Sunday, March 25, 2018
DUTY, DUTY, DUTY ... TALK ABOUT DERELICITION OF DUTY ...
Outgoing National Security Advisor McMaster Worked For Foreign Think Tank Funded By China, Russia ... BUT HERE'S MY QUESTION ... WHAT IN THE HELL WAS TRUMP THINKING ABOUT WHEN HE TAPPED MCMASTER?
Outgoing National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster worked for a foreign-based think tank for 11 years before assuming his post
The think tank has ties to Russia, China, the Uranium One deal and Bahrain
The think tank has ties to Russia, China, the Uranium One deal and Bahrain
Career armed forces officers spoke out against the arrangement
Outgoing National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster served for more than a decade as a consultant to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, a foreign-based think-tank that has received funding from hostile foreign governments to include Russia and China, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.
The career soldier ended his employment at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in February 2017 after President Donald Trump tapped him to serve as his national security adviser following the resignation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
McMaster is planning to leave the NSC in April, to be replaced by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The outgoing NSC official said in a statement, he was “requesting retirement from the U.S. Army effective this summer after which I will leave public service.”
The general, who did not leave the Army to assume his NSC post, was one of only two White House national security chiefs who retained active duty status while working at the White House. The other general was Gen. Colin Powell.
McMaster never publicized his decade-long outside consultant work with the foreign-based think tank that often supported a globalist agenda opposed by Trump. IISS often espoused foreign and military policies that served as the centerpiece of the Obama presidency, including support for the former president’s Iran nuclear deal.
While his 11 years at the institute were never part of his official military biography, former military officers who learned of it were harshly critical of his unusual moonlighting.
Veteran military officers expressed disbelief at McMaster’s consulting work at a foreign-based think tank that receives funding from hostile governments. They called the arrangement “unethical” and “unprecedented.”
IISS operates offices in the Bahrain, Singapore and Washington, D.C. It generally reflects a globalist “realist” Eurocentric view of foreign and military postures that are at odds with Trump’s foreign policy. The think-tank was a major advocate of former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
IISS receives funding from friendly Western sources such as aerospace firms and even the British army but is also has received funding from the Russian Federation, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the governments of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, according to the IISS website.
During McMaster’s time at IISS, the think tank also received $700,000 from George Soros’s Open Society and $140,000 from Ploughshares, the pacifist organization that aggressively pushed for Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
The organization’s council — its board of directors — also is filled with people who have ties to the Kremlin, to the Qatari emir who has been accused of supporting terrorists, to people associated with the Uranium One scandal, and with a Russian investment bank that paid former President Bill Clinton $500,000 for a single speech.
“This is bizarre,” retired Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin said in an interview with TheDCNF. “If that kind of information was available to The Trump administration before they selected him, the question is: Would they have selected him for this very job?”
The Army told TheDCNF that from 2006 when he first joined IISS as a “senior research associate” until he left in 2017, he did file annual financial disclosure forms notifying the Army of payments he received from the institute.
McMaster’s office did not respond to a DCNF request for his current financial disclosure form, which he was required to submit in 2017 as a White House employee.
Retired Rear Adm. James “Ace” Lyons, who served 35 years in the Navy, including a stint as commander of the Pacific Fleet, told TheDCNF McMaster’s consulting role at the think tank was “absurd.”
“It is really absurd that an active duty military officer, particularly one of flag rank, is a consultant to a foreign organization that is taking money and contributions from questionable countries that are known enemies of the United States,” Lyons told TheDCNF in an interview. “This to me seems to be outside the bounds of what we’re committed to. This is atrocious.”
“I’ve never seen this kind of thing before,” said Boykin, a 36-year veteran who served as undersecretary for defense intelligence for President George W. Bush.
Boykin said he was convinced any commanding officer would have rejected McMaster’s proposed consulting work at IISS. “I cannot believe that the ethics people of the U.S. Army would approve of him doing that, and I can’t believe that any responsible person he worked for in the Army would have agreed to that.”
William J. Sharp, a public affairs civilian attached to U.S. Army Headquarters, told TheDCNF the Army accepted McMaster’s proposed consulting work at IISS without any prior approval because they regarded the think tank as not falling under the category of a “prohibited source.”
The term “prohibited source” relates to a company that seeks a business or other formal contractual relationship with the Department of Defense. Using that limited standard, the Army concluded IISS was not a prohibited source and McMaster did not need to obtain prior approval from military superiors.
“IISS is not a prohibited source for Army personnel,” Sharp told TheDCNF in an email. “Therefore, LTG McMaster was not required to obtain approval prior to consulting for IISS.”
“I’m surprised at this,” Boykin said. “I find this in my view and in my experience of 36 years to be unprecedented, and I would love to see an authorization. And if it’s an open-ended authorization — if there’s one at all — then I would be willing to bet you it was an error on the part of whoever provided that authorization. You just can’t do this on your own,” he told TheDCNF.
Retired Special Forces Col. James Williamson told TheDCNF he considered it “very unusual” for an active duty officer to serve for a decade at any educational institution. “It’s very unusual for a general officer on active duty to have that type of affiliation over that time span,” he said. “I’ve had friends that have gone to Harvard or the Fletcher School at Tufts, but they’re U.S.-based.” He said most terms were for a short duration — usually six months to a year.
