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Exclusive: Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016 US election - documents
Reuters - 19 minutes ago
U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies [en.riss.ru/], after the election. The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials ...
Putin-Linked Think Tank Drew Up Plan to Sway 2016 U.S. Election
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The White House’s game on Russia has now been fully exposed
A Putin linked think tank drew up plan to swing 2016 election in Donald Trump's favour US officials claim.
The alleged plan was also aimed at undermining voters' faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former US officials told Reuters.
They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what US intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the November 8 election.
US intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, after the election.
The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials appointed by Putin's office.
The first Russian institute document was a strategy paper written last June that circulated at the highest levels of the Russian government but was not addressed to any specific individuals.
It recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage US voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the seven officials said.
A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election.
For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the US electoral system's legitimacy and damage Clinton's reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said.
The current and former US officials spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the Russian documents' classified status.
They declined to discuss how the United States obtained them. U.S. intelligence agencies also declined to comment on them. Putin has denied interfering in the U.S. election.
Putin's spokesman and the Russian institute did not respond to requests for comment.
The documents were central to the Obama administration's conclusion that Russia mounted a fake news campaign and launched cyber attacks against Democratic Party groups and Clinton's campaign, the current and former officials said.
"Putin had the objective in mind all along, and he asked the institute to draw him a road map," said one of the sources, a former senior US intelligence official.
Trump has said Russia's activities had no impact on the outcome of the race.
Ongoing congressional and FBI investigations into Russian interference have so far produced no public evidence that Trump associates colluded with the Russian effort to change the outcome of the election.
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Four of the officials said the approach outlined in the June strategy paper was a broadening of an effort the Putin administration launched in March 2016.
That month the Kremlin instructed state-backed media outlets, including international platforms Russia Today and Sputnik news agency, to start producing positive reports on Trump's quest for the US presidency, the officials said.
Russia Today did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Sputnik dismissed the assertions by the USofficials that it participated in a Kremlin campaign as an "absolute pack of lies".
"And by the way, it's not the first pack of lies we're hearing from 'sources in US official circles'," the spokesperson said in an email.
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MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies considers questions about it assisting the Kremlin in influencing the US presidential election to be a bad joke, the institute’s Public Relations Center told TASS.
"Unfortunately, the number of slanderous remarks against Russia has been growing recently but those making such remarks wrongly perceive the world," the center added expressing hope that the Western media asking to comment on the ways Russia influenced the US election "were only joking."
The Institute’s press service recommended to "forward such questions to Hillary Clinton’s election team." "She claims to know who prevented her from becoming the next US president, so she should also know if the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies ever considered the ways to influence the US presidential election," the press service added.
The Institute for Strategic Studies is a big research center and a think-tank founded by the Russian president.
It provides information, expert assessments and recommendations concerning national security and relations with other countries to the Russian Presidential Administration, Federal Assembly (parliament), Security Council, the country’s government, ministries and various state agencies. Besides, the Institute assesses the current political, economic and social trends on the global and regional level, studies the possible ways to ensure strategic stability in the changing political situation, analyzes strategic risks and methods to resolve crises which pose danger to the global and regional stability. It also pays much attention to issues related to the fight against terrorism.
Former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, who is also former director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, currently heads the Institute.
Russian think tank dismisses questions about Kremlin's role in US elections
TASS - 3 hours ago
The Institute's press service recommended to "forward such questions to Hillary Clinton's election team." "She claims to know who prevented her from becoming the next US president, so she should also know if the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies ...
Exclusive: Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016 US election - documents
Reuters - 19 minutes ago
U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies [en.riss.ru/], after the election. The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials ...
Russian analysts expect no breakthrough in Moscow-Washington relations
TASS - 6 hours ago
Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts Dmitry Yegorchenkov agreed that no early breakthroughs were possible in Russian-US relations. "Russia and the United States have not yet brought their strategic stances closed ...
'Putin linked think tank drew up plan to swing 2016 election in Donald Trump's favour' US officials claim
Mirror.co.uk - 17 minutes ago
... what US intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the November 8 election. US intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic ...
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Russian think tank dismisses questions about Kremlin's role in US ...
TASS-3 hours ago
MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/. The Russian Institute for Strategic Studies considers questions about it assisting the Kremlin in influencing the US ...
Referendum Controversy: Why Turkey's Weakness Not in the ...
Sputnik International-Apr 18, 2017
For her part, Elena Suponina, an expert at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, said that after obtaining more powers, Turkish President ...
[Investigation] Sex and lies: Russia's EU news
EUobserver-Apr 18, 2017
News of Lisa, a 13-year old girl of Russian origin in Germany who was .... an expert at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, told a Russian ...
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U.S. President Donald Trump has directed the National Security Council to review the international agreement on Iran's nuclear program and evaluate whether suspending sanctions “is vital to the national security interests of the United States.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed the review in a letter Tuesday to House Speaker Paul Ryan.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday the administration is conducting a 90-day review of the deal.
"The president is directing the National Security Council to lead an interagency review of the plan and then evaluate whether suspensions, sanctions related to Iran … are in the vital interest of our National Security," he said.
Tillerson said that as of Tuesday, Iran is complying with its responsibilities under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which it agreed to in 2015 after negotiations with the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.
“Notwithstanding, Iran remains a leading state sponsor of terror through many platforms and methods,” Tillerson wrote.
The JCPOA focused on Iran's nuclear program and allegations that it was working to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian government repeatedly denied those accusations.
Low-level uranium enrichment allowed
The United Nations as well as individual nations, including the United States, imposed economic sanctions on Iran in an effort to try to get the country to abandon any nuclear arms ambitions. Those sanctions badly hurt the Iranian economy, particularly limiting its ability to sell oil on the global market, and led to nearly two years of hard-fought negotiations before the two sides reached an agreement.
In exchange for relief from the sanctions that targeted its nuclear activity, Iran agreed to take a number of steps, including affirming that it will under no circumstances “seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons.”
Iran is also allowed to conduct only low-level uranium enrichment, and only so much of it, while also shipping out all of its spent nuclear fuel, turning higher-enriched uranium into reactor fuel, and converting a pair of nuclear sites into facilities used for peaceful research.
