Politics
Soros-backed prosecutor pushed by Missouri AG to resign has history of scandals, alleged misconduct
The George Soros-bankrolled prosecutor in St. Louis who’s facing calls from Missouri’s governor and attorney general to resign for allegedly neglecting her duties already had a history riddled with allegations of misconduct and mishandled cases long before her latest scandal.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner is no stranger to controversy, encountering admonishment for her handling of criminal cases on several occasions. She’s been publicly reprimanded and fined by the Missouri Supreme Court and scrutinized for what critics have deemed soft-on-crime policies.
However, Gardner is currently facing an unprecedented push for her ouster after volleyball player Janae Edmonson, 16, was hit by a vehicle and lost both her legs while visiting St. Louis with her team last weekend.
The man charged for the incident, 21-year-old Daniel Riley, didn’t have a driver’s license when he was speeding, failed to yield, and caused the collision. He was out on bail awaiting trial for an armed robbery from 2020 and had violated the terms of his bond at least 50 times, according to local reports.
Janae Edmondson was in a crosswalk with her parents on her way home from a volleyball tournament when police allege Daniel Riley ignored sped through a yield sign, striking her and another car. (Town of Smyrna, St. Louis Police Department)
TEEN IN ST. LOUIS FOR VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT MOWED DOWN BY UNLICENSED DRIVER
Gardner’s office, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with bond conditions and revoking them when those terms are violated, didn’t ask for Riley’s bond to be revoked.
Following the tragedy, Gardner received a wave of bipartisan criticism from officials, including calls for her to resign from the governor and state legislative leadership, as well as a legal effort by the Missouri attorney general to fire her. However, while the weekend crash appeared to be the impetus for such action, opposition to Gardner and pressure on her to step down has been building for years from a range of separate incidents.
Gardner is one of the first prosecutors whom Soros, a liberal billionaire and Democrat megadonor, bankrolled in 2016 — and again for her reelection in 2020.
Her campaign website boasts that she’s “made jail and prison a last resort, reserved for those who pose a true public safety risk,” while limiting “the arrest and detention of people accused of misdemeanors and low-level felonies.”
During Gardner’s tenure, crime spiked in St. Louis, with the city experiencing near-record murder rates. The last two years were among the city’s deadliest in decades, despite murders being down from 2020. Last year, WalletHub calculated that St. Louis had the highest homicide cases per 100,000 residents from July through September of any U.S. city, ranking it the most dangerous city in the country because of high rates of crime and other dangers like car accidents.
George Soros, seen here delivering a speech during the 2023 Munich Security Conference, backed Kim Gardner’s campaigns. (Open Society Foundations/YouTube/Video screenshot)
WHAT’S NEXT IN LEGAL BATTLE TO FIRE EMBATTLED DEM ATTORNEY KIM GARDNER?
Amid high homicide figures, Gardner has declined more cases, issued fewer arrest warrants, charged fewer felonies, and prosecuted thousands of fewer cases overall than her predecessor. She has also deferred prison sentences for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies as part of her reform initiatives.
Gardner says all this is part of her “platform to reduce the number of cases unnecessarily charged in order to focus on the more difficult cases for trial.”
In 2021, though, Gardner came under fire after three murder cases under her purview were dismissed in one week due to prosecutors in her office not showing up for hearings or being unprepared.
Critics point to such examples to argue that Gardner’s policies, conduct, and leadership are the cause of increased crime.
“In 2020, I personally responded to a shooting of two teenagers in Missouri, and saw again first hand more victims of Gardner’s Soros-funded lawlessness as two more promising young men were murdered that night,” former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens told Fox News Digital. “This latest terrible tragedy [from last weekend] is another to add to the dozens of murdered children, carjacked citizens, burnt businesses, and tens of thousands of lost jobs that have resulted from her evil.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (Missouri Attorney General’s Office)
Gardner infamously oversaw the failed 2018 prosecution of Greitens for allegedly taking an unwanted nude picture of a woman and threatening to release it if she talked about their affair. The then-governor was charged with felony invasion of privacy.
The Soros-funded prosecutor had to drop the case after admitting she didn’t have the photo or other evidence to sustain the charges against Greitens, a former Navy SEAL who was forced to resign less than two years into his term.