In fact, the military approves and even encourages active duty officers to seek temporary assignments with American educational institutions and think tanks. But those assignments are very short and rarely extend for more than a year.
Williamson said active duty military officers have plenty of private sector and think tank opportunities after they leave military service. “We have other people who served in London, but they’re not on active duty. They’re retired officers and there’s no problem with that,” he said.
Williamson, a counterterrorism specialist who served with NATO and U.S. Southern Command, said he regarded McMaster’s work as posing a basic “conflict of interest” in light of funding from hostile governments. That funding “would almost make it a de facto conflict of interest in my eyes.”
Retired U.S. Air Force Col. James Waurishuk, who also worked at the NSC, agreed. “I would be concerned about the work he’s doing and how it applies in relation to a think-tank that’s taking money from perhaps adversarial foreign governments. That would be of concern to me,” he said.
Williamson also shared the same view and added that even working at a London think tank poses problems. “Even our closest allies don’t have the same agendas and priorities that we do,” he said.
During his 11 years with IISS, the group promoted McMaster’s activities. A review of previous IISS websites by TheDCNF shows he was highlighted between six and 10 times each year.
IISS praised McMaster when he joined the Trump White House. Jonathan Stevenson, an Obama NSC official who also is a senior fellow at IISS, wrote a fawning opinion piece about McMaster in The New York Times. He called him a “compelling choice: a scholar-warrior” and “both a proven cavalry officer and a formidable defense intellectual.” Stevenson wrote McMaster could save Trump, and the general’s appointment, “should augur at least a fleeting period of stability at the dysfunctional National Security Council.”
Igor Yurgen has been on the IISS Council since 2010. He is chairman of Rennaissance Capital Group, which awarded Bill Clinton $500,00 in speaking fees.
Russia Today, a pro-Kremlin news organization once described Yurgen as “one of Russia’s most influential experts close to [former] President Dmitry Medvedev.”
“He is remarkably skilled at combining public, business and political careers,” according to RT.
Another council member is Michael Rich, an executive vice president of the RAND Corp. But significantly, he is co-chair of the board of overseers of a project called the RAND Qatar Policy Institute.
The Qatar Policy Institute is also part of the Qatar Foundation, started by Qatar’s former emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, and his wife, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser.
Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states accuse Qatar of supporting Islamic terrorism. Al Thani has supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, militias in Libya, and the Muslim Brotherhood, The New York Times reported in 2014. The Emir personally traveled in 2012 to the Gaza Strip, where he received a hero’s welcome as he pledged to work with the terrorist group Hamas. Al Thani also founded Al Jazeera, the pro-Muslim Brotherhood television news channel.
Badr Jafar, another current council member, is the son of Hamid Jafar, who founded the biggest private equity firm in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Badr is the CEO of Crescent Enterprises who, with his father Hamid Jafar, engineered an oil exploration partnership between their Emirates-based company, Crescent Petroleum with the Boris Kovalchuk, CEO of the Russian company of Inter Rao UES.
News agencies in the United Arab Emirates hailed the 2010 financial deal between Crescent and Moscow. “Russian state news agencies began their coverage of the recent high-level meeting in Moscow between Crescent officials, the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, and the Iraqi former prime minister Dr. Ayad Allawi by linking the names of Hamid Jafar and Mr. Putin,” according to the National Business report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed that all shares of Inter Rao UES be transferred to the Russian state-owned atomic energy agency called Rosatom. Kovalchuk is a Kremlin confidant who served as a vice president of Rosatom. Americans know about Rosatom because of its purchase of Uranium One, which was made possible by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for the Russian acquisition.
While McMaster was a consultant at IISS the organization was a strong, unwavering supporter of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Mark Fitzpatrick, its director for non-proliferation and disarmament was the most outspoken IISS director for the nuclear deal calling it in 2015 an “a potential game-changer in many ways, opening a path to better relations with Iran that has been closed for more than 35 years.” Fitzpatrick said the deal “makes it demonstrably less likely Iran will become nuclear-armed now and in the future.”
IISS also entered domestic American politics by defending the Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential campaign. It flatly stated following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee it “revealed no evidence of significant wrongdoing within the Democratic Party.”
IISS also has been criticized for the secrecy of its activities and its routine denial of visas for reporters seeking to attend its overseas events, particularly its annual event in Bahrain where human right groups accuse the government of silencing critics and keeping journalists away.
BahrainWatch, a human rights group published an investigation in December 2016 claiming that even well known American journalists have been barred from its Bahrain conferences called the “Manama Dialogue.”
“New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof has openly called for an invitation since 2011, though his media visa was once again rejected last year. Wall Street Journal journalist Yaroslav Trofimov was also denied a visa.
Waurishuk concluded that McMaster’s relationship with IISS raises too many alarms.
“There are too many red flags that kind of go up,” he said.
Neither IISS Washington nor IISS London returned repeated queries about McMaster.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Outgoing National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster served for more than a decade as a consultant to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, a foreign-based think-tank that has received funding from hostile foreign governments to include Russia and China, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.
The career soldier ended his employment at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in February 2017 after President Donald Trump tapped him to serve as his national security adviser following the resignation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
McMaster is planning to leave the NSC in April, to be replaced by former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The outgoing NSC official said in a statement, he was “requesting retirement from the U.S. Army effective this summer after which I will leave public service.”
