to comment.<h2>No reporting on political ties</h2>Thiel is a citizen of Germany, the United States, and New Zealand; as of last year, he was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/15/technology/peter-thiel-malta-citizenship.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly in the process</a> of acquiring yet another passport, from Malta. In 2016, he donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign and endorsed him from the stage at the Republican National Convention. After Trump won, Thiel served on his transition team.Johnson, who said that he was also an informant for Buma, told Insider that he believes that Thiel's reporting to the FBI was largely limited to foreign contacts and attempts by foreign governments to penetrate Silicon Valley. Thiel has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/peter-thiel-reportedly-says-the-fbi-and-cia-should-investigate-google.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">publicly called on the FBI to investigate Google's ties to the Chinese government</a>.Thiel, Johnson said, was directed by the FBI not to report on his interactions with Donald Trump or other US political figures.Many of the politicians that Thiel has bankrolled — including Trump, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, and Blake Masters, a former Arizona senatorial candidate — have repeatedly attacked the bureau and its leadership in public. In 2022, Vance, whose campaign and affiliated PACs received a total of $15 million from Thiel, falsely claimed that the FBI had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jd-vance-falsely-claims-fbi-illegally-wiretapped-trump-ohio-rally-2022-4">illegally wiretapped Trump's phone</a>. Vance accused the bureau of "<a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance1/status/1624079332711825409" target="_blank" rel="noopener">harassing faithful Christians</a>" and pledged to block all of President Joe Biden's Department of Justice nominees in retaliation for the Trump prosecutions. (Most but not all of Thiel's donations occurred in early 2021, before the launch of Vance's campaign and the many false claims he made over the course of the race.)<div type="image" title="Senator J.D. Vance" height="683" width="910" msid="104557327" hostid="261" sizebytes="24078"></div>Masters, whose campaign received $20 million of support from Thiel, has endorsed the false conspiracy theory that undercover FBI agents fomented the January 6, 2021, insurrection and accused the FBI agents who executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago of "going after President Trump because they hate him." (As with Vance, most but not all of Thiel's donations to Masters occurred before Masters made his most inflammatory and baseless statements during the later stages of his campaign.)Thiel is<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/peter-thiel-republican-megadonor-wont-fund-candidates-2024-sources-2023-04-26/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> reportedly planning</a> to sit on the sidelines of the 2024 election.Neither Trump, Masters, nor Vance responded to requests for comment.<h2>Doing business with the FBI</h2>Some of Thiel's business interests rely on the FBI and other government agencies as potential revenue sources. He retains a 10% stake in Palantir, a data company that has sold more than a billion dollars of software and related services to the federal government, including the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the FBI. A $250 million contract with the US Army in September adds to the evidence that Palantir is essentially "a government service provider," a financial analyst <a href="https://www.investors.com/news/technology/pltr-stock-palantir-wins-250-million-army-ai-services-contract/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. Thiel<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/02/01/billionaire-facebook-investor-peter-thiel-secretly-funded-a-cyber-warfare-startup-that-hacked-whatsapp/?utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=forbes&amp;sh=7e49fa2d5600" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> also backed</a> Boldend, a spyware company marketing itself as an American competitor to the Israeli NSO Group, Forbes reported last year. NSO's products have been<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/world/middleeast/israel-pegasus-spyware.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> bought and tested</a> by the FBI. (Mithril Capital, another entity Thiel cofounded, was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-mithril-capital-fbi-investigation-venture-capital-financial-misconduct-2019-9">reportedly a subject of FBI interest in 2019</a>, although nothing appears to have come of the inquiry. Mithril's co-founder did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI did not respond to a question regarding the Mithril matter.)Johnson, who revealed Thiel's FBI ties, is a tech investor and far-right agitator with long-standing ties to both Thiel and to the network of MAGA political operators surrounding Trump. He claims to have had a hand in founding Clearview, a facial-recognition startup, and Traitwell, a genomics company. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2017/01/09/chuck-johnson-troll-trump-transition-team/?sh=5474e3a0265e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to Forbes</a>, he worked with Thiel to help vet and select senior staffers for the Trump transition in 2017.Johnson claimed to be an FBI informant in <a href="https://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2023cv02441/596057" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a lawsuit</a> he filed against Clearview's founders. He told Insider he recruited Thiel to serve as a CHS and introduced him to Buma, the FBI special agent who was Johnson's handler. <div type="image" title="Charles Johnson with Matt Gaetz and Ginger Gaetz" height="1200" width="1600" msid="104557329" hostid="261" sizebytes="142038"></div>It's unclear whether Thiel remains a CHS for the FBI. Johnson told Insider that he believes that the relationship has been severed but declined to offer details; Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was ordered to cease contact with all his sources in late 2022.Johnson's ties to Trump and Thiel are well-documented. But he is also a self-identified "troll" with a history of spreading false information and smearing his rivals. In this instance, his claims are corroborated by two additional sources, as well as supported in part by a third who says Thiel and Buma spoke occasionally.<h2>'Join up or get crushed'</h2>Buma came forward in August as a whistleblower, alleging that the FBI under Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-didnt-care-giuliani-compromised-by-kremlin-whistleblower-buma-2023-9">shut down his efforts</a> to determine whether Rudy Giuliani had been compromised by a Russian asset. Insider was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-whistleblower-senate-judiciary-russia-giuliani-leak-trump-allies-fuks-biden-2023-8">the first news organization to report on his claims</a>.In a statement prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Buma said that FBI headquarters had closed his most valuable human sources, including one code-named "Genius," who had reported on far-right figures involved with planning the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Johnson told Insider that "Genius" was his CHS code name. Insider was able to confirm Johnson's identity as "Genius" with two additional sources. The statement does not mention Thiel.<div type="image" title="Peter Thiel at the RNC" height="682" width="910" msid="104557330" hostid="261" sizebytes="28150"></div>In a written statement to Insider, Johnson said he was stepping forward as a CHS to support Buma's effort as a whistleblower to bring about what Buma believes to be necessary reforms in how the FBI handles informants. Johnson said that he was exposing Thiel's work as a CHS as retribution for what Johnson perceives to be bad decision-making by the Founders Fund, Thiel's venture-capital firm.Johnson also told Insider he felt betrayed that Thiel did not invest in Johnson's own startups, which he had expected Thiel to do in exchange for introducing him to Buma. Johnson said that he told Thiel that by offering the FBI a window into his contacts with foreign governments, he could demonstrate his loyalty to the United States. He described Thiel's motivation for working with Buma as a kind of hedge in an environment where extravagant wealth no longer affords the safety it used to. He pointed to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ProPublica's reporting on Thiel's income-tax avoidance</a> and the death of Jeffrey Epstein, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/business/jeffrey-epstein-peter-thiel.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">who had reportedly scheduled several meetings</a> with Thiel."I told him to join up or get crushed," Johnson said. The FBI's recruitment of Thiel as a CHS puts him among the bureau's most prominent assets, but he is not alone among right-wing figures who have collaborated with the bureau. Trump himself <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-flipping-history-cooperating-fbi-2018-8">offered to help</a> the FBI fight organized crime in Atlantic City in the early 1980s. Truth Social, the Trump-owned social-media company, has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/10/trumps-truth-social-tipped-fbi-to-man-killed-during-arrest-attempt-for-biden-threats.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">quietly tipped the FBI off</a> to users who threaten violence, even as it seeks to cash in on their anger. At least two of the rioters who showed up to storm the Capitol on January 6 were also FBI informants, as was Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other felonies stemming from the Capitol breach. Tarrio <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-proudboys-leader-exclusive/exclusive-proud-boys-leader-was-prolific-informer-for-law-enforcement-idUSKBN29W1PE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly served</a> as a source for federal and local law enforcement, assisting with the prosecution of more than a dozen people.Mattathias Schwartz is chief national security correspondent at Insider. He can be reached at <a href="mailto:schwartz79@protonmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">schwartz79@protonmail.com</a>.