A Russian-made S-200 air defense system is displayed during a parade marking National Army Day, just outside Tehran, Iran, April 18, 2017.
Process set to resolve disputes
The International Atomic Energy Agency is in charge of monitoring the implementation of the agreement, and a joint commission set up between Iran and the group of six world powers has been established to address any issues that come up.
The JCPOA stipulates that if either side believes the other is violating the agreement, they can launch a dispute resolution process, the final step of which is a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to continue lifting the sanctions.
A U.S. move to reimpose sanctions could cause Iran to pull out of the deal.
“Iran has stated that if sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part,” the agreement says.
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· · ·
The highest-ranking officer convicted so far in a colossal Navy corruption scandal began accepting a cornucopia of gifts and prostitutes from an Asian defense contractor 20 years ago and later suffered a mental breakdown when he learned authorities were making arrests in the case, new court documents allege.
Robert J. Gilbeau became the first active-duty Navy admiral ever to be convicted of a felony when he pleaded guilty last year to lying to federal investigators. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month and likely faces up to 18 months in prison.
In a plea deal last June, Gilbeau admitted to making false statements about his contacts with Leonard Glenn Francis, also known as “Fat Leonard,” a crooked defense contractor from Singapore who has pleaded guilty to bribing scores of Navy officials. At the time, Gilbeau and federal authorities revealed little about the nature and extent of his relationship with Francis.
But in documents filed last week in federal court in San Diego, prosecutors allege that Gilbeau, 56, was corrupted in 1997 when he and another Navy officer met Francis during a port visit to the Indonesian island of Bali and succumbed to the contractor’s offer of free hotel rooms, lavish dinners and paid sex.
The relationship continued on a sporadic basis until 2012, according to prosecutors, who said Francis treated Gilbeau to numerous evenings at karaoke bars and luxury restaurants in Singapore, often capped off by assignations with prostitutes.
Prosecutors allege that Gilbeau also pocketed $40,000 in cash bribes from Francis as part of a kickback scheme to overcharge the Navy for pumping wastewater from its ships.
The revelations show that the origins and scope of the scandal — already the biggest in the Navy history — stretch back seven years earlier than previously known. In cases against two dozen other defendants, prosecutors have focused on wrongdoing that began in 2004 and lasted until Francis’s arrest in 2013.
Authorities said last year that more than 200 people, including 30 admirals, were under investigation for potential crimes or ethical violations. The new evidence suggests that the roster of suspects has expanded and raises questions about how far into the past authorities will reach to hold people accountable.
Francis, who is being held in San Diego while he awaits sentencing, has admitted to gouging the Navy out of $35 million to resupply and refuel its ships at ports across Asia. Investigators suspect the total may have been far greater. His firm, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, did business with the Navy for a quarter century.
In court documents, Gilbeau and his attorneys said some of his actions were influenced by injuries he sustained during a mortar attack in Baghdad in 2007.
The explosion left him with shrapnel in his knee, back trauma, loss of hearing in one ear and traumatic brain injury. He was awarded the Purple Heart. In court papers, Gilbeau’s doctors said he developed severe depression and post-traumatic stress that grew worse over time.
Prosecutors suggested that Gilbeau is exaggerating his condition. They said he only began exhibiting overt symptoms of mental illness in 2013 — right after news spread that Francis and several Navy officials had been arrested on corruption charges.
At the time, Gilbeau held a key command job in Afghanistan overseeing the logistical withdrawal of U.S. troops. When Francis’s arrest became public, he began acting irrationally, showed signs of paranoia and became suicidal, according to his medical records filed by his attorneys.
Prosecutors said he suddenly made “ponderous, unsolicited remarks regarding Francis, dinners, and women” to colleagues in the war zone and asked for help in erasing data from his electronic devices. Military officials seized his sidearm and evacuated him to a hospital in Germany for observation.
While Gilbeau’s doctors said his behavior could be traced to the injuries he had sustained in Iraq six years earlier, prosecutors argued that it stemmed from his “regret over being caught.”
Gilbeau has been receiving intensive psychiatric treatment ever since, according to medical records filed by his attorneys.
To ease his anxiety, doctors prescribed a therapy dog, a fluffy white Cavachon crossbreed named Bella. The 16-pound pooch, sporting a tiny Navy sweater, has accompanied Gilbeau into the courtroom for hearings.
In a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino, who will sentence him next month, Gilbeau called himself “a broken and ashamed man” and said he was “deeply sorry” for making false statements to investigators. He did not address the allegations that he took bribes or prostitutes.
“I always thought I was on the right side of the law and drove the best deals for our Navy and the Department of Defense,” he wrote. “I apologize to the Navy, to my family and to this nation for the fact that my actions caused great damage to the Navy’s reputation.”
Under terms of his plea deal, Gilbeau has agreed to pay $150,000 in fines and restitution. Prosecutors are pressing for an 18-month prison sentence.
In court papers, Gilbeau’s lawyers say he should be spared any time behind bars. His lead attorney, David Benowitz, declined to comment.
The Navy allowed Gilbeau to retire in October after 33 years of service, but reduced him in rank from rear admiral to captain. It also discharged him under “less than honorable” conditions.
He is now receiving a military pension of about $111,000 a year. But in court papers, his attorneys argued that the demotion has cost him dearly. If he had been allowed to retain the rank of a one-star admiral, he would be entitled to an extra $692,000 in pension payments over 40 years.
Gilbeau also forfeited up to $2.4 million in disability benefits that the Department of Veterans Affairs would have had to pay him over the next four decades, according to his attorneys. His less-than-honorable discharge from the Navy rendered him ineligible.
According to court papers filed by prosecutors, Gilbeau was a supply officer assigned to the USS Boxer, a brand-new amphibious assault ship, when he met Francis in 1997. The documents state that Francis “plied Gilbeau and another U.S. Navy Officer with hotel rooms, dinners and the services of prostitutes” during a multi-day port visit to Bali.
