Twin Falls: First amendment experts' responses to Idaho US Attorney were "swift and severe"

The story is a long way from being dead especially after the Idaho US Attorney Wendy Olson issued a threatening press statement about the case that took weeks to see the light of day because (we can only assume) the details went against the narrative officials have been portraying about the joys of multiculturalism being forced on Twin Falls, Idaho by the US State Department and its contractor, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants with hundreds of refugees being placed there in recent years.

Michele Bachmann
Former Rep. and Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann also weighed in suggesting that after being given their due process, deportation for refugees who commit crimes is in order. (Rarely happens)

Legal experts pulled no punches in excoriating Olson as reported by Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily who begins his latest report with a summary of what allegedly happened:

Reaction to threatening comments from President Obama’s U.S. attorney in Idaho following the release of two Muslim boys accused of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl have been swift and severe.

Wendy J. Olson, the U.S. attorney for Idaho, indicated in a statement Friday that Idahoans who spread “false or inflammatory information” about the alleged Muslim perpetrators may be subject to prosecution. The boys accused are ages 14, 10 and 7, and their families have been evicted from the Fawnbrook Apartments in Twin Falls, where the assault allegedly took place.

The two older boys are immigrants from Sudan and the youngest is from Iraq. They are believed to be refugees*** but the government has yet to say exactly how they entered the country, only that they have come “within the last two years.”

The Olson statement that is drawing fire from First Amendment advocates is as follows:

“The spread of false information or inflammatory or threatening statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself reduces public safety and may violate federal law.”

She made the comment after some websites published erroneous information that the girl was “gang raped” at “knifepoint” by “Syrian refugees.”

While the boys likely are Muslim refugees, they are not Syrian. No knife was found at the crime scene.

While the girl may indeed have been “raped” – as reports of one boy urinating inside her mouth have yet to be debunked – she was not “gang-raped.”

First amendment attorneys contacted by WND left nothing to the imagination in their sweeping condemnation of the Idaho U.S. attorney appointed by Obama in 2010.

I’m not going to tell you what the attorneys said because I want you to read it all!  They pulled no punches! Click here for the rest of the story.
We have been writing about Twin Falls since early 2015, click here for our archive.
*** For inquisitive reporters, there is one person who knows whether the alleged abusers from Sudan and Iraq are refugees resettled in Idaho or elsewhere (and who might have moved to Idaho) and that is Jan Reeves.  Reeves likely knows where the evicted families are now living as well.  Reeves is an Obama-designated “Champion of Change” and, as the state refugee coordinator, has been calling the shots on who goes to Idaho for 25 years.  (In Idaho, a Wilson-Fish state, the state government has no say in how the program is run, Reeves runs it.)

Legal expert: Idaho US Attorney comments threaten free speech rights

The Idaho controversy surrounding the alleged sexual assault (by three boys from Sudan and Iraq) of a 5 year old Twin Falls girl just keeps growing—now even to the Washington Post.
See this very informative column by Eugene Volokh*** who first gives the facts as we know them about the controversy, excerpts the written press statement by US Attorney Wendy Olson (see our post yesterday), and then says this (emphasis is mine). Hat tip: Paul

This, it seems to me, goes beyond calling for accuracy (and trying to deter threats, which are indeed criminally punishable). The prosecutor — a prosecutor backed by the might of the federal government — is not just condemning “threatening statements.” She is equally condemning “inflammatory” statements “about the perpetrators or the crime,” as well as “the spread of false information.”

Eugene_Volokh
Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law Professor

There is no First Amendment exception for “inflammatory” statements; and even false statements about matters of public concern, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, are an inevitable part of free debate. While deliberate lies about particular people may lead to criminal punishment in some states that have carefully crafted “criminal libel” statutes, that would be under state law, not federal law; and though Idaho still has an old criminal libel law, it is almost never used, and is likely unconstitutionally drafted given modern First Amendment standards. Moreover, honest mistakes on matters of public concern are often constitutionally protected, especially against criminal punishment.

The federal prosecutor surely knows how to speak carefully and precisely about what very limited sorts of speech she can prosecute. Yet she chose to equally threaten federal prosecution not just for the punishable true threats — or for the deliberate lies that may be punished under state but not federal law — but also for an unspecified range of “inflammatory … statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself,” as well as for “the spread of false information” (with no limitation on the spread of deliberate lies).

It looks like an attempt to chill constitutionally protected speech through the threat of federal prosecution.

Please read the whole thing!
A commenter to Volokh’s piece, David Behar, says he filed this complaint against Olson:

Executive Office for United States Attorneys
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 2242
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Office of Bar Counsel
525 West Jefferson
P. O. Box 895
Boise, Idaho 83701
(208) 334-4500
Fax: (208) 334-2764
www.isb.idaho.gov ;

RE: U.S. Attorney for Idaho Wendy J. Olson, Washington Group IV, 800 Park Blvd., Suite 600, Boise, ID 83712, Phone: (208) 334-1211, Fax: (208) 334-9375 ; Your 3.6 (a)

Dear Madam or Sir:
US Attorneys are subject to the discipline of the state bar where they practice.

