Throughout the decades, there have been many scandals involving the White House and our U.S. Presidents.  Scandals have shook the nation, as stories of mistresses and infidelities plague many administrations.

Below, you will find the files that have been received on those alleged to have been directly involved.

Declassified FBI Files

Appleton, Durie – FBI Release #1 – [307 Pages, 170.4MB]  Appleton, Durie – FBI Release #2 – [15 Pages, 1.2MB] – Mrs. Appleton is known to have been married four times. But she was perhaps best known for rumors of a secret marriage to John F. Kennedy – an allegation she reportedly denied and often refused to publicly discuss. A brief marriage was alleged to have occurred between the two at some point between 1938 and 1947, before Kennedy’s marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier.

Douglas, Helen Gahagan – [475 Pages, 24.7 MB] – Helen Gahagan Douglas (November 25, 1900 – June 28, 1980) was an American actress and politician. She was the third woman and first Democratic woman elected to Congress from California; her election made California one of the first two states (along with Illinois) to elect female members to the House from both parties.  In the 1940s, Gahagan Douglas entered politics. She was elected to the United States House of Representatives from California’s 14th congressional district as a Democrat in 1944, and served three full terms. During this time she openly had a love affair with then Congressman (and afterwards U.S. President) Lyndon B. Johnson. Douglas was mentioned in the song “George Murphy” by satirist Tom Lehrer. The song begins, “Hollywood’s often tried to mix / show business with politics / from Helen Gahagan / to Ronald Reagan …”  (Additional records may exist, which I have requested. I will update this page when that request is processed)

Exner, Judith – [527 Pages, 32.3 MB] – Judith Exner (January 11, 1934 – September 24, 1999) was an American woman who claimed to be the mistress of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Mafia leaders Sam Giancana and John Roselli. She was also known as Judith Campbell Exner.  According to Michael O’Brien of the Washington Monthly, on February 7, 1960, Frank Sinatra and Campbell were in Las Vegas, where Sinatra introduced her to John F. Kennedy, then a senator and presidential candidate. In her 1977 memoir, she said that she became one of JFK’s mistresses for a period of about two years, frequently visiting him in the White House after he was elected president. Her account was supported by phone records and other documentation, although Kennedy staff and supporters attacked her veracity when she published her memoir. A few months later in 1960, Sinatra introduced Campbell to “Sam Flood,” who was actually Sam Giancana, the leading figure in the Chicago Mafia. She also became involved with him and knew his associate John Roselli.

Summersby, Kay – [112 Pages, 14.8MB] – Kay Summersby (23 November 1908 – 20 January 1975) was a member of the British Mechanized Transport Corps during World War II, who served as chauffeur to Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight D. Eisenhower, later as his secretary. They were together a great deal until the war ended, when Eisenhower cut his ties and returned to the United States. It is generally agreed that Summersby and Eisenhower became extremely close during the war. Some later writers suggest there were sexual relations between the two, but a number of the people who knew both of them at the time have denied it, as have most of Eisenhower’s biographers.

Tripp, Linda – [98 Pages, 5MB] – Although not a mistress of any President, Linda Tripp played a prominent role in the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal, and her files are archived here, for reference. Linda Tripp (1949-2020) was a former U.S. government employee who gained notoriety for her role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal that engulfed the Clinton administration in the late 1990s. Tripp, a former White House and Pentagon employee, secretly recorded conversations with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern, discussing her affair with President Bill Clinton. These recordings played a pivotal role in the subsequent investigation and impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. Linda Tripp’s actions and disclosures made her a controversial figure, sparking debates about privacy, ethics, and the intersection of personal and political matters.

The post FBI Files: U.S. Presidential Mistresses first appeared on The Black Vault.

At the request of then Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior David Bernhardt and Members of Congress, we reviewed the actions the U.S. Park Police (USPP) took to disperse protesters in and around Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, on June 1, 2020. Our review focused on events that occurred in and around the park from May 29 through June 3 amid the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. We sought to describe what occurred primarily from an operational perspective, including how and when the USPP, in coordination with its law enforcement partners, developed and executed its plan to clear the park and the USPP’s reasons for dispersing protesters from the area. We also sought to determine whether the warnings the USPP provided to protesters before it executed the plan complied with applicable guidance. We did not review as part of this project individual uses of force by USPP officers; these actions are the subject of separate inquiries or ongoing lawsuits.

Protests began in and around Lafayette Park on May 29, 2020. On May 30, the USPP and U.S. Secret Service established a unified command to coordinate the law enforcement response to the protests. From May 30 to 31, at least 49 USPP officers were injured while policing the protests, and Federal and private property was vandalized.

