90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Eight Violent Attacks on Republicans Just This Year

Republican politicians, their staffers and the offices where they work have become a recurring target for political violence.

Here are eight times just this year that Republicans faced such attacks.

SWITCHBLADE STABBING ATTEMPT

California congressional candidate Rudy Peters, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, narrowly escaped a stabbing attempt in September. Peters’ attacker, Farzad Fazeli, shouted disparaging remarks about Republicans before attempting to stab the GOP candidate with a switchblade, police said.
MALE DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE ALLEGEDLY ASSAULTS FEMALE TRUMP STAFFER

An operative with Democratic political group American Bridge was arrested in March for assaulting a female staffer in President Donald Trump’s administration. The liberal operative allegedly shoved the woman, a press secretary for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, to the floor as he chased after Zinke.

SAME MALE DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE ALLEGEDLY ASSAULTS FEMALE GOP CAMPAIGN MANAGER

That same American Bridge operative, Wilfred Stark, was arrested Tuesday for allegedly chasing and assaulting Nevada gubernatorial nominee Adam Laxalt’s campaign manager. Stark was charged with battery for the attack, which left the woman bruised, as well as “terrified and traumatized.”

WYOMING GOP OFFICE SET ON FIRE

A Republican Party office in Laramie, Wyoming, was set on fire just days after opening in September. Police said the fire appeared to have been intentional, though they have not yet arrested any suspects.

VANDALS THROW BRICK THROUGH WINDOW OF NEBRASKA GOP OFFICE

Vandals in July threw a brick through the window of the Nebraska Republican Party’s headquarters. Republican staffers found a spray-painted message beneath the broken window: “ABOLISH ICE.”

MINNESOTA STATE GOP CANDIDATE SAYS SHE WAS CHASED BY PROPERTY-DESTROYING ANARCHIST

Minnesota state Rep. Sarah Anderson said she was attacked on Sunday after calling out a man who has kicking over campaign yard signs. “I said, ‘You can’t do this!’ And he said, ‘Yes, I can, I’m an anarchist! I can do whatever I want!’ And I said, ‘No, you can’t, that’s not your property,’” Anderson said, adding that the man chased her into the street and told her to kill herself.

WATCH:

MINNESOTA STATE GOP CANDIDATE SAYS HE WAS ASSAULTED, CONCUSSED BY POLITICALLY MOTIVATED ASSAILANT

Another Minnesota Republican, state Rep. Shane Mekeland, said he received a concussion on Oct. 12 when he was assaulted by a man he believed was politically motivated. “While I had never met my assailant, the words he yelled at me before he attacked lead me to believe his actions were politically motivated,” Mekeland said in a statement Sunday, adding that the police are investigating.

WINDOWS OF NEW YORK GOP OFFICE SMASHED, WARNING LEFT

Vandals in New York smashed the windows of...

A senior Treasury department official accused of leaking highly sensitive financial reports to a journalist looking into the overseas dealings of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as well as transactions involving the Russian embassy, has just been arrested by the Justice Department.

Senior adviser at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, has been charged with one count of unauthorized disclosure of suspicious activity reports, known as SARs, and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports (SARs)–for allegedly sending the files to an unidentified reporter beginning in October of 2017, according to authorities.

Brad Heath (@bradheath) tweeted a thread on Wednesday:

Read in full here:

The reports, which focused on Manafort, the Russian Embassy, Prevezon Alexander real estate company, alleged Russian spy Maria Butina, and Manafort’s former business partner Rick Gates, were later detailed in roughly 12 articles, all published by BuzzFeed, according to court documents.

“Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a senior-level FinCEN employee, betrayed her position of trust by repeatedly disclosing highly sensitive information contained in Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to an individual not authorized to receive them,” said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman.

“SARs, which are filed confidentially by banks and other financial institutions to alert law enforcement to potentially illegal transactions, are not public documents, and it is an independent federal crime to disclose them outside of one’s official duties.”

“We hope today’s charges remind those in positions of trust within government agencies that the unlawful sharing of sensitive documents will not be tolerated and will be met with swift justice by this Office,” he added.

40-year-old Edwards had saved the SARs, along with thousands of other files containing sensitive government information, to a flash drive provided to her by FinCen, according to court documents. DOH alleges that the FinCEN employee saved over 24,000 suspicious activity reports to the flash drive.

The files were saved to a folder named “Debacle – Operation-CF,” which contained subfolders named “asshat,” “debacle,” and “emails,” according to Law & Crime.

The Virginia native, federal prosecutors say, sent the information to the reporter via an encrypted app.

On top of that, Edwards is also accused of sending the reporter internal FinCEN emails and documents including confidential memos and intelligence assessments that contained various threat assessments to...