The general, who did not leave the Army to assume his NSC post, was one of only two White House national security chiefs who retained active duty status while working at the White House. The other general was Gen. Colin Powell.
McMaster never publicized his decade-long outside consultant work with the foreign-based think tank that often supported a globalist agenda opposed by Trump. IISS often espoused foreign and military policies that served as the centerpiece of the Obama presidency, including support for the former president’s Iran nuclear deal.
While his 11 years at the institute were never part of his official military biography, former military officers who learned of it were harshly critical of his unusual moonlighting.
Veteran military officers expressed disbelief at McMaster’s consulting work at a foreign-based think tank that receives funding from hostile governments. They called the arrangement “unethical” and “unprecedented.”
IISS operates offices in the Bahrain, Singapore and Washington, D.C. It generally reflects a globalist “realist” Eurocentric view of foreign and military postures that are at odds with Trump’s foreign policy. The think-tank was a major advocate of former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
IISS receives funding from friendly Western sources such as aerospace firms and even the British army but is also has received funding from the Russian Federation, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the governments of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, according to the IISS website.
During McMaster’s time at IISS, the think tank also received $700,000 from George Soros’s Open Society and $140,000 from Ploughshares, the pacifist organization that aggressively pushed for Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
The organization’s council — its board of directors — also is filled with people who have ties to the Kremlin, to the Qatari emir who has been accused of supporting terrorists, to people associated with the Uranium One scandal, and with a Russian investment bank that paid former President Bill Clinton $500,000 for a single speech.
“This is bizarre,” retired Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin said in an interview with TheDCNF. “If that kind of information was available to The Trump administration before they selected him, the question is: Would they have selected him for this very job?”
The Army told TheDCNF that from 2006 when he first joined IISS as a “senior research associate” until he left in 2017, he did file annual financial disclosure forms notifying the Army of payments he received from the institute.
McMaster’s office did not respond to a DCNF request for his current financial disclosure form, which he was required to submit in 2017 as a White House employee.
Retired Rear Adm. James “Ace” Lyons, who served 35 years in the Navy, including a stint as commander of the Pacific Fleet, told TheDCNF McMaster’s consulting role at the think tank was “absurd.”
“It is really absurd that an active duty military officer, particularly one of flag rank, is a consultant to a foreign organization that is taking money and contributions from questionable countries that are known enemies of the United States,” Lyons told TheDCNF in an interview. “This to me seems to be outside the bounds of what we’re committed to. This is atrocious.”
“I’ve never seen this kind of thing before,” said Boykin, a 36-year veteran who served as undersecretary for defense intelligence for President George W. Bush.
Boykin said he was convinced any commanding officer would have rejected McMaster’s proposed consulting work at IISS. “I cannot believe that the ethics people of the U.S. Army would approve of him doing that, and I can’t believe that any responsible person he worked for in the Army would have agreed to that.”
William J. Sharp, a public affairs civilian attached to U.S. Army Headquarters, told TheDCNF the Army accepted McMaster’s proposed consulting work at IISS without any prior approval because they regarded the think tank as not falling under the category of a “prohibited source.”
The term “prohibited source” relates to a company that seeks a business or other formal contractual relationship with the Department of Defense. Using that limited standard, the Army concluded IISS was not a prohibited source and McMaster did not need to obtain prior approval from military superiors.
“IISS is not a prohibited source for Army personnel,” Sharp told TheDCNF in an email. “Therefore, LTG McMaster was not required to obtain approval prior to consulting for IISS.”
“I’m surprised at this,” Boykin said. “I find this in my view and in my experience of 36 years to be unprecedented, and I would love to see an authorization. And if it’s an open-ended authorization — if there’s one at all — then I would be willing to bet you it was an error on the part of whoever provided that authorization. You just can’t do this on your own,” he told TheDCNF.
Retired Special Forces Col. James Williamson told TheDCNF he considered it “very unusual” for an active duty officer to serve for a decade at any educational institution. “It’s very unusual for a general officer on active duty to have that type of affiliation over that time span,” he said. “I’ve had friends that have gone to Harvard or the Fletcher School at Tufts, but they’re U.S.-based.” He said most terms were for a short duration — usually six months to a year.
In fact, the military approves and even encourages active duty officers to seek temporary assignments with American educational institutions and think tanks. But those assignments are very short and rarely extend for more than a year.
Williamson said active duty military officers have plenty of private sector and think tank opportunities after they leave military service. “We have other people who served in London, but they’re not on active duty. They’re retired officers and there’s no problem with that,” he said.
Williamson, a counterterrorism specialist who served with NATO and U.S. Southern Command, said he regarded McMaster’s work as posing a basic “conflict of interest” in light of funding from hostile governments. That funding “would almost make it a de facto conflict of interest in my eyes.”
Retired U.S. Air Force Col. James Waurishuk, who also worked at the NSC, agreed. “I would be concerned about the work he’s doing and how it applies in relation to a think-tank that’s taking money from perhaps adversarial foreign governments. That would be of concern to me,” he said.
Williamson also shared the same view and added that even working at a London think tank poses problems. “Even our closest allies don’t have the same agendas and priorities that we do,” he said.
During his 11 years with IISS, the group promoted McMaster’s activities. A review of previous IISS websites by TheDCNF shows he was highlighted between six and 10 times each year.