On the morning of June 1, the Secret Service procured antiscale fencing to establish a more secure perimeter around Lafayette Park that was to be delivered and installed that same day. The USPP, in coordination with the Secret Service, determined that it was necessary to clear protesters from the area in and around the park to enable the contractor’s employees to safely install the fence. The USPP planned to implement the operation as soon as the fencing materials and sufficient law enforcement officers arrived at the park. Six other law enforcement agencies assisted the USPP and the Secret Service in the operation to clear and secure areas near the park.

The operation began at 6:23 p.m. and was completed by 6:50 p.m. Shortly thereafter, at 7:01 p.m., President Trump walked from the White House through Lafayette Park to St. John’s Church. At 7:30 p.m., the contractor began assembling and installing the antiscale fence and completed the work by approximately 12:30 a.m. on June 2.

We found that the USPP had the authority and discretion to clear Lafayette Park and the surrounding areas on June 1. The evidence we obtained did not support a finding that the USPP cleared the park to allow the President to survey the damage and walk to St. John’s Church. Instead, the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow the contractor to safely install the antiscale fencing in response to destruction of property and injury to officers occurring on May 30 and 31. Further, the evidence showed that the USPP did not know about the President’s potential movement until mid- to late afternoon on June 1—hours after it had begun developing its operational plan and the fencing contractor had arrived in the park.

We also found that although the USPP used a sound-amplifying long-range acoustic device to issue three dispersal warnings to the crowd on June 1, not everyone could hear the warnings. Furthermore, we found that the USPP does not have a detailed dispersal warning policy applicable to operations like the one that occurred on June 1 and that this may have led to the ineffective warnings issued to the crowd that day.

Finally, we found that the USPP and the Secret Service did not use a shared radio channel to communicate, that the USPP primarily conveyed information orally to assisting law enforcement entities, that an assisting law enforcement entity arrived late and may not have received a full briefing on the rules of engagement, and that several law enforcement officers could not clearly hear the incident commander’s dispersal warnings. These weaknesses in communication and coordination may have contributed to confusion during the operation and the use of tactics that appeared inconsistent with the incident commander’s operational plan.

Given the lack of a specific policy, we recommend that the USPP develop a detailed policy for protests and other events of the type that occurred on June 1 and improve its field communication procedures to better manage multiagency operations.

Document Archive

Review of U.S. Park Police Actions at Lafayette Park on June 1, 2020 – Published: June 8, 2021 [43 Pages, 5.3MB]

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The post Review of U.S. Park Police Actions at Lafayette Park on June 1, 2020 – Published: June 8, 2021 first appeared on The Black Vault.

In November 1969, Stanley R. Resor, Secretary of the Army, and General William C. Westmoreland, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, directed Lieutenant General William R. Peers, U.S. Army, to “explore the nature and scope of the original Army investigations of what occurred on 16 March 1968 in Son My Village, Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam.” This collection of materials, commonly known as the “Peers Inquiry,” which provides the results of General Peers’ investigation of the “My Lai incident”— later also known as the “My Lai massacre”— is divided into four volumes: the report, witness testimonies, exhibit materials, and CID [U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command] statements.

The following documents were obtained from the Library of Congress.

Document Archive

Volumes 1-5 Complete .zip Download (All files below, searchable, are included) [862MB]

Volume I – The Report of the Investigation [395 Pages, 25.6MB] – Volume I of the Peers Inquiry contains the narrative report of the investigation. The report, which is divided into twelve chapters and two annexes, includes the 29 March 1969 letter from Ronald L. Ridenhour reporting the incident to the Secretary of Defense, the mission statement of the Inquiry, findings and recommendations, maps, an extensive table of contents, and a 26-page glossary.

Volume II – Testimony [18,163 Pages, 633MB] – Volume II of the Peers Inquiry, entitled “Testimony,” is further subdivided into a series of “books,” and is comprised of approximately 20,000 pages of testimony and summaries of testimony by over 350 witnesses.

Volume III – Exhibits [2,419 Pages, 208MB] – Volume III of the Peers Inquiry, entitled “Exhibits,” is further subdivided into a series of seven “books” containing all the supporting documents that were officially entered into the inquiry record. These documents include directives, statements, overlays and sketches, administrative memoranda, aerial maps and photographs, and operational and after-action reports. A small number of pages in the PDF version of the “Exhibits” series are illegible due to the poor quality of the original documents.

Volume IV – CID Statements [543 Pages, 32MB] – Volume IV of the Peers Inquiry contains CID statements received prior to the submission of this report. Only those considered to be relevant to this inquiry have been included. Also considered were the CID statements summarizing the interviews of Vietnamese civilians and military personnel. Although the Vietnamese testimony was of some value to this investigation, the inclusion of their statements in the report was not considered essential. The names of these Vietnamese and other non-Vietnamese personnel interviewed by the CID have been included.