“I’ve experienced Kim Gardner’s evil first hand,” said Greitens. “As governor, I took action to stop the violence in St. Louis. In return, Kim Gardner abused her office to bring a false case against me. Ultimately, all the charges were dismissed, and her lead investigator was charged with seven felonies for perjury and evidence tampering for creating a false case. Kim was admonished by the Supreme Court for lying over 70 times in her failed political prosecution of me.”
In 2021, Missouri’s chief legal disciplinary officer accused Gardner of rampant misconduct in her prosecution of Greitens, saying she lied to judges in court filings and testimony, withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense, misled her own prosecution team, and violated the constitutional right to a fair trial.
Former Gov. Eric Greitens delivers the keynote address at the St. Louis Area Police Chiefs Association 27th Annual Police Officer Memorial Prayer Breakfast on April 25, 2018, at the St. Charles Convention Center. (Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
In April, Gardner appeared before a disciplinary hearing, where she faced charges of ethics violations stemming from her prosecution.
Gardner, who initially denied all wrongdoing, admitted to the disciplinary panel that she “unintentionally” failed to produce documents at pretrial hearings and failed to correct misstatements under oath by her lead investigator.
The panel agreed to a plea bargain in which Gardner would receive a “reprimand” but not lose her law license — which was a possibility if the charges against her were upheld.
Meanwhile, Gardner’s handpicked investigator in her case against Greitens, ex-FBI agent William Tisaby, was charged with seven felonies connected to his handling of the case and ultimately pleaded guilty to misdemeanor evidence tampering.
Seven people who served on a special grand jury that indicted Tisaby penned a letter, obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, urging the panel to take “stronger” action against Gardner, calling her conduct in the Greitens case “reprehensible.”
In a, Jan. 13, 2020 file photo, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner speaks in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jim Salter)
The Missouri Supreme Court ultimately considered the case and in August publicly reprimanded Gardner, who had to pay a $750 fine.
A statement attributed to Gardner’s lawyer, Michael Downey, at the time said she “has learned from this process and has improved her office’s operations based upon what occurred.”
As the fallout from the Greitens case was unfolding, Gardner was also scrutinized when a judge barred her from prosecuting Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a couple charged after defending their home and pointing weapons at protesters who were marching through their neighborhood.
Gardner was removed from the case after featuring it in her campaign fundraising emails. She unsuccessfully tried to appeal the disqualification.
Gardner has also struggled with high turnover in their offices. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the effect of the turnover in Gardner’s office has been “a state of dysfunction, low morale, and dearth of legal wisdom necessary to safeguard the public from potentially dangerous criminals.”
This week, the Post-Dispatch published a column with the headline, “Too many have lost faith for Kim Gardner to continue.”
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, right, and Ronald Sullivan, a Harvard law professor, arrive at the Civil Courts building on May 14, 2018. ((Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images))
Most notably, state leaders from both parties are saying Gardner has lost her mandate to serve.
Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden and Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher, both Republicans, called on her to resign this week. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, a Democrat, didn’t go that far but said Gardner had “lost the trust of the people.”
Most notably, GOP Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey on Wednesday argued Gardner has neglected the duties of the circuit attorney’s office and gave her an ultimatum: resign by noon Thursday or be removed. When Gardner refused to resign the next day, Bailey’s office started the process of filing a petition quo warranto, the legal mechanism under state statute that allows the attorney general to remove a prosecutor who neglects their duties.
“This is about a quantum of evidence that demonstrates her failure to prosecute cases, failure to inform and confer with victims in cases, and failure to file new cases that are referred by law enforcement agencies,” Bailey told Fox News Digital earlier this week.
He separately said in a statement that Riley is a “dangerous gunman who should have been in jail,” writing that Gardner is “creating” victims instead of “protecting” them.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, left, and St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. (Photo by Jacob Moscovitch/Getty Images and AP Photo/Jim Salter, respectively)
DEFIANT DEM ATTORNEY KIM GARDNER BLASTS AG MOVE TO REMOVE HER, BLAMES ‘VOTER SUPPRESSION’
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson also called for Gardner to step down.
Gardner’s office declined to comment for this story but pointed Fox News Digital to public statements the circuit attorney has made this week.
Despite the mounting pressure, Gardner has remained defiant, refusing to leave her office.