Exclusive: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel was an FBI informant

It was the perfect hunting ground for a Kremlin operative looking to get his hooks into Peter Thiel, one of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley: an extravagant birthday party with hundreds of guests, held at Schloss Neuwaldegg, a 17th-century palace in the suburbs of Vienna. Flawless June weather, models taking selfies beside statues of Greek gods, a troupe of acrobats, Champagne. Tech executives mingled with politicians and artists before sitting down to dinner in a flower-bedecked banquet hall. The guest of honor was Christian Angermayer, a gregarious German entrepreneur who had forged relationships with politicians across the world. The party, held on June 23, 2018, commemorated his 40th birthday.Thiel was already friendly with Angermayer. Over the next few years he would pour millions into Angermayer-backed ventures as a coinvestor. And despite Thiel's eccentric, far-right politics, his own companies were indispensable to the US national security establishment. He had founded Palantir, an analytics company used by the Pentagon and the CIA. He was on the board at Facebook (now Meta) and had been an early investor in prominent US defense startups including SpaceX and Anduril — access that could give the Kremlin a powerful vantage into US security networks and Silicon Valley. As the US government was coming to depend on private companies for critical top-secret technologies, Thiel was one of the biggest beneficiaries. That fact was likely on the mind of another one of Angermayer's guests, a tall, well-coiffed diplomat named Daniil Bisslinger, who worked in Moscow at the Kremlin's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Bisslinger had previously been an attaché working at the Russian Embassy in Berlin and sometimes served as <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/documents-link-afd-parliamentarian-to-moscow-a-1261509.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vladimir Putin's interpreter</a>.It was Angermayer who introduced Bisslinger to Thiel at the party, Thiel would later tell the FBI. After some small talk, Bisslinger made a pitch to Thiel: Thiel should travel to Russia to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. (Angermayer himself had attended the forum a few years back, in 2012.) If Thiel chose to attend, Bisslinger said, Bisslinger would arrange for him to meet privately with Putin. Angermayer's attorneys denied that he was present for this portion of the conversation; later, Angermayer's spokesperson said he couldn't recall having introduced the two men.<div type="image" title="Daniil Bisslinger" height="682" width="910" msid="105128837" hostid="261"></div>Bisslinger's invitation to Thiel was casual, delivered in the course of a brief cocktail-party conversation. It might not have seemed like much to Angermayer's other party guests — just three well-dressed men, as Thiel recalled in his conversations with the FBI, amid a crowd of hundreds, chatting for a few minutes. One of them happened to be a billionaire; one of them happened to work for the Russian president.But from a counterintelligence perspective, this was a big moment."If these facts are accurate, they would be of potentially significant counterintelligence interest," Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director, told Insider. "Anytime a Russian official is inviting someone to meet with Vladimir Putin, that has potential significance."Thiel demurred. Bisslinger gave Thiel a business card that identified him as an employee of the Kremlin's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Thiel did not follow up. Later, Thiel would tell the FBI that he didn't think Bisslinger was bluffing; he believed Bisslinger could indeed deliver a meeting with Putin. But the conversation at the palace in Vienna was memorable enough for Bisslinger to reach out again to Thiel more than three years later, in January 2022. He approached Thiel's office with the same invitation — he could come to the St. Petersburg conference that summer and meet with Putin. By then, Thiel, like the rest of the world, had seen the signs that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. He wondered if Bisslinger's invitation was some kind of psy-op, a plot to make it appear as though the invasion wasn't going to happen, that everything was normal. Again, he did not respond.What Bisslinger didn't know is that something had changed between the 2018 birthday party and the 2022 follow-up. Thiel had signed up to be a confidential human source — an informant, with the official code name "Philosopher," and an identification number — for the FBI. Thiel reported Bisslinger's two approaches to his bureau handlers, along with the names of two others: a German and a Russian. All three men, Thiel told the FBI, had tried to work their way into his circle in order to push the Kremlin's interests. Thiel's account of Bisslinger's invitations was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/peter-thiel-2024-election-politics-investing-life-views/675946/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first reported</a> by the Atlantic. Insider is first to report that the initial meeting between Thiel and Bisslinger occurred at Angermayer's birthday party, and Thiel's claim that Angermayer himself made the introduction.A few months later, the US intelligence community circulated a secret intelligence memo relaying Bisslinger's claim that he could arrange meetings with Putin. It included Bisslinger's phone number and email, as given on Bisslinger's business card.Last month, Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10">exclusively reported</a> that Thiel was an FBI informant. He was recruited by another informant — Charles Johnson — and had regular meetings with Johnson's handler, an FBI special agent named Johnathan Buma. This account of what Thiel told the FBI about Angermayer and Bisslinger, a joint investigation by Insider and Welt, is based on the same three sources who provided that previous account. (These sources are the longtime Thiel associate Johnson plus two additional sources with knowledge of what Thiel reported to the FBI.) Insider and Welt also confirmed with a fourth source the details of the 2018 introduction by Angermayer, the 2018 conversation with Bisslinger, and the 2022 follow-up by Bisslinger.In a letter to Insider, two attorneys representing Angermayer acknowledged that Thiel had indeed met Bisslinger at Angermayer's birthday party. Bisslinger, they wrote, "worked in Berlin in the Russian embassy and was pre-war a regular part of Berlin diplomatic circles.""Even if Mr. Angermayer did introduce Mr. Thiel and Mr. Bisslinger," the lawyers wrote in another letter, "Mr. Angermayer is not—and cannot be—responsible for whatever Mr. Bisslinger and Mr. Thiel may or may not have discussed."Later, a spokesperson for Angermayer wrote that Angermayer is "very confident that he did not make any such introduction," adding, "And, either way, Christian is not privy to anything that Mr. Thiel and Mr. Bisslinger may (or may not) have discussed."Insider and Welt asked Angermayer how he knew Bisslinger, why he invited him to his 40th birthday party, and why (as Thiel recalls) he introduced Bisslinger to Thiel. Neither Angermayer nor his representatives gave a direct response to these questions. "More than 1,200 people were invited to the party and more than 500 attended," one of the representatives wrote. "It was a very broad invite list."Thiel, a lawyer representing Johnathan Buma, and the FBI's national press office all declined to comment. Bisslinger and the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov did not respond to requests for comment. Angermayer declined to respond directly.<div type="image" title="Billionaire entrepreneur venture capitalist Peter Thiel" height="4000" width="5333" msid="105128839" hostid="261"></div>One can understand why Putin might have thought Thiel would be interested in meeting. The two men had a few things in common. Both had cultivated ties to conservative politicians in central Europe. <a href="https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Both favored</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/07/15/putins-sovereign-democracy/52ce51c4-fd66-478f-af04-768ac6156f80/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CEO-style government</a> where power is concentrated in the hands of wise decision-makers who surf the fickle currents of democratic whim. And both men worked to make Donald Trump the 45th president — Thiel through his political donations and Putin through a state-backed hack-and-leak operation. The attempt to court fits in with two broader efforts.First, Putin was using Germany, historically the NATO power with the least hostility toward Russia, as an outpost for winning over hearts and minds elsewhere. Putin was in the process of completing a second Nord Stream pipeline that would directly supply Germany with cheap Russian natural gas, bypassing Ukraine. Bisslinger's role in this effort was much more than a socialite who attended diplomatic events. An <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/documents-link-afd-parliamentarian-to-moscow-a-1261509.