IISS praised McMaster when he joined the Trump White House. Jonathan Stevenson, an Obama NSC official who also is a senior fellow at IISS, wrote a fawning opinion piece about McMaster in The New York Times. He called him a “compelling choice: a scholar-warrior” and “both a proven cavalry officer and a formidable defense intellectual.” Stevenson wrote McMaster could save Trump, and the general’s appointment, “should augur at least a fleeting period of stability at the dysfunctional National Security Council.”
Igor Yurgen has been on the IISS Council since 2010. He is chairman of Rennaissance Capital Group, which awarded Bill Clinton $500,00 in speaking fees.
Russia Today, a pro-Kremlin news organization once described Yurgen as “one of Russia’s most influential experts close to [former] President Dmitry Medvedev.”
“He is remarkably skilled at combining public, business and political careers,” according to RT.
Another council member is Michael Rich, an executive vice president of the RAND Corp. But significantly, he is co-chair of the board of overseers of a project called the RAND Qatar Policy Institute.
The Qatar Policy Institute is also part of the Qatar Foundation, started by Qatar’s former emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, and his wife, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser.
Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states accuse Qatar of supporting Islamic terrorism. Al Thani has supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, militias in Libya, and the Muslim Brotherhood, The New York Times reported in 2014. The Emir personally traveled in 2012 to the Gaza Strip, where he received a hero’s welcome as he pledged to work with the terrorist group Hamas. Al Thani also founded Al Jazeera, the pro-Muslim Brotherhood television news channel.
Badr Jafar, another current council member, is the son of Hamid Jafar, who founded the biggest private equity firm in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Badr is the CEO of Crescent Enterprises who, with his father Hamid Jafar, engineered an oil exploration partnership between their Emirates-based company, Crescent Petroleum with the Boris Kovalchuk, CEO of the Russian company of Inter Rao UES.
News agencies in the United Arab Emirates hailed the 2010 financial deal between Crescent and Moscow. “Russian state news agencies began their coverage of the recent high-level meeting in Moscow between Crescent officials, the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, and the Iraqi former prime minister Dr. Ayad Allawi by linking the names of Hamid Jafar and Mr. Putin,” according to the National Business report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed that all shares of Inter Rao UES be transferred to the Russian state-owned atomic energy agency called Rosatom. Kovalchuk is a Kremlin confidant who served as a vice president of Rosatom. Americans know about Rosatom because of its purchase of Uranium One, which was made possible by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for the Russian acquisition.
While McMaster was a consultant at IISS the organization was a strong, unwavering supporter of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Mark Fitzpatrick, its director for non-proliferation and disarmament was the most outspoken IISS director for the nuclear deal calling it in 2015 an “a potential game-changer in many ways, opening a path to better relations with Iran that has been closed for more than 35 years.” Fitzpatrick said the deal “makes it demonstrably less likely Iran will become nuclear-armed now and in the future.”
IISS also entered domestic American politics by defending the Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential campaign. It flatly stated following the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee it “revealed no evidence of significant wrongdoing within the Democratic Party.”
IISS also has been criticized for the secrecy of its activities and its routine denial of visas for reporters seeking to attend its overseas events, particularly its annual event in Bahrain where human right groups accuse the government of silencing critics and keeping journalists away.
BahrainWatch, a human rights group published an investigation in December 2016 claiming that even well known American journalists have been barred from its Bahrain conferences called the “Manama Dialogue.”
“New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof has openly called for an invitation since 2011, though his media visa was once again rejected last year. Wall Street Journal journalist Yaroslav Trofimov was also denied a visa.
Waurishuk concluded that McMaster’s relationship with IISS raises too many alarms.
“There are too many red flags that kind of go up,” he said.
Neither IISS Washington nor IISS London returned repeated queries about McMaster.
Follow Richard on Twitter
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
WHERE DOES THE "BUCK" STOP?
Trump, Putin Convo Leaker Could Face Criminal Charges ...
Speculation Now Surrounds NSC, White House Staff“DO NOT CONGRATULATE”
This was the specific warning President Trump’s national security advisors allegedly put in his notecards Tuesday before he called Russian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on a reelection that has been scrutinized throughout the world, according to sources who spoke to The Washington Post.
But there’s only a handful of people at the White House that would have access to the notecards, according to two U.S. government officials and a former senior official familiar with the process.
Trump, along with other senior White House staff, believe it was an inside leak and suspect it was coming from National Security Council staff, sources with knowledge stated.
“Leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal…”
“The cards are printed outside National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster’s office and would be collected by his team before being handed off to the president,” said the former official, familiar with the process. “It would make sense that the people who handled the cards or the national security advisors who provided the feedback to the president.”
White House officials will investigate the leaks and a senior White House Official told this reporter in a statement, “If this story is accurate, that means someone leaked the President’s briefing papers. Leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal.”
NSC officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
The president’s conversation with Putin, which would have been in classified briefing papers, allegedly revealed that Trump chose not to follow through “talking points” provided by his aides, which instructed the president to condemn the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy living in England. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a toxic Russian nerve agent Novichok.
The British and the White House have blamed Moscow for the attacks but the leaks of Trump’s private conversation with Putin have taken precedence over the administration’s tough condemnation of Russia’s actions in Great Britain against its former spy.