The trio met again six years later when Gilbeau and his friend were serving on the USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier. During a port call to Singapore in September 2003, Francis took Gilbeau and the other officer out to a nightclub with prostitutes, according to prosecutors.
Francis planned to follow the Nimitz to its next stop in Hong Kong, where he promised to entertain the two officers again. “Looking forward to some major engagement in HK bachelors pad,” he wrote them in an email.
Instead, after a last-minute schedule change, the Nimitz returned to Singapore. In an email to Francis, Gilbeau asked if the contractor could arrange to take the two officers back to the same nightclub. His friend, he explained, wanted to see a “handball player” they had met during their last time in Singapore — a woman whom prosecutors described as “a particularly memorable prostitute.”
Francis enthusiastically agreed. “The Kahuna above has heard our prayers, will be standin by to Welcome you all back home to Papa Leonard soon,” he emailed. “The handball player is waiting eagerly to play.”
During the same 2003 port visit, prosecutors allege, Francis and Gilbeau conspired to overcharge the Navy for services provided to the Nimitz. Invoices show that Francis’s firm billed the Navy for pumping about 450,000 gallons of sewage and wastewater from the Nimitz over four days — about triple the usual amount.
Prosecutors contend that in exchange for approving the invoices, Gilbeau accepted about $40,000 in cash kickbacks from Francis. (Gilbeau has previously denied receiving money from the contractor.)
Their relationship resumed in 2005 when Gilbeau returned to Singapore to help coordinate the Navy’s tsunami relief efforts in the region.
Prosecutors allege that Gilbeau, who dubbed himself “Tsunami Bob,” went to dinner with Francis and partied with him at karaoke bars on three or four occasions. In addition, they allege that Francis, who called Gilbeau “Crazy Bob” or “Casanova,” paid for him to stay at the Singapore Marriott and other hotels several times.
Francis provided prostitutes to dozens of Navy officials over the years, and kept meticulous notes about the sailors’ physical desires so he could cater to their preferences, according to court records and interviews with people familiar with his methods.
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In Gilbeau’s case, the defense contractor knew that the admiral particularly liked to have sex with Vietnamese women — two at a time — so he supplied him with pairs of prostitutes on at least three occasions, according to prosecutors.
For example, in December 2010, Francis took Gilbeau out for dinner, drinks and karaoke in Singapore — and then paid for him to spend the night in a hotel suite with two prostitutes, prosecutors allege.
The next day, the defense contractor emailed the admiral to ask how the evening had gone.
“Very nice,” Gilbeau replied.
Tony Perry in San Diego contributed to this report.
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· · · · · · · · ·
Vice President Pence warned North Korea not to test President Trump during a press conference in South Korea on April 17, citing "the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan," as examples. (The Washington Post)
Vice President Pence warned North Korea not to test President Trump during a press conference in South Korea on April 17, citing "the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan,” as examples. Vice President Pence warned North Korea not to test President Trump's "resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States," while in South Korea. (The Washington Post)
TOKYO – When Vice President Pence spoke at the Korean demilitarized zone on Monday, he said that the United States sought to solve the North Korean crisis “through peaceable means and negotiations,” after increasing pressure on the Pyongyang regime. But in an interview with me on Wednesday afternoon, he adopted a harder line: The Trump administration, he said, demands that North Korea abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs without any promise of direct negotiations with the United States.
This change in message, if translated into a firm policy of not negotiating with North Korea, could have huge implications. If the United States is unwilling to negotiate with North Korea, and the regime is unwilling to abandon its nuclear and missile programs based on pressure alone, the prospect of the United States using military action to prevent North Korea from developing the capability to strike the continental United States becomes more likely. Also, the Trump administration could open a gap with its key allies as well as China, who all anticipate an eventual return to something akin to the previous multilateral negotiations with Pyongyang.
“I think the path of negotiations with North Korea has been a colossal failure now for more than 25 years,” Pence told me. “We believe that through discussions and negotiations among nations apart from North Korea that we may well be able to bring the kind of economic and diplomatic pressure that would result in North Korea finally abandoning its nuclear ambitions and its ballistic missile program.”
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He pointed to North Korea’s violations of the 1994 Agreed Framework negotiated by the Clinton administration and the violations of the 2005 denuclearization agreement negotiated by the administration of George W. Bush.
“All of those negotiations and discussions failed, miserably,” Pence said. “The time has come for us to take a fresh approach. And the approach President Trump has taken is not engagement with North Korea but renewed and more vigorous engagement with North Korea’s principle economic partner [China].”
Pence acknowledged that if North Korea doesn’t abandon its programs on its own, and the United States is unwilling to negotiate with the regime, military action against the regime may be necessary.
“When the president says all options are on the table, all options are on the table,” said Pence. “We’re trying to make it very clear to people in this part of the world that we are going to achieve the end of a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula — one way or the other.”
Whether Pence’s hardened message will persist as U.S. policy in the long run remains to be seen. In several interviews and speeches this week, Pence has described the Trump administration’s North Korea strategy as a clean break from the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic patience.” In fact, there are some similarities. Like Trump, Obama sought Chinese help to place pressure on North Korea to make concessions.
But the new strategy Pence described does break from Obama’s in two key respects. First, the Trump administration is not seeking concessions as a means to return to negotiations, as Obama did. Per Pence’s explanation, the new administration wants North Korea to give up its programs in their entirety without direct talks of any kind.
Also, according to Pence, Trump is directly engaging the Chinese leadership on the issue in a manner Obama never did, and there is some evidence that the Chinese government is responding.
This new stance Pence described, if it becomes formal U.S. government policy, not only breaks from decades of Washington orthodoxy and conventional wisdom; it also may place the United States in a different position than its key Asian allies.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, sitting next to Pence at his official residence Tuesday, said that while Tokyo agrees new pressure on North Korea is needed and that there should not be dialogue for dialogue’s sake, “Japan also places paramount importance on the need to seek a diplomatic effort to achieve a peaceful resolution to the crisis.”
South Korean leaders expressed strong support for Pence’s approach in meetings this week in Seoul. But the South Korean people are choosing a new president next month and there’s a high likelihood the incoming government in Seoul will seek engagement and diplomacy with Pyongyang that would run counter to the strategy Pence is articulating.