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigation by Der Spiegel</a>, drawing on thousands of Bisslinger's emails, detailed how Bisslinger cultivated pro-Russia sentiment both in public and in private. Some of his greatest successes were members of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. Der Spiegel called those politicians "Putin's pawns."Second, Putin perceived correctly that the same carrot-and-stick techniques he'd used to such political advantage on Russia's oligarchs could be deployed on a global scale to push Russia's interests with Western billionaires. He had some success with Elon Musk, who has <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly spoken</a> about phone calls with the Russian leader. Musk told his biographer about conversations with Russian diplomats that led him to deprive Ukrainian forces of Starlink internet access along the coast of occupied Crimea. That decision, in turn, scuttled a planned <a href="https://apnews.com/article/spacex-ukraine-starlink-russia-air-force-fde93d9a69d7dbd1326022ecfdbc53c2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ukrainian naval attack</a> on Russian forces at Sevastopol.If Putin had succeeded in forging a meaningful relationship with Thiel — and there is no evidence to suggest he succeeded — the biggest intelligence prize for Russia would have been Thiel's influence at Palantir, where he's served as chairman of the board since 2003. The CIA, the NSA, and the FBI have all reportedly used its software. Palantir recently won a $250 million contract to develop artificial intelligence for the Pentagon; another contract, worth as much as $463 million, is for battlefield-ready software to be used by US Special Operations Command. A proposed partnership between Palantir and Britain's National Health Service brings it closer to the NHS-supported UK Biobank, one of the world's largest troves of genetic data; however, a UK Biobank representative said only vetted researchers can get access to their data.But even just a handshake with Thiel could have benefited Putin. "This could be another case of 'Look at me, I'm czar of Russia. I can reach anyone, anywhere,'" said an experienced Washington insider with connections to decision-makers in national security and international finance. "Plus, there's the external optics. A Putin-Thiel meeting would obviously cause an enormous frisson in Western intelligence circles."<div type="image" title="Christian Angermayer" height="1124" width="1499" msid="105128842" hostid="261"></div>Angermayer had long been known as a masterful networker, someone who knew how to fill a room with big names. He's shared a stage with Uma Thurman and rubbed shoulders with Robbie Williams and Queen Latifah. He's repeatedly invested in emerging and even speculative sectors — cryptocurrency, psychedelics, antiaging tech. He's long been an advisor to Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda. "<a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?amazonTrackingID=biauto-64666-20&amp;h=74835b860ad8964f223d2c01372b8630bf6777d2eae2ae0b6ac2c8e66c344312&amp;postID=654d3c812ef354b8a3182edf&amp;postSlug=fbi-peter-thiel-vladimir-putin-russia-christian-angermayer-daniil-bisslinger-2023-11&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FMoney-Men-Startup-Billion-Dollar-ebook%2Fdp%2FB09QT3Y69V" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Money Men</a>" by Dan McCrum, a book about the Wirecard scandal, calls Angermayer "a business wunderkind with a mixed record and a very successful knack for attaching himself to voguey trends." A program for a private forum that Angermayer organized in 2020 on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference promised attendees face time with John Kerry, the heads of several Eastern European and Baltic countries, and the foreign ministers of Belarus and Iran. Richard Grenell, the former US intel chief who was then serving under Trump as US ambassador to Germany, spoke at Angermayer's private forum. A Twitter account run by the State Department posted a picture of his presentation, with Grenell standing in front of the logo of Apeiron Investment Group, Angermayer's Malta-domiciled family office. (Neither Grenell nor spokespeople for Kerry responded to requests for comment.) Thiel was among the shiniest trophies in Angermayer's contact list. The two men had known each other for years. In February 2017, Angermayer invited business partners to a roundtable talk with Thiel in Munich. The invitation referred to Thiel as his "close friend." But Angermayer's personal fortune was far smaller than Thiel's, and he'd never hit a home run anywhere near the scale of PayPal or Facebook. In 2021, Angermayer helped take two companies public on Nasdaq. The first, Sensei Biotherapeutics, was supposed to help with cancer therapies. The second, Atai Life Sciences, intends to make psychedelic drugs, with Angermayer as founder and chairman. Today, both companies are trading for a fraction of their initial value.Angermayer has shown some sympathy for Trump but otherwise expressed his view that he felt "very comfortable in the center." The German investor had shown at least some interest in Russian politics as well. In 2012, one of his companies prepared a trip for business partners and friends to Germany, China, and Russia, where a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia's prime minister, was planned, according to a draft program. The trip never wound up happening. (Angermayer "does not know Medvedev, and has never communicated with Medvedev in any way," his spokesperson wrote.) After Trump won the presidential election in November 2016, Angermayer sent an analysis to business partners and friends in which he wrote: "Better relations with Russia and less intervention globally will definitely make the world a more peaceful place." Thiel seems to have felt the same way at the time, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/fashion/peter-thiel-donald-trump-silicon-valley-technology-gawker.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asking Maureen Dowd</a> of The New York Times if the West would be better off with Russia in its corner, or in China's. "There are these really bad dictators in the Middle East, and we got rid of them and in many cases there's even worse chaos," he said.The host of Angermayer's birthday party and owner of the palace in Vienna was the Austrian investor Alexander Schütz, who joined the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank in 2017 when Chinese company HNA, which had business ties with him, became a major shareholder in the bank. In 2021 he stepped down from the board. His wife, Eva Schütz, is the majority owner of a media outlet called Exxpress. It has sometimes been criticized as being Russia-friendly. In an interview with the Russian ambassador to Austria in July 2022, Exxpress itself used the Kremlin propaganda phrase "special operation" to describe Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Schütz declined to comment about the meeting between Thiel and Bisslinger.Also among the guests at the party on June 23, 2018, was — according to his calendar and to reports — Heinz-Christian Strache. At the time, he was the Austrian vice chancellor and chairman of the right-wing party FPÖ, known for its Russia-friendly views. Yet another invitee was Markus Braun, then the CEO of the German company Wirecard, which collapsed in 2020 — Germany's biggest fraud scandal in years. Jan Marsalek, a former Wirecard board member, is now on Interpol's most-wanted list and believed to be hiding in Russia. British authorities alleged that he had collaborated with five people suspected of being Russian spies. Marsalek was also an acquaintance of Angermayer and took part in the roundtable talks he organized with Grenell and other leaders in Munich in February 2020. The previous year, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3c561ccf-2e95-46f7-ac43-a8e04db21dfe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Angermayer received</a> a 13 million euro payout, about $14 million, for arranging for an infusion of $1.1 billion from SoftBank into Wirecard. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.Angermayer's view of Russia appears to have changed after Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He <a href="https://twitter.com/C_Angermayer/status/1497642431201824772" target="_blank" rel="noopener">encouraged</a> his Twitter followers to "send our love to Ukraine and a big f..k you to Putin" and <a href="https://twitter.com/C_Angermayer/status/1496114513577394192" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called the Russian leader</a> a "sad example" of how COVID-19-related isolation can lead to deteriorating mental health.Caroline Haskins, Katherine Long, and Jack Newsham contributed reporting.Mattathias Schwartz is chief national security correspondent at Insider. He can be reached at schwartz79@protonmail.com.Hans-Martin Tillack is chief reporter on the investigative team of Welt and Welt am Sonntag. He can be reached a hmtillack@protonmail.com