Journalists and bloggers on social media are already looking for the leaker or relaying information on who may be responsible for leaking on the president.
Inside the White House, it's the belief of most that H.R. McMaster is responsible for the Putin Call leak— Jacob Wohl (@JacobAWohl) March 21, 2018
Ari Fleischer, the former White House spokesman for President George W. Bush, said in his Twitter feed there is disloyalty in the administration and it’s “a mess.”
Who leaks this stuff? This WH still is disloyal to the president and to each other. What a mess. https://t.co/COnvU4MjKT— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) March 20, 2018
Some journalists, like David M. Drucker, a senior political correspondent, and CNN analyst, said on Twitter Tuesday, the leaks are wrong but blame the president for not inspiring more loyalty among his staff.
High level leaks out of WH shouldn’t happen but POTUS could reduce significantly if he inspired more loyalty, respect, comradery & sense of purpose.— David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) March 21, 2018
NO, ROBERT MUELLER AND JAMES COMEY AREN'T HEROES ... FAR FROM IT ...
Questions Still Surround Robert Mueller’s Boston Past
Mueller's involvement in one of the FBI's most embarrassing cases
Now this is a real reporter --> Sara Carter
President Donald Trump directed angry tweets at Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the weekend. The tweets were prompted by the Department of Justice’s decision to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Friday as recommended by the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility took action on McCabe after the DOJ’s Inspector General handed over evidence that the former FBI agent lied under oath and leaked information to the media.
Trump’s Tweets on Mueller appeared to some Republicans and Democrats to be a veiled threat to fire Mueller. Those lawmakers warned the president that it would be the ‘beginning of the end for his presidency’ if Trump fired the special counsel. They also criticized Trump’s attorney John Dowd for suggesting over the weekend that the Mueller probe should end. Ty Cobb, the president’s personal attorney, reassured lawmakers on Monday that the president does not plan to fire Mueller.
But Dowd is not alone.
McCabe’s firing should raise serious questions as to where Mueller’s investigation is going. Mueller’s past involvement in cases casts a very different light on the former FBI director than the one painted by his proponents and the media, said David Schoen, a civil rights and defense attorney. Schoen has been outspoken on the special counsel and criticized Mueller’s top attorney Andrew Weissmann’s involvement in the investigation, as reported.
“We all have the right – even the obligation – to demand fairness in the process and this process is not the least bit fair and the investigations lack integrity,” said Schoen. He noted that as a defense attorney, Dowd should question how the investigation against Trump and his campaign came to be and if it was based on false information in an unverified dossier paid for by political opponents then the investigation is moot, said Schoen.
The Trump Russia investigation appears to be based, at least in significant part, on unverified and circumstantial evidence, coordinated actions of political opponents and “it is irretrievably tainted from its inception and must end now,” Schoen said. The case was also established by partisan bureau officials who were bent on bringing charges against Trump, he added. Although some lawmakers have asked for a second special counsel to investigate the FBI and DOJ’s actions in investigating Trump, many still continue to support Mueller’s ongoing investigation, which began at the behest of those being accused of wrongdoing in the FBI.
Mueller's involvement in one of the FBI's most embarrassing cases
Now this is a real reporter --> Sara Carter
President Donald Trump directed angry tweets at Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the weekend. The tweets were prompted by the Department of Justice’s decision to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Friday as recommended by the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility took action on McCabe after the DOJ’s Inspector General handed over evidence that the former FBI agent lied under oath and leaked information to the media.
Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
Trump’s Tweets on Mueller appeared to some Republicans and Democrats to be a veiled threat to fire Mueller. Those lawmakers warned the president that it would be the ‘beginning of the end for his presidency’ if Trump fired the special counsel. They also criticized Trump’s attorney John Dowd for suggesting over the weekend that the Mueller probe should end. Ty Cobb, the president’s personal attorney, reassured lawmakers on Monday that the president does not plan to fire Mueller.
But Dowd is not alone.
McCabe’s firing should raise serious questions as to where Mueller’s investigation is going. Mueller’s past involvement in cases casts a very different light on the former FBI director than the one painted by his proponents and the media, said David Schoen, a civil rights and defense attorney. Schoen has been outspoken on the special counsel and criticized Mueller’s top attorney Andrew Weissmann’s involvement in the investigation, as reported.
“We all have the right – even the obligation – to demand fairness in the process and this process is not the least bit fair and the investigations lack integrity,” said Schoen. He noted that as a defense attorney, Dowd should question how the investigation against Trump and his campaign came to be and if it was based on false information in an unverified dossier paid for by political opponents then the investigation is moot, said Schoen.
The Trump Russia investigation appears to be based, at least in significant part, on unverified and circumstantial evidence, coordinated actions of political opponents and “it is irretrievably tainted from its inception and must end now,” Schoen said. The case was also established by partisan bureau officials who were bent on bringing charges against Trump, he added. Although some lawmakers have asked for a second special counsel to investigate the FBI and DOJ’s actions in investigating Trump, many still continue to support Mueller’s ongoing investigation, which began at the behest of those being accused of wrongdoing in the FBI.
Schoen is surprised that lawmakers have lauded Mueller as a stellar and well-respected former FBI director but have little knowledge about the former bureau director’s past from the criticism during his years in Boston, challenges with the 911 Commission findings when he was first appointed to the FBI and handling of the Anthrax case to name a few, he said.