There has been much discussion in Washington about Pence’s short visit to the demilitarized zone, where he stood outside the Freedom House on the South Korean side of the border and stared into North Korea. Pence wasn’t supposed to walk outside, according to the schedule, but he decided in the moment he wanted to send a message directly to the North Koreans.
“I thought it was important that we went outside,” he said. “I thought it was important that people on the other side of the DMZ see our resolve in my face.”
I asked the vice president what he was thinking at that moment. Pence paused, collected his thoughts and then told me the story of when he was a 19-year-old traveler in Germany in 1978. He visited Checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall and looked across to communist East Germany to see a country that had never recovered from the devastation of war, full of people who couldn’t enjoy basic rights.
“I’d always believed I’d walked from freedom into tyranny. And I hadn’t felt that way until I stood outside the Freedom House,” he said. “Just looking across [into North Korea], hearing the propaganda blaring, seeing the guards in the towers, it gave me the same feeling I had in 1978.”
I asked, if the United States successfully helped liberate East Germany from the oppression of communism then, couldn’t or shouldn’t the United States help liberate North Korea now?
Pence replied: “Well, I think that’s a discussion for another time.”
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· · · · ·
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said today that the Committee’s investigation of Russian election interference and possible Trump campaign collusion with it is “back on track” after its controversial chairman, California Republican Devin Nunes, recused himself from the probe. Schiff’s remarks are a hopeful sign that the Committee will finally be able to constructively take on its oversight role.
But there are now new reasons to worry that, if anything, Republicans are even more determined to make sure it doesn’t turn up anything at all. That’s troubling, because Republicans may be successful at subverting the possibility of getting to the bottom of the scandal — which they are now clearly trying to do, by creating a distraction aimed at diverting public attention away from story and instead towards conspiracy theories involving the Obama administration.
Ryan Lizza has a new report in the New Yorker that reveals fresh details about the GOP game plan. The aim is to cast the Russia investigation as another Benghazi — by turning former National Security Advisor Susan Rice into the villain of the story, and fixing the focus of the hearings on her.
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That bringing Rice into the investigation is still being contemplated is further evidence of the bad faith of the White House’s approach to this whole tale. All of Trump’s efforts to smear his predecessor, including accusing former President Obama of ordering surveillance of Trump Tower, and claiming that Rice had committed a crime, have been proven false — something Trump and his allies refuse to even acknowledge.
Trump instigated this maelstrom as a result of his March 4 tweet in which he falsely claimed that former president Obama had his Trump Tower “wires tapped.” But rather than retract his baseless tweet, Trump and his allies latched onto it, spinning implausible theories in an effort to drum up even a sliver of evidence for it after the fact. And it’s even worse than what has until know been publicly known: according to Lizza’s reporting, the White House “put out an all-points bulletin” to “find something that justifies the President’s crazy tweet about surveillance at Trump Tower.”
What followed was a sequence of events in which Nunes appeared to collaborate with the White House to review cherry-picked classified intelligence and leak it to the media to craft a false narrative that the Obama administration had somehow surveilled the Trump team. After that claim was confirmed to be false by intelligence officials, the White House moved on to the Rice deflection: arguing that Rice, as Obama’s National Security Advisor, had reviewed the intercepts of phone calls between Russian government officials and requested that the identities of the Americans subject to what is known as “incidental collection” be “unmasked.”
Trump himself even joined the fray, asserting — without any evidence — that Rice had committed a crime. But this, again, has been proven false. As CNN reported last week, both Democrats and Republicans who reviewed the relevant classified documents at the National Security Agency headquarters agreed that they contained no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama administration officials, including Rice. Intelligence sources emphasized to CNN that Rice’s requests were “normal and appropriate” and there was nothing in the documents substantiating Trump’s baseless charge that Rice done anything wrong, much less committed a crime.
Nunes’ clumsy handling of the affair, of course, is what led to his recusal from the Committee’s Russia investigation. But that hasn’t apparently diminished Republican interest in keeping Rice front and center. Lizza reports: “Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are still preparing to focus on Obama’s national-security team, rather than on Vladimir Putin’s.” Rice, he notes, is the first person on their witness list.
Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican who is stepping into Nunes’ role as chair for the Russia investigation, has pledged to stay focused on the subject of the investigation — Russian meddling in the election and any Trump campaign collusion with that effort. But his past statements are concerning. At the Committee’s first open hearing on the matter last month, at which FBI Director James Comey confirmed that the FBI is investigating Russian election interference and collusion with the Trump campaign, Conaway expressed doubts about whether the Russian interference was intended to help Trump, despite the fact that the intelligence community has determined that this is the case.
One thing to watch for now is the role the conservative media — allied with Trump — will likely play in shifting the focus to Rice. Primed by another spurious, politicized GOP investigation involving Rice (Benghazi), conservative pundits are eager to portray Rice as a devious figure in this new narrative. For example, Sharyl Attkisson of the Sinclair Broadcast Group prefaced a segment this week with this teaser:
Hearings are being planned to find out more about whether Obama political officials obtained intelligence to use against Trump associates. News reports recently alleged President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice asked to see names of U.S. citizens captured incidentally in surveillance, names normally strictly masked for privacy reasons.
That cued up Attkisson’s interview of South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, who pronounced himself “uncomfortable” with what Rice had done. He pledged there would be a Senate hearing at which he would ask intelligence community officials whether Rice had asked for any “unmasking” — even though, as noted above, a bipartisan group from the House determined that this was in the ordinary course of Rice’s job.
It’s reassuring that a bipartisan group of House members has acknowledged they reviewed the NSA materials and concluded that Rice had done nothing wrong. But it now looks as if the House Intelligence Committee will try to embroil Rice in the Russia hearings, anyway. If so, it will show just how far the Committee’s Republicans are willing to go to prop up Trump’s lies — and to distract from efforts to get to the bottom of Russian meddling, as well as any possible Trump campaign collusion with it.
