Talk About Tennis 2.0

Neither intruder was reported to have been shot or injured in any way. The Vice President and four cabinet members were there after returning from Selma, Alabama.

Rehearsals for 2024?

I would rather Standard Time be kept but I guess this is better than springing forward and falling back every year.

Political formula, for 1 year in the presidency:
0 scandals + universal accessibility to a vaccine during a pandemic + openly gay or trans people in the cabinet + withdrawal from the longest war ever in the history of the USA + standing up to an invasion by the USA's second most dangerous foreign threat + very low unemployment levels + higher wages + good economic numbers = 40% approval rating.
And it is HIS fault?

2 men accused of posing as federal officers to get near Secret Service
By Spencer S. Hsu and Clarence Williams
Yesterday at 7:45 p.m. EDT|Updated today at 8:52 a.m. EDT

The FBI on Wednesday arrested two men charged with impersonating federal law enforcement in an investigation that has placed four U.S. Secret Service members on leave.

Federal authorities accused Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36, of obtaining handguns, rifles and other material to pose as Department of Homeland Security employees. They said the men used the guise to get closer to members of federal law enforcement and the defense community — including a U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to the first lady’s protective detail.

Taherzadeh provided members of the Secret Service and an employee of DHS with items such as “rent-free apartments (with a total yearly rent of over $40,000 per apartment), iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat screen television, a case for storing an assault rifle, a generator, and law enforcement paraphernalia,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in D.C.


Taherzadeh also offered the employees use of vehicles he said belonged to the government and offered to buy a $2,000 assault rifle for an agent assigned to protect the first lady, the affidavit said.

The complaint said that four members of the Secret Service were placed on administrative leave as of April 4. The Secret Service said in a statement Thursday morning that the investigation is ongoing and that personnel on leave have been restricted from accessing Secret Service facilities, equipment, and systems.

Both men are scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court on Thursday and are currently detained, prosecutors said.

Investigators said the pair posed as DHS officers or employees beginning in February 2020.

The charges against Ali and Taherzadeh were made public as FBI personnel were seen in the Navy Yard area Wednesday night and were photographed on social media going into an apartment building. In a statement, the FBI said personnel were conducting “court authorized law enforcement activity” in the 900 block of First Street SE

The investigation into the pair began March 14 when a U.S. Postal Service inspector went to a D.C. apartment complex to respond to a complaint of an assault on a letter carrier at the building, where many people who work for the FBI, Secret Service, Department of Defense and Navy live. Residents told the inspector that Ali and Taherzadeh identified themselves to residents as Department of Homeland Security investigations special agents who may have witnessed the assault, the affidavit said.

They claimed they were “special police” officers involved in undercover gang-related investigations and probes related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the affidavit states. Other residents told the inspector the men used several apartments in the building, claiming the Department of Homeland Security paid the rent, and used an SUV equipped with emergency lights they identified as “their official DHS vehicle.”

The inspector learned the men were in contact with several members of the Secret Service and had provided gifts to them or their families and use of the SUV, the affidavit states. The document did not explain how the inspector learned about the gifts.


The inspector informed DHS, which then informed the FBI.

The affidavit included photos of the men in police tactical gear with “POLICE” emblazoned on their clothing. And in one instance, Taherzadeh sent a stock photo from the Internet to one witness and claimed to be in Homeland Security Investigations training, investigators alleged.

The affidavit also detailed interviews from several witnesses. One said Taherzadeh lives in and has several apartments in the complex. He provided one person with a rent-free penthouse apartment for about one year, a value of about $40,200, the affidavit said. One of the uniformed Secret Service members assigned to protect the White House complex allegedly lived in a three-bedroom apartment valued at $48,240 from February 2021 to January 2022, the court file said.

Another witness reported seeing “a significant amount of law enforcement paraphernalia, including SWAT vests, a large safe, computers, a high-powered telescope and internal surveillance cameras in [Taherzadeh’s] apartment.”

Magda Jean-Louis, Peter Hermann, Jasmine Hilton and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va ... navy-yard/

Man accused of impersonating DHS agent offered one of Jill Biden’s Secret Service agents an assault rifle, court records say
PUBLISHED THU, APR 7 202212:30 PM EDTUPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

KEY POINTS
One of two men charged with impersonating federal law enforcement agents offered to give an assault rifle worth $2,000 to a Secret Service agent who was assigned to the protective detail of first lady Jill Biden, a court filing says.

Another Secret Service agent assigned to the White House was allowed to live rent-free in an apartment provided by one of the defendants.

Four members of the Secret Service have been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation in the case.

The two defendants, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, are due to appear in federal court in Washington.

One of two men criminally charged with impersonating federal law enforcement agents in Washington, D.C., offered to give an assault rifle worth $2,000 to a U.S. Secret Service agent who was assigned to the protective detail of first lady Jill Biden, a court filing says.

That filing also says that one of the defendants, Arian Taherzadeh, lent what was purported to be a “government vehicle” to the wife of that Secret Service agent, who was not identified by name, and that Taherzadeh “also provided her with a generator.”

The Secret Service agent lived in a Washington apartment building on the floor below Taherzadeh’s apartment, according to the filing, which was written by an FBI agent in support of the criminal complaint against Taherzadeh, 40, and his 35-year-old co-defendant, Haider Ali.

Taherzadeh also allegedly gave members of the Secret Service and an employee of the Department of Homeland Security “rent-free apartments (with a total yearly rent of over $40,000 per apartment), iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat screen television, a case for storing an assault rifle, a generator and law enforcement paraphernalia,” the filing says.

One of those agents was assigned to protect the White House as part of the Secret Service’s uniformed division, the filing said.

That agent lived rent-free in a three-bedroom apartment provided by Taherzadeh at the same complex, according to the filing, which said the residence normally would rent for more than $48,000 annually.

Taherzadeh told the agent that a division of DHS “had approved extra rooms as part of his operations, and that [agent] could live in one of them for free,” the filing said. “The investigation confirmed that there are no such [DHS] operations and that it authorized no such expense.”

Taherzadeh and Ali were arrested Wednesday during a raid on that building in the Southeast section of D.C. on a charge of “false impersonation of a federal officer.” Both men are due to appear in federal court in Washington later Thursday.

Four members of the Secret Service have been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation in the case.

In a statement Thursday, the Secret Service said it “has worked, and continues to work, with its law enforcement partners on this ongoing investigation.”

“All personnel involved in this matter are on administrative leave and are restricted from accessing Secret Service facilities, equipment, and systems,” the agency said. “The Secret Service adheres to the highest levels of professional standards and conduct and will remain in active coordination with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.”

The FBI said in an affidavit that both men, from as early as February 2020 until their arrest, pretended to be agents working for the Department of Homeland Security, with the use of insignias and firearms used by federal agents.

The affidavit says the men did this “to ingratiate themselves with members of federal law enforcement and the defense community.”

The affidavit written by an FBI agent says the men’s imposter act began to be exposed on March 14, when a U.S. Postal inspector responded to the apartment complex to investigate an alleged assault on a letter carrier.

During the investigation of that incident, the inspector learned from people at the complex that Taherzadeh and Ali, “who represent themselves as Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agents, may have witnessed the assault.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/07/secret- ... ness-.html

I was going to delete the post based on the story in the WaPo but I think this illustrates why you need to look at multiple outlets for a story.