Mueller In Boston
In Boston, Mueller was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and then became the Acting U.S. Attorney from 1986 through 1987.
It was Mueller’s actions during that time that raised questions about his role in one of the FBI’s most controversial cases involving the FBI’s use of a confidential informant that led to the convictions of four innocent men, who were sentenced to death for murders they did not commit.
Local law enforcement officials, the media, and some colleagues criticized Mueller and the FBI for what they believed was the bureau’s role in covering up for the FBI’s longtime dealings with mobster and informant James “Whitey” Bulger.
Bulger was a kingpin and a confidential informant for the FBI from the 1970s in the bureau’s efforts to take down the Italian mafia in Boston. But Bulger’s relationship with his FBI handler Special Agent John Connolly became toxic. It was later discovered that Connolly went out of his way to protect Bulger and aided the crime boss against investigations being conducted by the Boston PD and the Massachusetts State Police. According to reports at the time, Connolly would inform Bulger of wiretaps and surveillance being conducted by law enforcement.
Journalist Kevin Cullen wrote extensively about the FBI’s involvement with Bulger and raised concerns about the old case in a 2011 article in Boston.com after Obama asked Congress to make an exception to allow Mueller to stay on two-extra years beyond the mandated 10 year limit as FBI director.
Cullen said in his story that Mueller who was first an assistant US attorney, “then as the acting US attorney in Boston” had written “letters to the parole and pardons board throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies. Of course, Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset.”
In 2001, those four men, who were convicted in 1965 of Teddy Deegan’s murder were exonerated by the courts. It was discovered that the FBI withheld evidence from the court to protect their informant that would have cleared the men, according to reports. At the time, the bureau buried the truth to protect Vincent “Jimmy’’ Flemmi, their informant, who was the brother of Stevie Flemmi, a partner of Bulger.
Coleen Rowley is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd congressional district
Coleen Rowley, a former FBI special agent and former Minneapolis Division legal counsel of the FBI, wrote an Op-Ed in the Huffington Post last year No, Robert Mueller and James Comey Aren’t Heroes stated that when the truth about Bulger “was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI operated) Bulger gang.”
But according to Cullen, Mueller never was asked by Congress, “what did you know about Whitey Bulger, and when did you know it?”
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston said the bureau helped convict the four men of a crime they did not commit, and the three of them had been sentenced to die in the electric chair.
“This case goes beyond mistakes, beyond the unavoidable errors of a fallible system,” Gertner wrote in a 228-page decision, which called the FBI’s defense — that Massachusetts was to blame for an inadequate investigation — “absurd,” according to Cullen’s article.
Schoen noted for these reasons alone there should be concern about Mueller’s special counsel.
“As I have mentioned before, under Mueller’s watch in Boston, the second most corrupt relationship between an FBI agent (John Connolly, now in prison for murder-related charges) and his information (Whitey Bulger) unfolded,” said Schoen. “Mueller was neck deep in it and has never answered the questions that the media asked rhetorically, but that should have been asked by a grand jury of Congressional Committee. Even such dubious sources as the NY Times, Boston Globe, and Huffington Post have demanded answers. Many have suggested he should never have been FBI Director.”
“Central tenet of the criminal justice system..to challenge the integrity of the investigation”
Attorney David Schoen
Over the weekend, Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee was one of those members.
Mueller In Boston
In Boston, Mueller was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and then became the Acting U.S. Attorney from 1986 through 1987.
It was Mueller’s actions during that time that raised questions about his role in one of the FBI’s most controversial cases involving the FBI’s use of a confidential informant that led to the convictions of four innocent men, who were sentenced to death for murders they did not commit.
Local law enforcement officials, the media, and some colleagues criticized Mueller and the FBI for what they believed was the bureau’s role in covering up for the FBI’s longtime dealings with mobster and informant James “Whitey” Bulger.
Bulger was a kingpin and a confidential informant for the FBI from the 1970s in the bureau’s efforts to take down the Italian mafia in Boston. But Bulger’s relationship with his FBI handler Special Agent John Connolly became toxic. It was later discovered that Connolly went out of his way to protect Bulger and aided the crime boss against investigations being conducted by the Boston PD and the Massachusetts State Police. According to reports at the time, Connolly would inform Bulger of wiretaps and surveillance being conducted by law enforcement.
Journalist Kevin Cullen wrote extensively about the FBI’s involvement with Bulger and raised concerns about the old case in a 2011 article in Boston.com after Obama asked Congress to make an exception to allow Mueller to stay on two-extra years beyond the mandated 10 year limit as FBI director.
Cullen said in his story that Mueller who was first an assistant US attorney, “then as the acting US attorney in Boston” had written “letters to the parole and pardons board throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies. Of course, Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset.”
In 2001, those four men, who were convicted in 1965 of Teddy Deegan’s murder were exonerated by the courts. It was discovered that the FBI withheld evidence from the court to protect their informant that would have cleared the men, according to reports. At the time, the bureau buried the truth to protect Vincent “Jimmy’’ Flemmi, their informant, who was the brother of Stevie Flemmi, a partner of Bulger.