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BOSTON Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez hanged himself on Wednesday in a prison cell where he was serving a life sentence for murder, prison officials said, and his family called for an immediate investigation into the circumstances.
The body of the 27-year-old former athlete was found hanging from a bed sheet at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts. Hernandez was serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of an acquaintance but on Friday had been found not guilty of killing two other people.
State police were investigating the circumstances of the death of the former rising star in the National Football League, and a coroner was performing an autopsy on Wednesday.
"There were no conversations or correspondence from Aaron to his family or legal team that would have indicated anything like this was possible," said lawyer Jose Baez, who successfully defended Hernandez in the double-murder trial.
"Aaron was looking forward to an opportunity for a second chance to prove his innocence" in an appeal of the 2013 verdict, Baez said.
The attorney called on authorities to "conduct a transparent and thorough investigation" and promised his own examination of the death.
REUTERS/Brian Snyder
A prison spokesman told the Boston Globe that Hernandez had not been on a suicide watch and did not indicate that he intended to harm himself. The spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
"Mr. Hernandez hanged himself utilizing a bed sheet that he attached to his cell window," the state corrections commission said in a statement. "Mr. Hernandez also attempted to block his door from the inside by jamming the door with various items."
Hernandez's former agent, Brian Murphy, said on Twitter that he did not believe the athlete had killed himself.
"Absolutely no chance he took his own life," Murphy said. "Chico was not a saint, but my family and I loved him, and he would never take his own life."
Witnesses at Hernandez's two murder trials painted a picture of a troubled man who often used illegal narcotics and at times believed strangers were challenging or disrespecting him.
In his double-murder trial, Baez challenged the credibility of the prosecution's star witness, suggesting he had killed the men and pinned it on Hernandez in exchange for immunity. Baez is best known for successfully defending Florida mother Casey Anthony in 2011 against charges of murdering her daughter.
Hernandez had been expected to appeal his sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole for the 2013 murder.
Under Massachusetts law, the verdict in the 2013 murder will be overturned since he died before exhausting his appeal process.
His former Patriots teammates visited the White House and met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday in honor of their Super Bowl win. The team's owner, Robert Kraft, and coach, Bill Belichick did not address Hernandez's death in their remarks and players declined to comment on it.
Quarterback Tom Brady, the team's best-known player, did not attend the White House event due to family commitments, local media reported, citing a statement from the self-described friend of Trump.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, Brian Snyder in Shirley, Massachusetts and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jonathan Oatis)
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Stan Getz (ts), Jan Johansson (p), Ray Brown (b), Ed Thigpen (ds) Album：" Stan Getz Quartet / Live In Dusseldorf 1960" ...Stan Getz - One of the greatest saxophonists of all time - Duration: 2:17:56.
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Stan Getz – Tribute To Stan Getz, Over two hours of swing and romantic jazz with one of the greatest saxophonists of all time ...
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Pavarotti & B.B. King The Thrill Is Gone - Duration: 4:48.
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Pavarotti & B.B. King The Thrill Is Gone 1999 friends friend.
Jose Feliciano - The Thrill is Gone - Duration: 5:05.
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ARETHA FRANKLIN - The Thrill Is Gone - Duration: 4:42.
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wow! Ms Aretha smokes this one. Recorded in 1970 after divorce from 1st husband Ted White - ending a near 10 year relationship ...
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In the state of Massachusetts, Hernandez technically died an innocent man due to the legal principle of abatement ab initio, where if a person dies and has not exhausted all legal appeals, the case reverts to its status at the beginning; so the person becomes innocent. Such a shame, he had everything, looks, money, fame, he wasted all with his immature actions... sigh
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Russian journalist dies from injuries sustained in March attack
CBS News-14 minutes ago
The death Wednesday of 73-year-old Nikolai Andrushchenko was reported by Russian ... Andrushchenko's attackers have not been identified.
Giornalista muore in Russia un mese dopo l'aggressione
Corriere della Sera-58 minutes ago
MOSCA Il giornalista russo Nikolai Andrushenko, cofondatore della testata Novy Peterburg, è morto in ospedale più di un mese dopo essere ...
Belehalt sérüléseibe a brutálisan összevert orosz újságíró
444.hu-1 hour ago
Nikolay Andruschenko a szentpétervári Új Pétervár című hetilap alapítója és szerzője volt, a város egyik kórházában halt meg szerdán.
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A relative unknown in French politics until he announced his candidacy, Emmanuel Macron is a front-runner in France’s presidential election this Spring. But who is Mr. Macron, what does he stand for, and what are his chances? WSJ’s Niki Blasina reports. Photo: Getty Images.
A prominent Russian journalist known for articles criticizing Russian government and President Vladimir Putin has died in St. Petersburg after being severely beaten by unknown assailants.
Nikolai Andrushchenko, a 73-year-old co-founder of the newspaper Novy Petersburg, was attacked on March 9 and had been unconscious since then.
Andrushchenko’s colleagues and his lawyer say he underwent brain surgery after the attack and initially had been connected to a ventilator, but later was able to breath on his own.
However, they said he never regained consciousness and died on April 19.
His attackers have not been found.
Andrushchenko expressed concern about Putin after he came to power in 2000, saying that the secret services were taking control of Russia.
He was arrested in 2007 and claimed he was tortured in custody. In 2009, a court in St. Petersburg found him guilty of libel and extremism and fined him.
The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized him a political prisoner when he was in custody.
With reporting by Current Time TV
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration vowed Tuesday to crack down on MS-13, a notoriously brutal Central American street gang blamed for a recent series of killings in suburban New York, and accused Obama-era border policies of allowing its ranks to flourish.
The gang is known for hacking and stabbing victims with machetes, drug dealing, prostitution and other rackets. Their recruits are middle- and high-school students predominantly in immigrant communities and those who try to leave risk violent retribution, according to officials.
"These organizations enrich themselves by pedaling poison in our communities, trafficking children for sexual exploitation and inflicting horrific violence in the communities where they operate," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in remarks before meeting with top federal law enforcement officials on ways to dismantle ultraviolent transnational gangs.
