TheFrontPageCover
~ Featuring ~
Free Valentino Dixon
by Michelle Malkin
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Nunes: FBI Failed to Include Exculpatory
Evidence in Carter Page FISA
{rickwells.us} ~ House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes claimed Monday that the FBI and Justice Department failed to include exculpatory evidence... in surveillance warrant applications against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. “There is exculpatory evidence that we have seen, of classified documents that need to be declassified,” Nunes said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “Exculpatory in nature in what way? Exculpatory in what way?” Hannity asked. “In that the Carter Page FISA when the judges should have been presented with this exculpatory evidence that the FBI and DOJ had,” Nunes replied. In an interview, Nunes laid out three areas of interest that House Intelligence Republicans have in their investigation into possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). He and other Republican members of the committee recently asked President Trump to declassify 21 pages from the FBI’s fourth and final FISA warrant application. He claimed in an interview on July 29 that Americans “will be shocked” when they see the 21 pages. The Justice Department released heavily redacted versions of the four Page FISAs on July 21... https://rickwells.us/nunes-fbi-failed-evidence-page-fisas/
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by Jeffrey Cimmino{freebeacon.com} ~ Russia’s prime minister said Tuesday that any attempt to bring Georgia into NATO would risk "horrible" conflict... Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in an interview with the Kommersant daily broadcast by Russian state television, called NATO’s plans to offer membership to Georgia in the future "absolutely irresponsible" and a "threat to peace," the Associated Press reports. "There is an unresolved territorial conflict … and would they bring such a country into the military alliance?" Medvedev said. "Do they understand the possible implications? It could provoke a horrible conflict." Military conflict between Russia and Georgia erupted in 2008 after Georgian troops attempted to regain control of South Ossetia, a breakaway province supported by Russia. Medvedev, who was Russia’s president at the time, sent soldiers which defeated the Georgian military in five days. Georgia ultimately lost control of both South Ossetia and a province known as Abkhazia... https://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-warns-severe-consequences-georgia-joins-nato/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=1694896e27-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_19_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-1694896e27-45611665
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Russia Warns of Severe Consequences
if Georgia Joins NATO
by Jeffrey Cimmino.
Suspicions Confirmed: Congress Gets Bruce Ohr Documents Showing “Back Door”
\Communication Network
by sundance.
House Republicans Zeroing In On Dossier, Linked DOJ Official
by Sara Carter.
The Iranian-Israeli Conflict Within the Syrian Civil War
by Clifford D. May, Jonathan Schanzer, Tony BadranVOICE VIDEO: https://soundcloud.com/defenddemocracy
.Free Valentino Dixon
{ townhall.com } ~ "If it wasn't for my artwork and God, there's no way we'd be having this conversation right now."
I'm in Colorado on a three-way phone call with Valentino Dixon, inmate No. 91B1615 at New York's Wende Correctional Facility, and his 27-year-old daughter, Tina Dixon, a first-grade teacher in Ohio. Faith, family and drawing -- golf courses, jazz musicians, landscapes -- have kept him alive and sane behind bars. It has been a long, hard roller-coaster ride with "so many ups and downs" that he has learned to manage expectations while holding on to hope.
Tina was a four-month-old infant when her father was convicted of second-degree murder. That's "26 lost summer vacations, 26 missed birthdays, 26 years of life," she recounted earlier this year at an event I attended at Georgetown University's Prisons and Justice Initiative class on wrongful convictions.
"I watched him for years studying the case in front of me over trailer visits, showing me all the facts, putting this puzzle together."
At Attica, the notorious supermax prison where Valentino Dixon spent all but the last eight months of his 33-years-to-life sentence before being transferred to Wende, Tina tells me:
"I would eat pancakes and bacon, have water fights and coloring contests with my dad" during family reunion visits on the honor block while listening "to him and my grandmother and my aunt going over the trial transcripts and educating me about injustice."
About six years into his sentence, Dixon started reading every book he could get his hands on -- from criminal justice texts to Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" to Donald Trump's "Art of the Deal." He is self-taught in art, business, law and survival. Dixon has been a model prisoner, mentoring other inmates "I'm like Dr. Phil for these guys," he chuckles and earning international interest for his online art gallery. He's never been to a golf course, but Attica's former warden sparked Dixon's imagination by bringing him a photo of Augusta National's 12th hole.
Lots of convicts will tell you they didn't do it. But Dixon has steadfastly maintained his innocence in the street corner shooting that led to the death of Torriano Jackson and wounding of three others. And here's the kicker:
There is someone else who has repeatedly said Dixon didn't commit the crime -- because he did it.
Lamarr Scott first confessed to killing Torriano Jackson just days after the 1991 shooting during a Buffalo TV news broadcast. In 2012, Scott stated publicly of prosecutors who he says threatened him: "Each and every day it eats away at me that I allowed them to convince me to do the wrong thing."
No forensic evidence, no physical evidence and no murder weapon tied Dixon to the crime. Multiple witnesses gave sworn statements that Dixon was not the shooter; others gave physical descriptions that matched the six-foot-tall, heavy-set Scott, not the five-foot-seven, 130-pound Dixon. Two witnesses who adamantly insisted Dixon didn't do it were charged with perjury by the prosecutor before Dixon's trial.
Instead of objecting to the government's strong-arm intimidation tactics, Dixon's own public defender who failed to call a single witness to the stand or enter a single exhibit in his client's defense obsequiously praised the prosecutor's maneuver as "brilliant."
"Lawyers throw cases all the time," Dixon sighs. As I've delved more into wrongful convictions over the past two years, this sickening pattern repeats itself endlessly in blue states and red ones, across racial and socioeconomic lines: ineffective counsel, faulty eyewitness testimony, shady deal-making and decades of legal wrangling to undo the damage and uncover the truth.
Dixon makes no excuses for his rough past when he got caught up in drugs in his youth: "I'm no angel." But he and a growing army of supporters say he's no killer.
New York lawyer Marty Tankleff is an extraordinary exoneree who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents at 17 based on a coerced confession, corrupt police detective and prosecutorial misconduct. Tankleff co-teaches the Georgetown class whose students investigated Dixon's case last semester. As a result of new evidence of prosecutorial misconduct they helped uncover, a new "440 motion" was filed on Dixon's behalf in May.
The prosecutor, Christopher Belling, revealed to the students for the first time in nearly three decades that Dixon's clothing had been tested for gunshot residue and came up negative -- facts he failed to disclose to the defense or reveal at trial while accusing Dixon of shooting at least 27 rounds from a 9mm handgun.
"If his case is given a fair and independent review, everyone is confident that he will be granted post conviction relief," Tankleff told me Monday.
The motion is in the hands of Erie County District Attorney John Flynn, whose office told me this week that a decision may be issued by mid-August. Could this be the light at the end of the torturous tunnel? Dixon and his family have been here before, through endless appeals, waiting for a favorable ruling, hanging on to prayer, hope and each other.
"I have a strong faith. I definitely trust in God's plan," Dixon says during our hour-long talk. "This is a test from Him. I know I've got truth on my side. And truth always wins."
https://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2018/08/01/free-valentino-dixon-n2505669?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
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