Billionaire FBI informant Peter Thiel dished about two Kremlin invites to private Putin meetings

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Secretary Haaland announced that the <keyword id="12124579" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="bureau-of-land-management" source="Orion">Bureau of Land Management</keyword> headquarters will move back to DC.</li><li>The <keyword id="11918419" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="colorado" source="Orion">Colorado</keyword> office will remain open and become the agency's Western headquarters.</li><li>The agency was moved to Colorado by the <keyword id="11940509" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="trump-administration" source="Orion">Trump administration</keyword> in a widely-criticized move.</li></ul>Interior secretary <keyword id="12124581" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="deb-haaland" source="Orion">Deb Haaland</keyword> on Friday announced that the national headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will move back to Washington, DC, after it was relocated to Colorado, a reversal of a move by former President Donald Trump's administration to place the public lands agency in the critical Western region.The bureau, which oversees nearly one-fifth of public lands in the US and has more than 7,000 employees, is recalibrating after losing nearly 300 employees to retirement or resignation after its headquarters was shifted to Grand Junction in 2019.Haaland, a former New Mexico congresswoman and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/senate-confirms-deb-haaland-interior-secretary-first-native-american-2021-3">the first Native American Cabinet secretary</a>, said that the Colorado office <a href="https://www.blm.gov/press-release/secretary-haaland-outlines-next-steps-rebuild-bureau-land-management">would be overhauled</a> to become the agency's Western headquarters."The Bureau of Land Management is critical to the nation's efforts to address the climate crisis, expand public access to our public lands, and preserve our nation's shared outdoor heritage. It is imperative that the bureau have the appropriate structure and resources to serve the American public," she said. "There's no doubt that the BLM should have a leadership presence in Washington, DC - like all the other land management agencies - to ensure that it has access to the policy-, budget-, and decision-making levers to best carry out its mission."The Colorado office will expand and strengthen Western perspectives in its overall mission, especially as it relates to clean energy, conservation, and scientific missions.According to data released by the Biden administration, about 87 percent of BLM staffers departed the agency when the Trump administration put in motion the move to the Centennial State.Critics of the previous administration's decision allege that the relocation <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2019/08/13/at-the-table-or-on-the-menu-critics-of-blm-move-to-colorado-say-its-designed-to-weaken-the-agency/">was intended to push out longtime employees</a> and stifle the agency.In her comments, Haaland acknowledged that the earlier move created untenable situations for agency employees."The past several years have been incredibly disruptive to the organization, to our public servants, and to their families," she said. "As we move forward, my priority is to revitalize and rebuild the BLM so that it can meet the pressing challenges of our time, and to look out for our employees' well-being."She added: "I look forward to continuing to work with Congress, Tribes, elected officials and the many stakeholders who care about the stewardship of our shared public lands and healthy communities."<keyword id="12124583" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ryan-zinke" source="Orion">Ryan Zinke</keyword>, a former Montana congressman and Trump's first interior secretary, <a href="https://www.cpr.org/2018/07/19/zinkes-interior-dept-is-moving-some-operations-west/">set the stage</a> for the move to Colorado, emphasizing during his tenure that officials should be closer to the vast public lands that fall under the agency's purview. The relocation was finalized under David Bernhardt, who succeeded Zinke in 2019.While many progressives applauded the move back to the nation's Capitol, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado lamented the decision while remaining optimistic about the beefed up Western presence."While I am disappointed that the national headquarters will be in Washington, I believe establishing and growing a permanent BLM Western Headquarters in Grand Junction should be a very positive development," <a href="https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?id=A07CDAFA-9611-4511-92AE-4C72713D2719">he said in a statement</a>. "In the coming months, I will hold the Administration accountable to ensure that the BLM Western Headquarters is permanent, fully staffed, and informed by the voices of the Rocky Mountain West - after the last administration failed to deliver on that promise."However, GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming blasted the decision."The Biden administration's answer for everything is to double the size of government," he said. "The Bureau of Land Management doesn't need two headquarters. The single headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management belongs in the West, closer to the resources it manages and the people it serves."

US Bureau of Land Management is returning to Washington, DC, reversing a Trump administration decision

Barely a week after changing its stance over the national encryption policy, the Indian government does it again, this time on the issue of the appointment of <keyword id="133709" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="brand-ambassadors">brand ambassadors</keyword> for <keyword id="1929810" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Digital-India">Digital India</keyword>. 
 <keyword id="155537" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ankit-Fadia">Ankit Fadia</keyword>, who calls himself an ethical hacker claimed on Monday that he was issued a certificate to become an ambassador for Digital India a couple of months ago by the <keyword id="2144434" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Department-of-Information-and-Technology">Department of Information and Technology</keyword>. 
 However, after a controversy erupted on social media on Fadia’s qualifications which are allegedly doubted, the ministry of communications and IT issued a statement on the <keyword id="107241" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Press-Information-Bureau">Press Information Bureau</keyword> on Tuesday morning saying that no brand ambassadors have been appointed for the time-being. 
 
"There were certain news reports that there is move to appoint a brand ambassador for Digital India programme of the government. This is to clarify that there has been no such move to appoint a brand ambassador as reported," said the statement. 
 
In a matter of few hours, this statement was revoked. The reason given was that the statement was withdrawn because there was no clarity on the official position and it could so happen that some ambassadors might have been appointed. 
 
Finally, on Tuesday evening the government cleared the air and confirmed that it had appointed four brand ambassadors for its Digital India campaign, which kick-started on July 1. 
 
A release issued by the department of telecom said, " Satwat Jagwani, All India IIT-JEE —Advanced Topper -2015, Krati Tiwari, All India IIT-JEE—Advanced Girl Topper -2015, Ankit Fadia, Author &amp; Ethical Hacker and Pranav Mistry, Samsung USA (Computer Scientist and author of 6th Sense)," were the four ambassadors appointed for one year. 
 
It further stated that the services of these Brand Ambassadors will be used, as and when required for generating mass awareness for the programme. 
 