“The attorney general, as others, use this unfortunate incident and tragic happening to this young lady as a political stunt of an unelected individual,” she said Thursday. “This is nothing more than voter suppression, which we’ve seen on a national level as well as in the state of Missouri.”
Gardner admitted her office “could have done more” in the case of Riley hitting Edmonson but defended herself: “To say we did nothing is not only disingenuous, but is willfully ignorant of the reality of our court system.”
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The circuit attorney acknowledged politics will always play a role but said her office “will return to focusing on the important work that the people of the city of St. Louis elected me [to do.] She also suggested racism was behind some of the criticism against her, adding, “We’re going to fight very hard for justice in spite of the vitriol, the hate, the racist attacks, the known manipulation of the court procedures to make sure our office fails.”
Bailey dismissed the injection of race into the matter as “ridiculous.”
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/soros-backed-prosecutor-pushed-missouri-ag-resign-history-scandals
Politics
House Republicans accuse NIH of ‘stonewalling’ on ‘supercharged monkeypox experiment’
House Republicans are pressing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for answers after the agency funded research experiments they say could result in a “supercharged” monkeypox virus.
In a letter to acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and two subcommittee chairmen are demanding that the agency turn over documents and information regarding a government-funded experiment that reportedly involves swapping monkepox genes with a deadlier version of the virus. The lawmakers want to know whether this project was approved by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) review board tasked with oversight of research involving enhanced pathogens that could potentially cause a pandemic.
This letter is a follow-up to an October 31, 2022, letter to which Republicans say the NIH never responded. GOP lawmakers accused NIH of “stonewalling” in a press release.
“Based on the available information, it appears the project is reasonably anticipated to yield a lab-generated monkeypox virus that is 1,000 times more lethal in mice than the monkeypox virus currently circulating in humans and that transmits as efficiently as the monkeypox virus currently circulating in humans. The risk-benefit ratio indicates potentially serious risks without clear civilian practical applications,” the Republicans wrote.
This image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shows a colorized transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (red) found within an infected cell (blue), cultured in the laboratory that was captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. (NIAID via AP, File)
“Accordingly, this experiment would seem to involve risks reasonably anticipated to create, transfer, or use [potential pandemic pathogens] resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility or virulence in humans. Thus, under the circumstances, we are interested in learning whether this experiment was reviewed under the HHS P3CO framework used to review research proposals posing significant biosafety or biosecurity risks.”
The project leader is Dr. Bernard Moss, a veteran poxvirus researcher at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. An article in Science magazine described his efforts to learn the differences between two variants of monkeypox virus: clade 2, the West African variant that caused a global outbreak last year, and clade 1, which is believed to be deadlier and has caused outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo for decades.
Moss’ research involves swapping the genes of the two variants, one at a time, to discover whether a specific gene in the clade 1 virus makes it deadlier. The Republicans want to know whether these lab experiments could artificially enhance the clade 2 variant.
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This 1997 image provided by the CDC during an investigation into an outbreak of monkeypox, which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, depicts the dorsal surfaces of the hands of a monkeypox case patient, who was displaying the appearance of the characteristic rash during its recuperative stage. (CDC via AP, File)
Such research, known as “gain-of-function,” is highly controversial, because it involves extracting viruses from animals to artificially engineer in a laboratory to make them more transmissible and deadly to humans. Proponents say these experiments can help scientists understand the nature of viruses and develop new treatments and vaccines. Skeptics warn that gain-of-function experiments are one lab accident away from causing another global pandemic.
Moss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
FOX NEWS POLL: MAJORITY SAYS BIDEN TRYING TO COVER UP ORIGINS OF COVID-19
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led a letter to acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak demanding answers on a government-funded project involving a manipulated monkeypox virus. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Human disease associated with clade 2 or West African monkeypox virus infection is less severe and is associated with less than one percent mortality, whereas clade 1 or Congo Basin monkeypox infection has a 10 percent case fatality rate in unvaccinated persons,” the Republicans wrote. “Because of its significantly greater lethality, clade 1 or Congo Basin clade monkeypox viruses are regulated as select agents by the Federal Select Agents Program. Entities that possess, use, or transfer this agent must comply with the HHS Select Agent and Toxin Regulations unless there is an applicable exemption or exclusion.