The post The Peers Inquiry Report: Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident first appeared on The Black Vault.

On May 17, 2017, Robert S. Mueller III was appointed by acting Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to serve as Special Counsel. Special Counsel Mueller’s job was to oversee the previously-confirmed FBI investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters. After nearly two years, the below is the report generated by Mueller’s investigation, and it is commonly referred to as, “The Mueller Report.”  This was released on April 18, 2019. There are color coded “redactions” with explanations on why the material is redacted.

The document, as released by the Department of Justice, is available below, unedited. The only change is the addition of “The Black Vault” header, which accompanies every .pdf file downloaded from this website. I also included a SEARCHABLE .pdf, which was created by myself. As with most government document drops, they release it without a search capability. You can find that version below, as well, as created by The Black Vault. Other than a searchable conversion (OCR process), there are no changes to the document, accept the addition of the header.

Have comments? Post them below, or join The Black Vault Facebook group.

Document Archive

Note: These are large files, and heavily being downloaded. I recommend you right click, and select SAVE AS instead of opening in your browser.

Mirror #1: The Black Vault’s Main Dedicated Server (Secure)

The Mueller Report, Released April 18, 2019 – Unedited, original (not-searchable), as released by the DOJ – [448 Pages, 145.6MB]

The Mueller Report, Released April 18, 2019 – Unedited, but converted to a SEARCHABLE pdf by The Black Vault – [448 Pages, 90.6MB]

Problems with the above? You can also use:

Mirror #2: The Black Vault’s Backup Dedicated Server (Secure)

The Mueller Report, Released April 18, 2019 – Unedited, original (not-searchable), as released by the DOJ – [448 Pages, 145.6MB]

The Mueller Report, Released April 18, 2019 – Unedited, but converted to a SEARCHABLE pdf by The Black Vault – [448 Pages, 90.6MB]

See Also

• Summary of the Final Report of the Special Counsel into Donald Trump, Russia, and Collusion (aka “The Mueller Report”) by Attorney General William Barr, March 24, 2019

The post The Mueller Report, Released April 18, 2019 – Special Counsel Investigation into Donald Trump, Russia, and Collusion first appeared on The Black Vault.

On August 9, 2016, at a rally in Wilmington, N.C., Donald Trump said the following while campaigning to become President of the United States:

“So here, I just wrote this down today. Hillary wants to raise taxes — it’s a comparison. I want to lower them. Hillary wants to expand regulations, which she does bigly. Can you believe that? I will reduce them very, very substantially, could be as much as 70 to 75 percent. Hillary wants to shut down energy production. I want to expand it. Lower electric bills, folks! Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick –if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day, if — if — Hillary gets to put her judges in.”

Immediately, the general public and media were outraged at the possible implication that Trump just threatened or incited violence against Hillary Clinton.

On September 26, 2016, I filed a FOIA request to the United States Secret Service for all records pertaining to this. I asked for:

“…any investigation, report, letter(s), memo(s), email(s), etc. that may pertain to this comment and possibly perceived threat.

I ask that you also include any correspondence between any member of the Trump presidential campaign, attorneys for Mr. Trump, and any communication to/from Donald Trump himself, that pertain to these comments.”

The following are the records received.

Document Archive

United States Secret Service

 Donald Trump’s ‘Second Amendment people’ comment Documents, Released by Secret Service September 20, 2017 [137 Pages, 34.8MB]

After a FOIA Appeal of the above release, I was able to get the Secret Service to release the additional documents:

 Donald Trump’s ‘Second Amendment people’ comment Documents, Released by Secret Service November 8, 2017 [103 Pages, 9.3MB]

 Letter from the Committee of Homeland Security, Bennie G. Thompson, Reporting Donald Trump to the Secret Service [5 Pages, 1.3MB]

The post Donald Trump’s ‘Second Amendment people’ comment first appeared on The Black Vault.

The aim on Operation Flicker was to shut down child pornography on the internet, but in the process, they found that many government and military personnel were viewing and downloading child pornography on their work computers.  This operation has been kept fairly quiet, for obvious reasons.

The following is a write-up by Voice of America on the government investigation known as “Operation Flicker.”

Federal investigators have identified members of the U.S. military and defense contractors who allegedly bought and downloaded child pornography, at times on government computers.  Some of the individuals have high-level security clearances.

The Pentagon released 94 pages of documents related to investigations that date back to 2002. Many names and details are blacked out, but the facts that remain are disturbing.