 Image credit: Indiatimes

Digital India: Governemnt confirms Ankit Fadia's appointment as brand ambassador after denial

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The three major credit bureaus will start collecting data on "buy now, pay later" loans. </li><li><keyword id="13412939" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="experian" source="Orion">Experian</keyword> will be the only one to count these loans toward — or against — credit scores for now. </li></ul>Accepting the enticing "buy now, pay later" offer you see while shopping online could start counting toward — or against — your credit score.That's because the three major US credit bureaus, <keyword id="12107777" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="transunion" source="Orion">TransUnion</keyword>, <keyword id="13412940" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="equifax" source="Orion">Equifax</keyword>, and Experian, will be collecting data on these purchases, according to their press releases. If you make payments on time, it could boost your credit score; if not, it could hurt it, which could in turn affect your ability to obtain a mortgage, credit card, or other loan. <keyword id="9522245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="bnpl" source="Orion">BNPL</keyword> loans such as those offered by Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, and PayPal's "Pay 4" option have been growing increasingly popular over the past few years, <a href="https://themotleyfool.partnercentric.com/?campaign=78888&amp;pc_source=TheMotleyFool_Awin&amp;ued=https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/buy-now-pay-later-statistics/?awc=12195_1647964660_f6d5cfa98770dc94848fe3a78cd51101&amp;utm_source=aw&amp;utm_campaign=78888">especially</a> among Gen Z buyers. The services essentially do what they say, which is offer buyers short-term, often interest-free loans to pay for purchases. Shoppers sign up for a scheduled repayment plan and pay back the debt in installments. The rise of BNPL <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/buy-now-pay-later-raise-government-concerns-debt-credit-risk-2022-1">led to</a> a pandemic-era spending and debt boom, prompting the the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-opens-inquiry-into-buy-now-pay-later-credit/">open</a> an inquiry into BNPL firms in December, citing concerns around debt growth, consumer protection laws, and data harvesting.The three bureaus are taking different approaches when it comes to incorporating the relatively new shopping phenomenon into the financial profiles of credit users. Equifax will be the only one of the three where a BNPL provider can choose to include BNPL loans in the calculation of your core credit score. TransUnion and Equifax will start collecting information about an individual's outstanding BNPL loans, but won't factor it into a credit report. Both TransUnion and Equifax, however, allowed for the possibility that they might do so in the future. "To protect consumer credit scores from immediate negative impact, detailed information related to each BNPL transaction will be stored separately from Experian's core <keyword id="13440764" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="credit-bureau" source="Orion">credit bureau</keyword> data," Experian <a href="https://www.experianplc.com/media/latest-news/2022/experian-s-industry-first-buy-now-pay-later-bureau-will-protect-consumer-credit-scores-and-provide-real-time-insights-to-drive-more-inclusive-and-responsible-lending">said</a> in a press release. <h2>Experts are cautious about buy now, pay later and its impact on credit scores</h2>TransUnion does plan to use BNPL loans to calculate consumers' credit scores in the future, but it will likely take credit bureaus and reporting models a few years to adjust, Liz Pagel, Senior Vice President at TransUnion, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/select/bnpl-loans-to-be-reported-on-credit-reports/">told</a> CNBC last week, and Experian's Chief Product Officer, Greg Wright, <a href="https://www.lendacademy.com/podcast-342-greg-wright-of-experian/?intcmp=insightsblog-btn-022322-bnpl-podcast">said</a> the same thing. For now, BNPL information will be separate from credit information in those two bureaus so that it doesn't negatively impact credit scores — but they won't be improving them either. Other than storing the data, Experian and TransUnion have not said what else they plan to do with it. Equifax, in contrast, will run bi-weekly reporting on BNPL loans. The bureau will account for BNPL lines of credit, and give the firms that generate scores the opportunity to view and decide how to incorporate the BNPL data, Equifax <a href="https://investor.equifax.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1204/equifax-first-to-formalize-inclusion-of-buy-now-pay">said</a> in a press release. Susan Sterne, president and chief economist at Economic Analysis Associates, told Insider's Ben Winck in January that the credit bureaus should have investigated the impact of BNPL sooner, due to the risk of a possible credit bubble. Credit bubbles describe a surge in forms of credit, such as loans. "The three big agencies that follow consumer debt have yet to really get their hands around this as it's a relatively new concept," Sterne said. "They've been diligent post-financial crisis, but I guess nothing has changed. They should have been more aware of this."

Buy now, pay later loans like Affirm and Klarna will soon count toward your credit score