Coleen Rowley is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd congressional districtColeen Rowley, a former FBI special agent and former Minneapolis Division legal counsel of the FBI, wrote an Op-Ed in the Huffington Post last year No, Robert Mueller and James Comey Aren’t Heroes stated that when the truth about Bulger “was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI operated) Bulger gang.”
But according to Cullen, Mueller never was asked by Congress, “what did you know about Whitey Bulger, and when did you know it?”
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston said the bureau helped convict the four men of a crime they did not commit, and the three of them had been sentenced to die in the electric chair.
“This case goes beyond mistakes, beyond the unavoidable errors of a fallible system,” Gertner wrote in a 228-page decision, which called the FBI’s defense — that Massachusetts was to blame for an inadequate investigation — “absurd,” according to Cullen’s article.
Schoen noted for these reasons alone there should be concern about Mueller’s special counsel.
“As I have mentioned before, under Mueller’s watch in Boston, the second most corrupt relationship between an FBI agent (John Connolly, now in prison for murder-related charges) and his information (Whitey Bulger) unfolded,” said Schoen. “Mueller was neck deep in it and has never answered the questions that the media asked rhetorically, but that should have been asked by a grand jury of Congressional Committee. Even such dubious sources as the NY Times, Boston Globe, and Huffington Post have demanded answers. Many have suggested he should never have been FBI Director.”
“Central tenet of the criminal justice system..to challenge the integrity of the investigation”
Attorney David Schoen
Over the weekend, Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee was one of those members.
“If you have an innocent client, Mr. Dowd, act like it,” Gowdy told “Fox News Sunday,” who added Mueller’s probe should continue.Like Gowdy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also stressed that there should be a second special counsel, telling this reporter, “the system is working, we should let it work. Firing Mueller would be a grave mistake.”
But Schoen disagrees with Gowdy and Graham saying, “it is a central tenet of the criminal justice system that one may always challenge the integrity of the investigation/prosecution and it is reckless for a member of Congress to suggest otherwise,” said Schoen.Schoen and the former FBI official disagree with Graham. The former FBI official, who worked on counterintelligence cases, said if the foundation of the investigation isn’t based on credible solid evidence “then Mueller’s investigation is one in search of a crime and that is not what you want and that’s not how it should be done.”
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
OPEN MOUTH INSERT BOTH FEET ... MAXINE WATERS DOES IT BEST!
Cambridge Analytica Facebook personal data use by Trump campaign routine
The near-hysterical reaction to the Trump campaign’s reported use of personal Facebook data in 2016 ignores a fact of life about social media: businesses, platforms, and political campaigns have been collecting users’ personal preferences for years through a variety of online tools to reach their target audiences.
This alleged data “breach” from Facebook accounts is not identity theft, in which hackers try to steal your credit card information, Social Security number or bank account. The accusation leveled against the voter-profiling research firm Cambridge Analytica involves the exploitation of Facebook users’ personal choices and “likes” — expressed online voluntarily for their friends to see — that let researchers and analysts make educated guesses about a person’s political leanings and susceptibility to advertising.
“This sounds scary to a lot of people because the name ‘Trump‘ is attached to it,” Republican digital strategist Patrick Ruffini said. “In reality, this was being done first by the Obama campaign in 2012 and subsequently by other Republican campaigns. This is no different than what Obama did, and no different than what other campaigns and companies have done.”
He said the data collection “was the equivalent of downloading someone’s Twitter follower list.”
Facebook said Monday that it had hired a firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Cambridge Analytica, which was hired by the Trump campaign, and the whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, who accused Cambridge of misusing the data.
Facebook officials said Mr. Wylie has declined to submit to an audit.
“We are moving aggressively to determine the accuracy of these claims,” Facebook said in a statement. “We remain committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information.”
Mr. Wylie said the data were first collected by Russian-American academic researcher Aleksandr Kogan through an app called This Is Your Digital Life,” which asked users to answer questions voluntarily for a psychological profile. By default, the app’s privacy settings allowed its developers to access users’ Facebook information, such as their hometowns and whether they “like” the game “Angry Birds” or the movie “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Cambridge is accused of gathering users’ data without their explicit consent in 2014 and 2015 from Mr. Kogan, in violation of Facebook policies.
“Cambridge Analytica has agreed to comply and afford the firm complete access to their servers and systems,” Facebook said. “We have approached the other parties involved — Christopher Wylie and Aleksandr Kogan — and asked them to submit to an audit as well. Mr. Kogan has given his verbal agreement to do so. Mr. Wylie thus far has declined.”
Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica last week for what it says is a violation of its policies.
The personal choices expressed on social media, along with a list of the users’ online “friends,” can be used by analysts to develop a personality profile of someone with a Facebook account. From there, users’ names can be matched against voter rolls to create a list of likely voters to reach through advertising in a presidential election.
Cambridge Analytica, formerly led by ex-White House strategist Steve Bannon, denies that it used any Facebook data for the Trump campaign in 2016. The firm says it deleted all the information when it learned that the academic researcher shouldn’t have sold the data to the company.
“This isn’t a spy movie,” the company said on Twitter. “We’re a data analytics company doing research & analysis on commercial, public and data sets for clients.”
Lawmakers are calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain what happened.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, and John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, called on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday to hold a hearing with tech company CEOs to examine what they are doing to protect online data.
“The lack of oversight on how data is stored and how political advertisements are sold raises concerns about the integrity of American elections as well as privacy rights,” the senators wrote.