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“Thus,” the letter continues, “under these regulations, it would appear the clade 1 monkeypox virus experiment is a restricted experiment that must be reviewed by the Federal Select Agent Program, and may be further reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s (CDC’s) Intragovernmental Select Agents and Toxins Technical Advisory Committee (ISATTAC).”
The Republicans want NIH officials and employees to testify about Moss’ project and other related matters. They gave NIH an April 13, 2023, deadline to respond to their inquiry.
Politics
DeSantis targets Biden in swing state Pennsylvania, says Democratic Party ‘dead’ in Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took multiple jabs at President Biden on Saturday during a stump speech in Pennsylvania.
DeSantis, speaking at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference 2023, called Biden a “floundering leader” and said the president’s poor performance contributed to Republican gains.
“We are in the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican candidate for governor has ever received in the history of the state of Florida,” DeSantis told the audience. “We were able to flip Democrat counties or urban counties like Miami-Dade County. And not only did we flip it, we won it by double digits.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. (Screenshot/)
“It’s been a massive defeat for the Democratic Party,” the Florida governor said. “They did not want to see Florida go red. They threw everything but the kitchen sink to stop us. And yet, we have left the Democratic Party for dead in the state of Florida.”
The Florida governor has been walking a political tightrope for months as he refuses to officially declare his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
At the same time, he has butted heads with both the Biden administration and former President Donald Trump’s campaign — both of whom view him as a rival for the presidency.
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In speeches this year, the governor has pitched his numerous conservative policy victories in Florida as a roadmap for the entire nation.
Sources in DeSantis’ wider orbit have said that any presidential campaign launch would come in the late spring or early summer, after the end of Florida’s current legislative session.
However, the governor’s recent stops in the early-voting states of Iowa and Nevada and a trip next month to New Hampshire are sparking more 2024 speculation.
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President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touring an area impacted by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, in October 2022. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
DeSantis said earlier this week that his state “will not assist” in any extradition request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg amid what he called “questionable circumstances” while slamming the charges against Trump as “un-American” and a “weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.”
The former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on Thursday after a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
Politics
Biden visits University of Pennsylvania campus for the first time since classified documents controversy
President Biden on Saturday visited the campus of the University of Pennsylvania for the first time since a controversy over the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in Washington D.C.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden stopped by the university to visit Maisy Biden’s senior art show at a university gallery. It marks the first time Biden has visited the campus since the emergence in November of documents with classified markings at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C.
Those documents were said to be from the Obama-Biden administration and were discovered “unexpectedly” by Biden’s personal attorneys. The emergence of the documents was followed by assessments by the FBI and Department of Justice.
BIDEN HAS ‘NO COMMENT’ ON TRUMP INDICTMENT
President Biden talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington Friday, March 31, 2023, before boarding Marine One. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
In January, the Department of Justice announced it was investigating the discovery of the documents, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was appointing Robert Hur as special counsel.
Attorneys also found batches of documents at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. Four batches of classified materials have been found in Biden’s possession in total, dating from both his time as vice president and as a senator from Delaware.
DOJ SEARCHES BIDEN DELAWARE BEACH HOME AMID CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT INVESTIGATION
In February, FBI agents searched Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for three and a half hours but did not find additional classified documents. The search was carried out on Hur’s first day on the job as special counsel.
Biden has addressed the controversy, saying his team is cooperating fully with the DOJ and suggested that his staff was to blame for not finding the documents when he left office in 2017.
WHITE HOUSE STONEWALLS FOX NEWS’ PETER DOOCY ON BIDEN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS: ‘WHY DID HE DO IT?’
President Biden delivers remarks during a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Jan. 24, 2023. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“But one of the things that happened is that what was not done well is as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn’t do the kind of job that should have been done to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that’s there,” Biden said. “But I’ll just let the investigation, you know, decide what’s going on, and we’ll see what happens.”
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House Republicans have promised to investigate Biden’s handling of classified materials, with Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., telling Fox News that “nothing that Joe Biden’s done with respect to mishandling these classified documents is normal.”
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
House Republicans accuse NIH of ‘stonewalling’ on ‘supercharged monkeypox experiment’
DeSantis targets Biden in swing state Pennsylvania, says Democratic Party ‘dead’ in Florida
Biden visits University of Pennsylvania campus for the first time since classified documents controversy
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