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12291602" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="gsa" source="Orion">GSA</keyword> officials just released records about post-presidency staffers for Trump and Pence.</li><li>The staffers earned taxpayer-funded paychecks after <keyword id="11914386" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="donald-trump" source="Orion">Donald Trump</keyword> and <keyword id="12069606" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mike-pence" source="Orion">Mike Pence</keyword> left office.</li></ul>In response to a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/foia-insider-biden-trump-pence-gsa-lawsuit-staffing-records-2021-10">Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Insider</a>, the <keyword id="12027316" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="general-services-administration" source="Orion">General Services Administration</keyword> has identified three more former White House aides who earned taxpayer-funded paychecks while working for former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence in the months after they left office.The agency identified the post-White House transition-team staff members as the Trump aides Margo Martin and Madison Porter and the Pence aide Hannah MacInnis.Porter served as the communications director for former first lady Melania Trump, according to the agency's records, and Martin worked as a press assistant. MacInnis served as Pence's digital director and has since founded her own design-consulting firm.<div type="image" title="FOIA documents" height="1264" width="2554" msid="90600157" hostid="261"></div><div type="image" title="FOIA documents" height="976" width="2466" msid="90600160" hostid="261"></div>The documents help shed light on how Trump staffed his government-funded transition office and directed funds in the six months after President Joe Biden's inauguration, when Trump faced his second impeachment trial and continued to deny he lost the 2020 presidential election.According to records <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-office-stephen-miller-taxpayer-money-2021-5">previously</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-pence-staff-getting-federal-paychecks-2021-7">obtained</a> by Insider, the Trump and Pence transition offices spent federal funds on everything from stationery engraved with Trump's initials to printer toner and a plastic floor mat for use under the former president's desk chair.The General Services Administration estimated that Trump's post-presidential staff would receive about $1.3 million in federal salary and benefits between January 20, 2021, and July 21, when the formal transition period ended, according to the records.Since leaving the White House in January 2021, Trump has kept a circle of close aides and advisors on his payroll through a nongovernmental entity — his <keyword id="11920879" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="save-america" source="Orion">Save America</keyword> political action committee.But some Trump aides collected a taxpayer-funded government salary during the first six months after the Trump administration concluded, according to records Insider obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-office-stephen-miller-taxpayer-money-2021-5">reported last year</a> that at least 17 former White House advisors, including <keyword id="11914385" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="stephen-miller" source="Orion">Stephen Miller</keyword> and <keyword id="12284197" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="dan-scavino" source="Orion">Dan Scavino</keyword>, received a federal salary and benefits working for Trump's post-presidential transition office.At the time, the General Services Administration redacted the names of five members of Trump's transition team, concealing their identities in the batch of documents provided to Insider.Insider alleges in its <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.236379/gov.uscourts.dcd.236379.1.0.pdf">lawsuit</a> that the agency is incorrect and illegally withholding the requested information."Requested records are not exempt under FOIA," Insider said in the complaint. "According to the US Department of Justice's FOIA Guide, 'civilian federal employees who are not involved in law enforcement or sensitive occupations generally have no expectation of privacy regarding their names, titles, grades, salaries, and duty stations as employees."The agency said its refusal to identify certain Trump and Pence staffers was based on the belief that "on balance, each staffer's privacy interest in non-disclosure outweighed the public's interest in disclosure."But in a letter to Insider on March 29, it said that it was "voluntarily releasing" the names of Porter, Martin, and MacInnis "because release of this information is appropriate at this time."This decision came two weeks after Attorney General Merrick Garland issued <a href="https://www.justice.gov/ag/page/file/1483516/download">new Freedom of Information Act guidelines</a> that "strengthen the federal government's commitment to the fair and effective administration of FOIA," though it's unclear whether Garland's guidelines prompted the General Services Administration's reversal.The agency has still not released the names of several other Trump and Pence post-presidential-transition-office staffers."We will continue to pursue this matter in federal court until the GSA releases all the names because the public has a right to know who it paid to work for Donald Trump and Mike Pence after they left office," Dave Levinthal, Insider's deputy Washington Bureau chief, said.<h2><div type="image" title="Stephen Miller walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington in 2020." height="1332" width="1776" msid="90600162" hostid="261"></div></h2><h2>'Winding up the affairs'</h2>Trump <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1341/take-no-salary/">rejected</a> his <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/trump-presidential-salary/507965/">presidential paycheck</a> and donated his $400,000 annual salary each year he was in office.He could have similarly turned away the taxpayer money to which he was entitled under the Presidential Transition Act, a federal law that gives outgoing presidents and vice presidents government funding and facilities "<a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46602">for use in connection with winding up the affairs of his office</a>."But Trump took the money and employed 10 transition aides in Palm Beach, Florida, and another seven in Arlington, Virginia. Martin and Porter — the transition aides newly identified in the General Services Administration records — received annualized salaries of $90,000 and $100,000, respectively, for their work in Trump's post-presidential transition office. For the six-month period between January 2021 and July, Martin and Porter were expected to make $60,583 and $67,315 in salary and benefits, respectively, according to the agency's documents.MacInnis was expected to make $40,389 in salary and benefits, according to the records.Martin, Porter, and MacInnis did not respond to requests for comment. A Trump spokesperson also did not respond to a request for comment. In late July, shortly after the end of the transition period, Martin and Porter began to receive regular paychecks from Trump's Save America PAC, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission.According to the General Services Administration records, Scavino was the highest-paid member of Trump's transition staff, with an annualized salary of $172,500. The agency estimated Scavino, who served as the deputy White House chief of staff, would receive $116,118 in salary and benefits between January 2021 and July.Miller was projected to receive $107,704 in federal salary and benefits, with an annualized salary of $160,000.Like Martin and Porter, Miller and Scavino were added to the Save America PAC payroll following Trump's transition period. Both have remained loyal to Trump and resisted investigations into his effort to overturn the 2020 election. In March, Miller sued the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to block the panel's subpoena for his phone records.Scavino has refused to cooperate with the committee's investigation. In a vote earlier this week, the House committee voted to recommend that the Justice Department charge Scavino with criminal contempt of Congress.The full House is expected to vote <a href="https://rules.house.gov/bill/117/h-res-PIH-contempt-navarro-scavino">next week</a> on that recommendation.

More secret Trump and Pence staffing records revealed following Insider's federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit

In order to play an active role in the development of the <keyword id="842851" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="SAARC-region">SAARC region</keyword>, <keyword id="6354814" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="prime-minister-Narendra-Modi">Prime Minister Narendra Modi</keyword> today (June 30) asked <keyword id="116095" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Indian-Space-Research-Organisation">Indian Space Research Organisation</keyword> (<keyword id="6358064" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="ISRO">ISRO</keyword>) to develop a <keyword id="6358065" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Satellite">satellite</keyword> which can be dedicated as a 'gift' to the neighbours. 
 In his address after witnessing the successful launch of five foreign satellites from <keyword id="6355143" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Sriharikota">Sriharikota</keyword> on board ISRO's <keyword id="2386112" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="PSLV-C-23-rocket">PSLV C-23 rocket</keyword>, he said, "Today I ask you, the space community, to take up the challenge of developing a SAARC satellite that we can dedicate to our neighbourhood as a gift from India." 
 The <keyword id="71" type="POSITION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Prime-Minister">prime minister</keyword> asked the scientists at the Indian space agency to work on a satellite that would provide full range of applications and services to all of India's neighbours. "Such a satellite will be helpful in SAARC nations' fight against poverty and illiteracy, the challenge to progress in scientific field, and will open up avenues to provide opportunities to the youth of SAARC countries," he said from ISRO's Mission Control Room. 
 <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="40" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> asserted that the 'dream' for such a satellite will be useful for the development of all SAARC nations with India playing a key role in that. Modi’s speech was laced with anecdotes and delivered in a mix of English and Hindi. [Image: <keyword id="107241" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="40" keywordseo="Press-Information-Bureau">Press Information Bureau</keyword> (PIB)]

Narendra Modi Asks ISRO To Develop Satellite For SAARC Nations

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6355882" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="israel">Israel</keyword> on Saturday <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gaza-israeli-war-planes-bomb-associated-press-al-jazeera-offices-2021-5">destroyed a Gaza building</a> housing media outlets including the <keyword id="176712" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Associated-Press">Associated Press</keyword>.</li><li>Israel said the building also contained Hamas activity, which the AP has denied.</li><li>But a former AP editor suggested the militant group did have offices in the building.</li></ul>A former Associated Press editor has suggested that the militant group Hamas did indeed have offices inside a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gaza-israeli-war-planes-bomb-associated-press-al-jazeera-offices-2021-5">Gaza building that Israel destroyed over the weekend</a>.Israel launched an airstrike on al-Jalaa tower, a structure in <keyword id="39746" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Gaza">Gaza</keyword> City that housed media outlets including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, on Saturday.The <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1393797067273867266">Israel Defense Forces said</a> the building also contained military-intelligence assets for Hamas, including "intel for attacks against Israel." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called the building a "<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-gaza-airstrikes-face-the-nation/">perfectly legitimate target</a>," citing the same reason.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-contradicts-israel-says-no-indication-hamas-used-gaza-building-2021-5">The AP pushed back on Israel's claims</a>, saying there was "no indication Hamas was in the building."But Matti Friedman, who worked as a reporter and editor at the AP's Jerusalem bureau from 2006 to 2011, contradicted his former employer on Sunday, tweeting: "A conversation with a friend who is intimately familiar with military decision-making right now suggests there were indeed Hamas offices there."Insider has contacted the Associated Press and Friedman for comment.<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/">In a 2014 essay for The Atlantic</a>, Friedman had suggested that AP journalists frequently chose not to report on rocket attacks launched by Hamas near their offices.He said on Sunday that he didn't write in the 2014 essay "that Hamas operated out of the same building, and don't know if that's true," before reporting on his military source's suggestion that Hamas did have offices there.<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-showed-us-smoking-gun-on-hamas-in-ap-office-tower-officials-say-668303">The Jerusalem Post on Sunday</a> cited Israeli officials as saying that they had shared with the US "the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building" and that they believed the Americans "found that explanation satisfactory."Netanyahu later confirmed that statement in an <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-gaza-airstrikes-face-the-nation/">interview with CBS News</a>.Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that he had asked Israel for evidence for its claim about Hamas operations in the building, but that he <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-conflict-blinken-4aba5c0a3d4aeb07934b1993b62cc3fc">personally had "not seen any information provided."</a>The AP's top editor has also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-editor-wants-probe-into-airstrike-that-destroyed-its-offices-2021-5">called for an independent investigation into the airstrike</a>, and Reporters Without Borders has asked for an investigation into whether it was a war crime. The Israeli military gave the AP and other outlets an hour to evacuate the building before the airstrike.