A contractor with top secret clearance, tasked with providing support to the National Security Agency, was charged with possessing child pornography.  Investigators say he tampered with his work computer after agents searched his home.  He fled the country and is believed to be in Libya.  The case is closed until he is arrested and extradited.

A National Reconnaissance Office contract employee acknowledged he regularly viewed sexually explicit images of children.  

One sailor admitted to accessing child pornography while stationed on the Naval destroyer U.S.S. Mason.  He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

The findings come from a wider investigation conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  That probe, dubbed Operation Flicker, identified more than 5,000 individuals who subscribed to child pornography websites.   An assistant U.S. attorney general requested that the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, under the auspices of the Pentagon’s Inspector General, assist in identifying Pentagon-affiliated individuals.

The above article was written when only the DCIS investigation was released, which is found below. Since then, I have managed to get quite a few more pages declassified, which can also be downloaded here:

Declassified Documents

 Report of Investigation, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, 20 November 2009 [94 Pages, 4.9MB]

 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Documents, Released July 15, 2016 [932 Pages, 182.5MB]

 Department of Defense / Office of Inspector General [2 Pages, 0.2MB] – As of July of 2015, the DOD/IG is denying all records associated with this request, and will not release them.

The Black Vault currently has other open FOIA requests, and the responses will be posted, when available.

The post Operation Flicker – Child Pornography Found At High Levels of Government first appeared on The Black Vault.

There is a saying in America, and that is, “Innocent Until Proven Guilty.” So, I will let the courts decide, if the police officer who shot Alton Sterling, was justified to do so. And you should too.

But, aside from the debate, it is fascinating to watch social media, and many mainstream media outlets, ignoring many of the facts behind who Alton Sterling truly was. Of course, it is heartbreaking to watch tears flow from family members, but the story should not stop there when learning the facts. Court documents and arrest records show, Mr. Sterling was anything but an “innocent” man, just trying to sell some CD’s outside a liquor store.

Police, court and arrest documents show Mr. Sterling had been a member of the Bloods gang, had a list of offenses including battery, assault, drugs and weapons charges, and he owed at least $25,000 in child support.

He was also a registered pedophile, since he impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 20 years of age.

Didn’t hear that on the news? Wasn’t in the meme bashing cops? Yeah, I didn’t hear about that either. But, the documents prove it.

Although a past “rap sheet” does not automatically qualify you for “death by cop,” it does offer an inside look at the type of person Mr. Sterling was. A cell phone video, which starts well after the altercation between police officers and Mr. Sterling began, does NOT tell the whole story.

I invite you to do some research, and learn the difference between what Mr. Sterling’s past truly says vs. what the mainstream media and many on social media want you to believe.

I support our men and women in blue – and these types of stories, along with the erroneous accusations immediately plaguing our police officers, that lack actual substance and truth, is getting tiresome. If the police officer did something wrong, it sounds like an investigation will find out, and he will face charges. There are bad police officers, just like there are bad priests, rabbis, teachers, moms, uncles, etc. But to brand the officer guilty without knowing even 1% of the facts, is just downright wrong by the public, and part of the problem that is all but becoming an epidemic in today’s society.

Take a look:

Alton Sterling’s Partial “Rap Sheet”

9/09/96 – Aggravated battery
10/31/97 – 2nd degree battery
1/06/98 – Simple battery
5/04/00 – Public intimidation
9/20/00 – Carnal knowledge of a juvenile
9/04/01 – Domestic violence
5/24/05 – Burglary of an inhabited dwelling place
7/11/05 – Receiving stolen things
9/12/05 – Burglary of inhabited dwelling place
3/17/06 – Simple criminal damage to property, simple robbery, simple theft, drug possession, misrepresentation during booking, simple battery, aggravated battery
4/12/06 – Aggravated battery, simple criminal damage to property, disturbing the peace, unauthorized entry
4/04/08 – Domestic abuse battery
6/03/09 – Resisting an officer, drug possession, receiving stolen things, possession of stolen firearm, illegal carrying of a weapon with CDs, sound reproduct without consent
10/12/09 – Illegal carrying of weapon, marijuana possession
8/13/15 – Failure to register as a sex offender
4/08/16 – Failure to register as a sex offender
6/14/16 – Ecstacy and marijuana possession

Court Documents / Arrest Records of Alton Sterling

 Download entire court documents / arrest records [46 Pages, 10.1MB]

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/controversies/317643395-AS-Court-Documents.pdf

Special Thanks

Special thanks to Col. Allen B. West

The post Alton Sterling’s “Rap Sheet”, Crime History and Previous Charges first appeared on The Black Vault.