The above lawyer stated in the attached release, “The spread of false information or inflammatory or threatening statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself reduces public safety and may violate federal law. We have seen time and again that the spread of falsehoods about refugees divides our communities.”

It is posted here:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-id/pr/us-attorney-sta…enforcement-response

Investigate, and discipline this lawyer for violating your Rule, for using her office to intimidate dissenters from her political views.

 
***Eugene Volokh teaches free speech law, religious freedom law, church-state relations law, a First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, and tort law, at UCLA School of Law, where he has also often taught copyright law, criminal law, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy.
Follow @volokhc
 

Idaho: Obama appointed US Attorney attempts to stifle free speech relating to sex assault case

Update June 28th: More legal experts BLAST Olson, here.
Update June 27th:  Legal expert weighs in with why Olson is wrong, here.
And, she says “the spread of falsehoods about refugees divides our communities.”
Ms. Olson! the placement (in secrecy) of third world refugees in towns that do not want them divides communities!

Wendy Olson
Wendy Olson, US Attorney for Idaho, steps into sexual assault media controversy, fanning the flames even further!

See the latest in the ever growing and expanding controversy from Twin Falls, Idaho about the Sudanese and Iraqi boys who were charged with sexually assaulting a little girl in their apartment complex laundry room over three weeks ago.
We would not be talking about this now if vigilant Idaho citizens hadn’t demanded transparency and action from authorities there.
Frankly, if authorities had been forthcoming in the first place, the so-called rumors would not have gotten legs.
Here is Leo Hohmann with the latest news at World Net Daily (I am quoted in the story about Olson’s clear threat to infringe on the free speech rights of individuals and the media!):

The Obama-appointed U.S. attorney for Idaho has taken the highly unusual step of intervening in a local criminal case involving an alleged sexual assault by juvenile Muslim migrants and threatened the community and media with federal prosecution if they “spread false information or inflammatory statements about the perpetrators.”

WND and other news outlets have reported on the case involving three juvenile boys, two from Sudan and one from Iraq, who allegedly sexually assaulted a 5-year-old special-needs girl in the laundry room of the Fawnbrook Apartments in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Here is a small portion of what Eric Holder’s pick for Idaho US Attorney said in her press release of late last week.  This is a very clear attempt to silence anyone anywhere (not just in Twin Falls) who might speak critically about our refugee admissions policy.

“The spread of false information or inflammatory or threatening statements about the perpetrators or the crime itself reduces public safety and may violate federal law. We have seen time and again that the spread of falsehoods about refugees divides our communities. I urge all citizens and residents to allow Mr. Loebs and Chief Kingsbury and their teams to do their jobs.”

You must continue reading to learn about Olson’s pro-refugee, pro-Muslim bias on display in the run-up to the Idaho trial of an Uzbek refugee on terror charges just last year (he was found guilty btw).  She fretted in advance of the trial and held a meeting with refugee and Muslim advocates to be sure that they were ready for an anti-Muslim backlash in the state during the trial.

Why was it so important for everyone on the pro-refugee side to keep this story under wraps?

It is because the resettlement contractors, the businesses looking for cheap labor, the Leftists looking for more Democrat voters, invested small town elected officials, and naive do-gooders have spent years building an image of refugees as angelic people. Some may be wonderful, deserving immigrants, but some definitely are not!  Because they are so invested in the myth (in the story they have created), any case like this that exposes the lie must be hidden from public view.
How many more cases are out there like the one in the Twin Falls laundry room that have been kept sealed from public view, or dropped altogether through out America?  This makes you wonder doesn’t it!
BTW, her future as Idaho’s US Attorney depends on whether Hillary or Trump win in November.  Remember that!

France's Marine Le Pen on the UK vote: "springtime of the people"

And, a “new air” of patriotism.

I’m sure you either stayed up very late or jumped out of bed, like I did, eager to learn the results from the British vote to stay in the European Union or leave, to discover that the “leaves” have won!
 

From left, Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, French far right leader Marine Le Pen and Firebrand Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders attend a press conference on the second day of a 2-day convention of European nationalists, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Jan. 29, 2016. The rally is being billed by organizers as the first congress of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group within the European Parliament, which was formed last year. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
From left, Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, French far right leader Marine Le Pen and Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders as they create EU Freedom group earlier this year. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

 
Now, leaders, of what The Guardian wants you to be sure to understand, the FAR-RIGHT, are over the moon!  Longtime readers of RRW surely don’t need a big dissertation from me to explain that this vote was all about immigration and whether countries can choose for themselves who enters and what sort of nation they will be.
I bet a buck that if German Chancellor Angela Merkel had never “welcomed” hordes of mostly Muslims from Africa and the Middle East to invade Europe and then demanded that other countries in the EU take them in when Germany became overwhelmed, this vote would never have come out the way it did. (It might never have been called!)
I hope this sends a resounding message to the American electorate as we learn that a new wave of thousands upon thousands of border crossers are entering the US right now and Obama is pushing for his own flood of mostly Muslim refugees to change America as he promised he would 8 years ago.
Here is what The Guardian is reporting this morning:

Europe’s far-right parties hailed the UK’s vote to leave the European Union as a victory for their own anti-immigrant and anti-EU stance and vowed to push for similar referendums in their own countries.