A former Associated Press editor suggested that Hamas did have offices in the agency's Gaza City building, which Israel destroyed over the weekend

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Associated PressPresident Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a press conference on the third and final day of the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France Monday, Aug. 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>The White House blasted former FBI director James Comey as a "proven liar and leaker" after the Justice Department released a report Thursday saying he violated bureau protocol by leaking a memo of his conversations with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-donald-trump-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">President Donald Trump</a> to the media.</li><li>The White House also falsely implied that Comey's decision to share the memo was the reason the FBI launched the Russia investigation.</li><li>"Comey disgraced himself and his office to further a personal political agenda, and this report further confirms that fact," the White House's statement said.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>The White House responded to the Justice Department inspector general's finding Thursday that former FBI director James Comey violated FBI policies by calling him a "proven liar and leaker." It also falsely implied that Comey's decision to share a memo with the media detailing his conversations with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-donald-trump-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">President Donald Trump</a> was the reason the FBI launched the Russia investigation.The IG report said that though Comey broke bureau protocol by sharing the memo with The New York Times, he did not leak classified information and would not be criminally prosecuted."James Comey is a proven liar and leaker," the White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. "The Inspector General's report shows Comey violated the most basic obligations of confidentiality that he owed to the United States Government and to the American people, 'in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.'"It continued: "Because Comey shamefully leaked information to the press - in blatant violation of FBI policies - the Nation was forced to endure the baseless politically motivated, two-year witch hunt. Comey disgraced himself and his office to further a personal political agenda, and this report further confirms that fact."Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/james-comey-broke-rules-leaking-new-york-times-doj-watchdog-2019-8" data-analytics-position="1">DOJ watchdog finds James Comey violated FBI policy by sharing memo with The New York Times</a>Comey's decision to share his memo with The New York Times did not prompt the FBI to launch the Russia investigation. In fact, it had already been underway for nearly a year at the time, and it was opened because the former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos boasted during the 2016 election to an Australian diplomat that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton's campaign in the form of "thousands of emails."Shortly after his firing, Comey gave four memos about his conversations with Trump to his friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor, and directed him to share one of them with The Times. The memos and Comey's firing were central to the obstruction-of-justice case the former special counsel Robert Mueller opened against Trump after Comey's ouster.Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017 that he directed Richman to share his memos with the media because he "needed to get that out into the public square."The report concluded that Comey violated FBI policy by "failing to surrender" the memos and by facilitating the disclosure of Memo 4 to the media.But the OIG said it "found no evidence that Comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/megyn-kelly-details-sexually-harassed-roger-ailes-fox-news-2017-11">Megyn Kelly details how she was allegedly sexually harassed by Roger Ailes, then advised to 'just steer clear of him'</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