His warnings were echoed in a separate address by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and came just hours after President Donald Trump tweeted that "The weak illegal immigration policies of the Obama Admin. allowed bad MS 13 gangs to form in cities across U.S. We are removing them fast!"
MS-13 — or the Mara Salvatrucha — traces its origins to Los Angeles, where thousands fleeing El Salvador's bloody civil war in the 1980s arrived, to protect the immigrants from Mexican and African-American gangs. As Central American communities have grown, so has the gang, which is now estimated at 30,000 members operating in semi-autonomous cliques mostly in Central and North America. More than 10,000 MS-13 are in the U.S., according to federal law enforcement officials. However, the FBI doesn't break down its national crime statistics by gang affiliation, and the bureau doesn't collect MS-13-specific data, a spokeswoman said.
The Justice Department suspects major gang leaders are using cellphones from Salvadoran prisons to instruct members who have crossed into the U.S. illegally to kill rivals and extort legal and illegal businesses owned by immigrants. Authorities suspect members of the gang are behind last week's slayings in central Long Island of four young people, which are among 11 killings that have rattled the working-class immigrants of Central Islip, New York, since September.
Sessions has called for more aggressive prosecution of crimes such as illegal border crossing and smuggling others into the U.S. as a way to deter violence.
"We cannot allow this to continue. We will secure our border, expand immigration enforcement, and choke-off supply lines. If you are a gang member: We will find you," said Sessions, who also alleged that so-called sanctuary cities, which limit local cooperation with immigration authorities, undermine law enforcement efforts to stop such gangs.
The president later tweeted that "Sessions is doing a fantastic job: announced today new steps to dismantle violent gangs like MS-13. I promised to get tough and we are!"
Kelly, during a separate speech at George Washington University, said transnational criminal groups, such as the drug cartels and MS-13, are engaged in kidnapping, torture and human trafficking and pose one of the greatest threats to the U.S. "They are utterly without laws, conscience or respect for human life," he said.
During the Obama administration, the government focused on immigrants in the country illegally who posed a threat to national security or public safety and recent border crossers. More than 2.5 million people were deported under Obama's policies, many of them characterized as suspected or confirmed gang members.
The Obama administration made unprecedented efforts to fight MS-13, targeting the gang's finances by declaring it an international criminal group subject to sanctions by the Treasury Department. The goal of that 2012 maneuver was to stymie the gang's ability to funnel money back to leaders in El Salvador or launder criminal proceeds through otherwise legitimate businesses.
Federal prosecutors have targeted MS-13 before, pursuing racketeering cases throughout the 2000s in places such as San Francisco, Maryland, northern Virginia; Charlotte, North Carolina; and elsewhere. The Justice Department said it made progress in 2009 and 2010. The FBI last week added an MS-13 member to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for his suspected role in the 2011 killing of a man with a baseball bat and a screwdriver.
But James Trusty, who headed the department's organized crime and gang section before he left in January, said the group appeared to be experiencing a recent revival in some of those same places.
Stricter vetting at the border is necessary to stop MS-13 members from coming into the U.S., Trusty said, noting some are coached to tell immigration officials they're escaping violence in their home country in order to stay.
"My own view is there has to be some correlation between lax immigration policies and replenishment of the gangs in places where they already existed," he said.
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Associated Press writer Jake Pearson in New York contributed to this report.
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The Epoch Times |
Russia Collusion Investigations Struggle to Find Evidence
The Epoch Times There are multiple investigations into whether a foreign power interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. They began with allegations of Russian meddling, yet have taken a new turn with the revelation that the Obama administration was ... wiretapped - TwitterTwitter Adam Schiff says there's "more than circumstantial evidence" of Trump-Russia collusionCBS News all 180 news articles » |
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The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.
The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.
This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.
Page has not been accused of any crimes, and it is unclear whether the Justice Department might later seek charges against him or others in connection with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to influence U.S. elections began in July, officials have said. Most such investigations don’t result in criminal charges.
The officials spoke about the court order on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of a counterintelligence probe.
Team Trump’s ties to Russian interests
During an interview with the Washington Post editorial page staff in March 2016, Trump identified Page, who had previously been an investment banker in Moscow, as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. Campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks later described Page’s role as “informal.”
Page has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his dealings with the Trump campaign or Russia.
“This confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance,” Page said in an interview Tuesday. “I have nothing to hide.” He compared surveillance of him to the eavesdropping that the FBI and Justice Department conducted against civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The White House, FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.
FBI Director James B. Comey disclosed in public testimony to the House Intelligence Committee last month that the bureau is investigating efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Comey said this includes investigating the “nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
(The Washington Post)
During an interview with The Washington Post's editorial board on March 21, 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump named Carter Page as one of his foreign policy advisory team members. The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor Page's communications. During an interview with The Washington Post's editorial board on March 21, 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump named Carter Page as one of his forei (The Washington Post)
Comey declined to comment during the hearing about any individuals, including Page, who worked in Moscow for Merrill Lynch a decade ago and who has said he invested in Russian energy giant Gazprom. In a letter to Comey in September, Page had said he had sold his Gazprom investment.
During the hearing last month, Democratic lawmakers repeatedly singled out Page’s contacts in Russia as a cause for concern.
The judges who rule on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests oversee the nation’s most sensitive national security cases, and their warrants are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the world of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence gathering. Any FISA application has to be approved at the highest levels of the Justice Department and the FBI.
Applications for FISA warrants, Comey said, are often thicker than his wrists, and that thickness represents all the work Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents have to do to convince a judge that such surveillance is appropriate in an investigation.
The government’s application for the surveillance order targeting Page included a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators’ basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, officials said.
Among other things, the application cited contacts that he had with a Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013, officials said. Those contacts had earlier surfaced in a federal espionage case brought by the Justice Department against the intelligence operative and two other Russian agents. In addition, the application said Page had other contacts with Russian operatives that have not been publicly disclosed, officials said.
An application for electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act need not show evidence of a crime. But the information obtained through the intercepts can be used to open a criminal investigation and may be used in a prosecution.
The application also showed that the FBI and the Justice Department’s national security division have been seeking since July to determine how broad a network of accomplices Russia enlisted in attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, the officials said.