France’s Front National (FN) saw it as a clear boost for Marine Le Pen’s presidential bid next year and momentum for the party’s anti-Europe and anti-immigration line.

Le Pen told RTL radio: “Like a lot of French people, I’m very happy that the British people held on and made the right choice. What we thought was impossible yesterday has now become possible.”

[….]

The Dutch far-right and anti-immigration leader Geert Wilders called on Friday for a referendum on the Netherlands’ membership of the European Union.

“I think it’s historic,” he told Dutch radio. “I think it could also have huge consequences for the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. Now it’s our turn. I think the Dutch people must now be given the chance to have their say in a referendum.”

[….]

In Germany, Beatrix von Storch, an MEP for rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland, who was recently expelled from the Tories’ party group in the European Parliament over her “shooting refugees” comments, welcomed the result.

“The 23 June is a historic day. It is Great Britain’s independence day. The people were asked – and they decided. The European Union as a political union has failed.”

[….]

… the leader of Italy’s far-right Northern League party was swift to celebrate the Brexit outcome. “Hurrah for the courage of free citizens! Heart, head and pride beat lies, threats and blackmail. THANKS UK, now it’s our turn,” said Matteo Salvini, whose popularity has increased in recent years on the back of an anti-EU, anti-immigration platform.

More here.   Check it out and see how many times the reporters use the phrase “far-right”….funny!
I watched CNN’s reporting this morning and Christiane Amanpour was interviewing some FAR-LEFT British pol and he called Le Pen a Nazi.  The international NO Borders agitators are squirming and wetting their pants today, name calling is all they have left. Hey, George Soros you lose! (And, Obama that is two losses for you in two days!)

TB controversy continues as refugees and their advocates protest TV station in Fargo, ND

Questions surrounding the admission to the US of refugees with Tuberculosis are growing.
See last night’s latest report from Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.
We knew that refugees with latent TB were being admitted to the US, but we didn’t know that a significant percentage of those with latent TB become active TB cases.  Of course you are paying for their treatment (if they even get it!).
In a typical attempt to silence anyone in the media who dares to question our US refugee policy, a demonstration was mounted on Sunday against Valley News Live.

Del Rae Williams
Moorhead, MN mayor Del Rae Williams supports more refugee resettlement for North Dakota and Minnesota.

Here is a report of what happened!  Local elected officials joined the protesters who were removed by the police from private property. (Emphasis is mine)

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) A small protest that was advertised as a “peaceful demonstration” by a local Somali activist group turned into a confrontation outside the Valley News Live studios on Sunday.

Protestors confronted a Valley News Live photographer as she attempted to shoot video of the event.

Fargo Police removed the protestors from the KVLY property.

Moorhead Mayor Del Rae Williams and Fargo’s Deputy Mayor Mike Williams also showed up for the event. Both support refugee resettlement in the area.

The group demonstrated because they said they were upset over reporter Bradford Arick’s story on the risk of latent tuberculosis in local refugee communities.

Our story presented data and facts from the CDC, State of Minnesota and State of North Dakota on the numbers of latent TB cases in the refugee population.

The State of Minnesota says 22% of refugees in that state carry latent TB while only active TB cases bars someone from entering the country.

The Fargo Forum newspaper criticized Valley News Live’s reporting as blatantly false. Forum Communications owns our competitors WDAY and WDAZ. [These competitors should just do their own investigation and report on the issue rather than encourage the silencing of any other media—ed]

Fargo Deputy Mayor Mike Williams addresses the crowd of protestors outside of the Valley News Live offices in Fargo, North Dakota, on Sunday, May 22, 2016. Nick Wagner / The Forum
Fargo Deputy Mayor Mike Williams (wants more refugees too) addresses the crowd of protestors outside of the Valley News Live offices in Fargo, North Dakota, on Sunday, May 22, 2016.
Nick Wagner / The Forum

The newspaper also interviewed Cass County Health Department’s Dr. John Baird.

Baird told the forum that TB is quote “not a major problem” in the area but later admitted that Cass County Health is treating active TB cases in the community.

[….]

Valley News Live stands by the story and we plan to continue looking into the issues surrounding refugee resettlement in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Good for Valley News Live!  

Don’t let them intimidate people and silence speech!
Here is Valley News Live’s contact information!  Maybe some of you should write to them and tell them to hang in there, that they are doing a great service for America!
Fargo Office 1350 21st Avenue South Fargo, ND 58103 mail@valleynewslive.com
We have written a whole lot about North Dakota over the years, it is one of the top states for refugee resettlement on a per capita basis, go here for our previous posts.  By the way, it is a Lutheran federal contractor running the resettlement program there.
About the photos:  Are these elected officials related or are there just a lot of people with the ‘Williams’ last name out there? Just wondering!