White House slams Comey for violating FBI policies and falsely claims the Russia investigation was launched because he 'shamefully leaked information to the press'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A Mississippi jury declined to indict deputies who barged into Trevor McKinley's home and killed him.</li><li>McKinley's mother said she was "extremely disappointed" but not surprised by the decision.</li></ul>A Mississippi grand jury decided not to indict sheriff's deputies who barged into a 28-year-old man's home in 2021 and shot him to death.Rankin County Sheriff's deputies shot <a href="https://www.insider.com/trevor-mckinley-family-mississippi-police-fatal-shooting-2022-3">Trevor McKinley</a> to death inside his grandmother's house in August 2021 after responding to a domestic disturbance report. Jason Dare, an attorney for the sheriff's department, told Insider that a grand jury in January returned a "no bill" — meaning there's insufficient evidence to indict — for McKinley's case.McKinley's mother, Jackie McKinley, told Insider that she was "very disappointed" in the decision, but was "not surprised" because "no one's ever held accountable for their actions down here."Jackie McKinley said she was frustrated by the lack of communication from authorities to her family about the status of the investigation over the last two years.She said she was unaware her son's case had even been closed when Insider reached out to her for comment."I'm extremely disappointed and I'm even more disappointed that it has taken almost two years and with zero information whatsoever," Jackie McKinley said. "I mean, literally, like, nothing.""It's unfair and unjust, and families deserve to know, you know?" she continued. "I mean, we all know how the system is, and <a href="https://www.insider.com/rankin-county-ms-sheriff-office-doj-investigation-shooting-waterboarding-2023-2">especially in the Rankin County</a>. As sad as it is, it doesn't surprise me."She said she spoke to Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey over the phone shortly after the shooting and that he was "very rude" and "hung up on me."The sheriff's department did not return Insider's request for comment.<h2>Trevor's relapse caused a fight with his fiancée</h2>Trevor McKinley had a warrant out for his arrest when Rankin County sheriff's deputies were called to his home.Trevor's former fiancée, Ashton Durr, previously told Insider that the couple got into a fight on June 1, 2021, after she found a stash of pills and confronted Trevor — who had been sober for several years at the time — about relapsing. Durr said Trevor chased her around the house and hit her after the confrontation.One of Durr's friends told police about the fight, and deputies came to the house to question her, she said, but she refused to talk to them.Durr said Trevor checked himself into rehab and stayed with his mother in Memphis, and upon completing the program, he learned that there was a warrant for his arrest, and made plans to turn himself in when he returned to Rankin County.<h2>Trevor's grandfather called police to their home</h2>McKinley returned to Mississippi in August and tried to turn himself in, his father, Shannon McKinley, previously told Insider, but the sheriff's department told him he would have to get a negative COVID-19 test first.On August 21, 2021, McKinley's grandparents planned to take him and his kids to a lake to spend one last day together as a family before he turned himself in.<div type="image" title="Trevor McKinley and two sons" height="1499" width="1999" msid="98342518" hostid="261" sizebytes="49854"></div>Sonny Quarles, Trevor's grandfather, previously told Insider that Trevor became irate when he asked him to put some drawers that he had removed back in place. Quarles said Trevor threw him to the ground.Quarles said he called 911 because his wife, Charlene Quarles, began experiencing shortness of breath after the scuffle, but she recovered while he was on the phone, and he said he no longer needed assistance. Quarles said he called 911 a second time after Trevor began "cussing again," but he couldn't remember if he said that Trevor had hit him.When deputies arrived, they came "flying up in the yard," Charlene Quarles previously told Insider."They jumped out of the car, didn't say one word, show nothing. One went for the front door, one went for the kitchen door," she said.A few minutes later, Charlene Quarles said, she heard shots ring out as deputies shot her grandson inside the house.In a press release after the killing, the sheriff's department said they were initially called to the home for a "medical call," but "a caller from the scene indicated that the call was a domestic disturbance," before deputies arrived.According to the press release, deputies found Trevor hiding in the home's attic. When Trevor fled from the attic, he turned and fired multiple shots at deputies with a handgun, according to the release.A Mississippi Bureau of Investigations report obtained by Insider said deputies told investigators that they also tried to use a Taser on McKinley as he fled.Charlene Quarles previously told Insider that she believes her grandson hid from the deputies because someone from the sheriff's office threatened Trevor with violence if he didn't turn himself in."Trevor knows how they work up there," Quarles said. "He's been up there many times in his life, and he knows they do that. They're famous for roughing people up."McKinley speculated that his son may have fired his gun because the electricity of the Taser caused his muscles to tense when it struck him.<h2>Sheriff's deputies who shot Trevor apparently didn't write incident reports</h2>Insider <a href="https://www.insider.com/insider-sues-mississippi-sheriffs-department-over-public-records-2022-7">sued the sheriff's department</a> in July 2022 for Rankin County Sheriff's Department incident reports related to McKinley's death.The department's attorney only provided two incident reports related to the case in January 2023, after the grand jury reached a no-bill. Both reports were written by sheriff's deputies who arrived after McKinley was shot.The first report, written by deputy Allison Defour, simply says that Defour arrived on scene after the shooting and "roped off an area across the front yard and up the side of the house" and "began a crime scene log of those that entered/exited the residence."The second report, written by deputy Craig Williams, said Williams heard on his radio that two patrol cars were on a medical call that "turned into a domestic disturbance.""The suspect was Trevor McKinley and was hiding in the attic," Williams wrote. "Dispatch advised there is an active felony warrant on Trevor. I then heard radio traffic of shots fired and responded to the scene."Williams wrote that he identified himself to "deputy Pickle and deputy Little" as he entered the house.The sheriff's department did not respond to Insider's request for comment about if the deputies involved in the shooting did not write incident reports and what the department's policy is on when to write a report.<h2>5 deaths in 8 months</h2><div type="image" title="Trevor McKinley, Damien Cameron, and Cory Jackson all died after interaction with the Rankin County Sheriff's Department in 2021." height="1439" width="2880" msid="98342521" hostid="261" sizebytes="101604"></div>McKinley's death is one of five deaths involving Rankin County sheriff's deputies over an eight-month period in 2021. Insider sued the sheriff's department in July 2022 for records related to three of the deaths, including McKinley's. Insider previously reported the deaths of <a href="https://www.insider.com/mississippi-man-died-strapped-in-a-restraint-chair-while-hallucinating-2022-3">Cory Jackson</a> and <a href="https://www.insider.com/mississippi-police-silent-on-investigation-into-death-of-a-black-man-2022-1">Damien Cameron</a>.Jackson died inside the Rankin County jail in May 2021 after deputies arrested him while he was having hallucinations and refused to drive him to the hospital, his family says. Cameron died in July 2021 after deputies chased him inside his home, Tased him, and <a href="https://www.insider.com/police-wrote-different-reports-about-the-death-black-man-in-custody-2022-2">knelt on his back for more than 15 minutes</a>.Deputies shot and killed Robert Rushton in December 2021 while responding to a call of a drug overdose. The sheriff's department said in a press release he was armed with two knives. The fifth man, Adam Coker, also died in the Rankin County Jail in September 2021.No charges have been brought against deputies involved in any of the five cases. In October 2022, a jury declined to indict the deputies connected to Cameron's death.<h2>'You're not following any kind of protocol'</h2>Jackie McKinley said that when she tried to speak with Sheriff Bryan Bailey over the phone, she wanted to impress upon him that she thinks his deputies need better training."You're not doing things how they should be done, you're not," McKinley said. "You're not following any kind of protocol. You're just going willy-nilly killing people."Damien Cameron's family has been in touch with McKinley's family since Trevor and Damien's deaths, talking and sharing experiences with each other, Jackie McKinley said. She said she hopes bringing attention to cases of police violence will lead to justice for others in the future."My son wasn't perfect, you know, he had a lot of demons and issues," Jackie McKinley said. "But he didn't deserve to die."

A Mississippi grand jury declined to press charges against sheriff's deputies who burst into a 28-year-old man's home and shot him to death. His mother says she's disappointed, but not surprised.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The US government is investigating how tax information on the richest Americans went public.</li><li>ProPublica reported on the income and tax payments of <keyword id="191583" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Jeff-Bezos">Jeff Bezos</keyword>, <keyword id="6355315" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elon-musk">Elon Musk</keyword>, and other billionaires.</li><li>The <keyword id="6356037" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="white-house">White House</keyword> described the leaking of tax information as "illegal."</li></ul>The US government is investigating how some of the wealthiest Americans, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, had their tax information published online.<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax"></a>Nonprofit <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> site ProPublica <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax">published a</a><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax"> report</a> on Tuesday showing how much the 25 richest Americans - including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-did-not-pay-income-taxes-2-years-report-2021-6">Bezos</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-paid-little-in-taxes-2014-2018-propublica-report-2021-6">Musk</a>, Berkshire Hathaway CEO <keyword id="6358963" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Warren-Buffett">Warren Buffett</keyword>, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg - paid in tax. The report highlighted how <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/propublicas-billionaire-tax-data-america-close-step-up-charity-loopholes-2021-6">two key tax loopholes benefit billionaires</a>."I share the concerns of every American for the sensitive and private nature and confidential nature of the information the IRS receives," IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said in a Senate <keyword id="25455" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="finance">Finance</keyword> Committee hearing. The hearing had been scheduled before the report was published."Trust and confidence in the Internal Revenue Service is sort of the bedrock of asking people and requiring people to provide financial information," Rettig said.Treasury spokeswoman Lily Adams said "the unauthorized disclosure of confidential government information is illegal.""The matter is being referred to the Office of the Inspector General, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, all of whom have independent authority to investigate," Adams said in a statement shared with Insider.ProPublica reported that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-paid-little-in-taxes-2014-2018-propublica-report-2021-6">Musk's wealth grew by $14 billion</a> from 2014 to 2018, but that he only paid $455 million in <keyword id="6368033" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="taxes">taxes</keyword>. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-did-not-pay-income-taxes-2-years-report-2021-6">Bezos did not pay any income taxes</a> for at least two years between 2006 and 2018, the report said.Buffett paid minimal tax by holding Berkshire Hathaway stock and not paying a dividend, according to ProPublica's report. The <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffett-defends-propublica-tax-rate-berkshire-hathaway-stock-dvidends-2021-6-1030504042">investor defended himself</a> in a statement to the news outlet, saying his shareholders didn't want a dividend and that he gave nearly all of his money to good causes.Insider has reached out to ProPublica, the IRS, and the White House for comment.White House press secretary Jen Psaki <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/06/08/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-deputy-director-of-the-national-economic-council-sameera-fazili-and-senior-director-for-international-economics-and-competitiveness-peter-harrell-june-8/">told reporters during Tuesday's briefing</a> that the <keyword id="10092361" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="biden-administration">Biden administration</keyword> is taking the "illegal" leak of tax information "very seriously.""We know that there is more to be done to ensure that corporations, individuals who are at the highest income are paying more of their fair share," Psaki said, adding that this is part of President Joe Biden's budget and proposals.

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