Since the 90-day warrant was first issued, it has been renewed more than once by the FISA court, the officials said.
In February, Page told “PBS NewsHour” that he was a “junior member of the [Trump] campaign’s foreign policy advisory group.”
A former Trump campaign adviser said Page submitted policy memos to the campaign and several times asked to be given a meeting with Trump, though his request was never granted. “He was one of the more active ones, in terms of being in touch,” the adviser said.
The campaign adviser said Page participated in three dinners held for the campaign’s volunteer foreign policy advisers in the spring and summer of 2016, coming from New York to Washington to meet with the group. Although Trump did not attend, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a top Trump confidant who became his attorney general, attended one meeting of the group with Page in late summer, the campaign adviser said.
Page’s role as an adviser to the Trump campaign drew alarm last year from more-established foreign policy experts in part because of Page’s effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his criticism of U.S. sanctions over Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.
In July, Page traveled to Moscow, where he delivered a speech harshly critical of the United States’ policy toward Russia.
While there, Page allegedly met with Igor Sechin, a Putin confidant and chief executive of the energy company Rosneft, according to a dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer and cited at a congressional hearing by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Officials said some of the information in the dossier has been verified by U.S. intelligence agencies, and some of it hasn’t, while other parts are unlikely to ever be proved or disproved.
On Tuesday, Page dismissed what he called “the dodgy dossier” of false allegations.
Page has denied such a meeting occurred, saying he has never met Sechin in his life and that he wants to testify before Congress to clear his name. A spokesman for Rosneft told Politico in September that the notion that Page met with Sechin was “absurd.” Page said in September that he briefly met Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich during that trip.
Comey has declined to discuss the details of the Russia probe, but in an appearance last month, he cited the process for getting FISA warrants as proof that the government’s surveillance powers are very carefully used, with significant oversight.
“It is a pain in the neck to get permission to conduct electronic surveillance in the United States. And that’s good,’’ he told an audience at the University of Texas in Austin.
Officials have said the FBI and the Justice Department were particularly reluctant to seek FISA warrants of campaign figures during the 2016 presidential race because of concerns that agents would inadvertently eavesdrop on political talk. To obtain a FISA warrant, prosecutors must show that a significant purpose of the warrant is to obtain foreign intelligence information.
Page is the only American to have had his communications directly targeted with a FISA warrant in 2016 as part of the Russia probe, officials said.
The FBI routinely obtains FISA warrants to monitor the communications of foreign diplomats in the United States, including the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. The conversations between Kislyak and Michael Flynn, who became Trump’s first national security adviser, were recorded in December. In February, The Washington Post reported that Flynn misled Vice President-elect Mike Pence and others about his discussions with Kislyak, prompting Trump’s decision to fire him.
In March, Trump made unsubstantiated claims about U.S. surveillance of Trump Tower in New York. Later that month, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a Trump transition official, charged that details about people “associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value” were “widely disseminated” in intelligence community reporting. He said none of the surveillance was related to Russia. The FISA order on Page is unrelated to either charge.
Last month, the former director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that U.S. law enforcement agencies did not have any FISA orders to monitor the communications of Trump, either as a candidate or as a president-elect, or his campaign. But Clapper did not address whether there were any FISA warrants targeting Trump associates.
Three years before Page became an adviser to the Trump campaign, he came to the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents, who learned that Russian spy suspects had sought to use Page as a source for information.
In that case, one of the Russian suspects, Victor Podobnyy — who was posing as a diplomat and was later charged by federal prosecutors with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government — was captured on tape in 2013 discussing an effort to get information and documents from Page. That discussion was detailed in a federal complaint filed against Podobnyy and two others. The court documents in that spy case only identify Page as “Male 1.’’ Officials familiar with the case said that “Male 1’’ is Page.
In one secretly recorded conversation, detailed in the complaint, Podobnyy said Page “wrote that he is sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back. I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am. Plus he writes to me in Russian [to] practice the language. He flies to Moscow more often than I do. He got hooked on Gazprom thinking that if they have a project, he could rise up. Maybe he can. I don’t know, but it’s obvious that he wants to earn lots of money.’’
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The same court document says that in June 2013, Page told FBI agents that he met Podobnyy at an energy symposium in New York, where they exchanged contact information. In subsequent meetings, Page shared with the Russian his outlook on the state of the energy industry, as well as documents about the energy business, according to the court papers.
In the secret tape, Podobnyy said he liked the man’s “enthusiasm” but planned to use him to get information and give him little in return. “You promise a favor for a favor. You get the documents from him and tell him to go f--- himself,’’ Podobnyy said on the tape, according to court papers.
Page has said the information he provided to the Russians in 2013 was innocuous, describing it as “basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents.” He said he had assisted the prosecutors in their case against Evgeny Buryakov, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to act in the United States as an unregistered agent of Russian intelligence.
Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.
Read more:
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· · · · · · · · ·
11.9.16
Software programmer testifies about software he made that can fix an election. Where is that software at now?
Published on Apr 14, 2017
The official investigation into relations between Donald Trump and Russia now has "specific, concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion", it has been reported.
New evidence proves discussions took place “between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material,” a source allegedly told the Guardian.
New evidence proves discussions took place “between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material,” a source allegedly told the Guardian.
Published on Mar 21, 2017
MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber and political analyst Nicolle Wallace join TODAY to discuss FBI Director James Comey’s Capitol Hill testimony Monday and the White House’s reaction to it. Of the FBI investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia, Melber says, “There is enough smoke to have a federal inquiry; it’s huge.”
CNN |
One reason President Donald Trump changed his rhetoric on China? He really likes the Chinese president
CNN Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump told Fox and Friends on Tuesday he didn't live up to a campaign promise to stare down China over manipulating its currency because, well, he got along better than he thought with Chinese President Xi Jinping. How might Donald Trump do a deal with North Korea?BBC News Trump weirdly says Korea was “part of China,” which is totally wrong and could enrage South KoreaQuartz Wait, Does Donald Trump Know the Leader of North Korea's Name?Gizmodo Western Journalism -The Independent all 6,109 news articles » |
4.19.17 - "The Daily Trumpet (Trump Pit)"
News Review of Trump and his Investigations:
____________________________________
"It is quite possible that the authoritarian Trump is attempting to transport Russia’s authoritarian plutocratic system to the U.S. Does not everything he says and does— including his incessant deceit — perfectly fit the authoritarian profile?
Sometimes paranoia is justified, because someone really is trying to do you in. The take here is that Trump is even more dangerous than his mental instability indicates."
Andrew Torre is a resident of Londonderry.
The Putin-Trump embrace
Commentary
__________________________________________
Quartz |
Donald Trump has raised his approval ratings by embracing his inner bomb
Quartz Since before he became president on Jan. 20, Donald Trump's approval ratings have been low, to say the least: Trump has consistently registered lower than any president in recent history, even when comparing his performance with predecessors dealing ... Donald Trump approval rating up: 50 percent say they think president doing a good job<a href="http://AL.com" rel="nofollow">AL.com</a> Is Donald Trump's approval rating really 50 percent?CNN Poll Finds Donald Trump's Support Inching Up to 50 PercentNewsweek Gallup -Gallup -Rasmussen Reports -Pew Research Center for the People and the Press all 93 news articles » |
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CNN |
One reason President Donald Trump changed his rhetoric on China? He really likes the Chinese president
CNN Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump told Fox and Friends on Tuesday he didn't live up to a campaign promise to stare down China over manipulating its currency because, well, he got along better than he thought with Chinese President Xi Jinping. How might Donald Trump do a deal with North Korea?BBC News Trump weirdly says Korea was “part of China,” which is totally wrong and could enrage South KoreaQuartz Wait, Does Donald Trump Know the Leader of North Korea's Name?Gizmodo Western Journalism -The Independent all 6,109 news articles » |
AL.com |
Donald Trump approval rating up: 50 percent say they think president doing a good job
AL.com A new poll shows President Donald Trump's approval rating reaching 50 percent, its highest-level since mid-March. The Rasmussen poll showed 50 percent of likely voters approve of the job the president doing, the same percentage of those who said they ... Donald Trump has raised his approval ratings by embracing his inner bombQuartz Is Donald Trump's approval rating really 50 percent?CNN Poll Finds Donald Trump's Support Inching Up to 50 PercentNewsweek TIME all 86 news articles » |
UPROXX |
Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Has Deep Ties To The Trump Administration After All
UPROXX As late as last week, the Trump administration has claimed that Erik Prince, most notable for founding the mercenary firm Blackwater that had employees convicted of murdering innocent Iraqi civilians in 2007, had no role in the White House transition ... and more » |
Ukraine's back-channel diplomat still shopping peace plan to Trump ...
Chicago Tribune The last two months have not been easy for Andrey Artemenko. and more » |
Death and Taxes |
Blackwater founder Erik Prince held backdoor meetings with Trump transition team
Death and Taxes Erik Prince, founder of private military company Blackwater, and sister to unsharpened pencil Betsy DeVos, met several times with top Donald Trump aides before and after the election, Bloomberg reports. Prince advised the transition team on anti ... and more » |
TMZ.com |
Rudy Giuliani Says Trump is Doing Great Job with North Korea
TMZ.com Rudy landed at LAX Tuesday when our photog asked if we should strike North Korea first or wait until they engage in overt aggression against us or an ally. The former NYC Mayor clearly thinks if this were a poker game, Donald Trump knows when to hold ... and more » |
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Mother Jones |
Donald Trump Has a Conflict of Interest in Turkey. Just Ask Donald Trump.
Mother Jones Several media outlets have slammed President Donald Trump for congratulating Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on winning a referendum that will bolster his autocratic power and weaken that nation's democracy. International observers say the ... Donald Trump is done pretending the US cares about democracy in other countriesQuartz President Trump Congratulates Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Referendum VictoryTIME Donald Trump criticised for congratulating Recep Tayyip Erdogan on winning Turkish referendumThe Independent all 2,674 news articles » |
CNN |
FBI used dossier allegations to bolster Trump-Russia investigation
CNN The dossier alleges that Page met senior Russian officials as an emissary of the Trumpcampaign, and discussed quid-pro-quo deals relating to sanctions, business opportunities and Russia's interference in the election. Page has denied meeting the ... and more » |
The Boston Globe |
Blackwater founder Erik Prince said to have advised Trump team
The Boston Globe NEW YORK — In the very public, post-election parade of dignitaries, confidantes, and job-seekers filing in and out of Donald Trump's marquee Manhattan tower, Blackwater founder Erik Prince was largely out of sight. And yet Prince was very much a ... and more » |
National Review |
Trump Has Pivoted to Scoring Easy Wins
National Review But while Barack Obama was still in the White House, Donald Trump announced “deals” and appointments that made it seem as if he were already in office, hitting the ground running to Make America Great Again. On the entirely subjective calculus of wins, ... Donald Trump's nuked credibility: How can a flagrantly dishonest president manage an international crisis?Salon Melania Trump Nudges Donald Trump to Raise His Hand for the National AnthemE! Online Melania Trump Reminds Donald Trump To Put His Hand Over His Heart For National AnthemHuffington Post TIME -The Independent -Jezebel all 687 news articles » |
The Mercury News |
The Putin-Trump embrace
Rutland Herald The media are bursting with reports on possible Russian influence — through collusion with theTrump campaign — on our recent presidential election. President Donald Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has been under heavy fire for meeting with ... Rubin: Trump's untruths enable Putin's liesThe Mercury News Putin's TV says Trump more dangerous than N. Korea's KimMyAJC Putin's TV says Trump 'scarier' than North Korea's Kim Jong-UnPune Mirror Bloomberg -Newsweek -RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty -Reuters all 59 news articles » |
Can a New Journal Make Sense of Trumpism?
The Nation. Last February, an anonymous cohort of conservative writers, their bylines purloined from antiquity, started a group blog they described as the “first scholarly journal of radical #Trumpism.” Its title—the Journal of American Greatness, diminutively ... |
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