Consumer advocates are noting that Facebook didn’t notify the affected users for two years. Others are questioning whether Facebook users have had their privacy invaded.
“I think Facebook users should be deeply concerned,” said Patrick Hynes, president of the online communications firm Hynes Communications in Washington. “They have been given all kinds of public assurances that this wasn’t going to happen to their data. And they accepted a social media environment that said they’re going to be served ads based on their preferences, but that their personal information was never going to be given to any outside entity that would then use that information for ad sales or psychological profiling or any other kind of third-party activity. This violates the ‘contract’ that we have with Facebook.”
Mr. Ruffini, a former Republican National Committee strategist who runs the digital analytics firm Echelon Insights, said companies conduct similar kinds of online market research constantly.
“It’s no different than what companies every day are doing to figure out, based on available data points about you, to model out whether you’re going to buy a car,” Mr. Ruffini said. “Those things happen on the internet every day. Hundreds of people are doing this to you right now.”
Democrats, overlooking the fact that President Obama’s re-election campaign pioneered data mining of social media to reach voters younger than 30, see a sinister development in the Trump campaign’s reported use of the information.
Rep. James A. Hines, Connecticut Democrat and a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which has interviewed Mr. Bannon, said he cannot believe that a company formerly run by Mr. Bannon and owned by wealthy Republican donor Robert Mercer would not have exploited the Facebook data to Mr. Trump’s advantage.
“That work was used,” Mr. Himes said Monday on CNN. “By whom, and exactly when, I’m not sure. [But] that work was used.”
Cambridge Analytica said Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign “was famously data-driven, pioneered microtargeting in 2012, talking to people specifically based on the issues they care about.”
That statement prompted a former Obama campaign official, Jeremy Bird, to fire back on Twitter that Cambridge is accused of stealing data on 50 million Facebook users.
“That’s not ‘data-driven,’” Mr. Bird tweeted. “That’s theft. Do not use the Obama campaign to justify your shady business.”
Some congressional Democrats are pouncing on the development as another possible indication that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, sent a letter to Mr. Wylie on Monday inviting him to testify before the panel’s Democrats about Cambridge Analytica’s use of the Facebook data.
“The company has repeatedly touted its ability to influence voters through ‘psychographic’ targeting and has claimed it was the fundamental reason that Donald Trump won the 2016 election,” Mr. Schiff said. “Indeed, it may be that through Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign made use of illegitimately acquired data on millions of Americans in order to help sway the election.”
Mr. Schiff said Mr. Kogan’s Russian background “raises further questions, which the committee must investigate.”
AND NOW A WORD FROM MAXINE WATERS ...
The near-hysterical reaction to the Trump campaign’s reported use of personal Facebook data in 2016 ignores a fact of life about social media: businesses, platforms, and political campaigns have been collecting users’ personal preferences for years through a variety of online tools to reach their target audiences.
This alleged data “breach” from Facebook accounts is not identity theft, in which hackers try to steal your credit card information, Social Security number or bank account. The accusation leveled against the voter-profiling research firm Cambridge Analytica involves the exploitation of Facebook users’ personal choices and “likes” — expressed online voluntarily for their friends to see — that let researchers and analysts make educated guesses about a person’s political leanings and susceptibility to advertising.
“This sounds scary to a lot of people because the name ‘Trump‘ is attached to it,” Republican digital strategist Patrick Ruffini said. “In reality, this was being done first by the Obama campaign in 2012 and subsequently by other Republican campaigns. This is no different than what Obama did, and no different than what other campaigns and companies have done.”
He said the data collection “was the equivalent of downloading someone’s Twitter follower list.”
Facebook said Monday that it had hired a firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Cambridge Analytica, which was hired by the Trump campaign, and the whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, who accused Cambridge of misusing the data.
Facebook officials said Mr. Wylie has declined to submit to an audit.
“We are moving aggressively to determine the accuracy of these claims,” Facebook said in a statement. “We remain committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information.”
Mr. Wylie said the data were first collected by Russian-American academic researcher Aleksandr Kogan through an app called This Is Your Digital Life,” which asked users to answer questions voluntarily for a psychological profile. By default, the app’s privacy settings allowed its developers to access users’ Facebook information, such as their hometowns and whether they “like” the game “Angry Birds” or the movie “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Cambridge is accused of gathering users’ data without their explicit consent in 2014 and 2015 from Mr. Kogan, in violation of Facebook policies.
“Cambridge Analytica has agreed to comply and afford the firm complete access to their servers and systems,” Facebook said. “We have approached the other parties involved — Christopher Wylie and Aleksandr Kogan — and asked them to submit to an audit as well. Mr. Kogan has given his verbal agreement to do so. Mr. Wylie thus far has declined.”
Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica last week for what it says is a violation of its policies.
The personal choices expressed on social media, along with a list of the users’ online “friends,” can be used by analysts to develop a personality profile of someone with a Facebook account. From there, users’ names can be matched against voter rolls to create a list of likely voters to reach through advertising in a presidential election.
Cambridge Analytica, formerly led by ex-White House strategist Steve Bannon, denies that it used any Facebook data for the Trump campaign in 2016. The firm says it deleted all the information when it learned that the academic researcher shouldn’t have sold the data to the company.
“This isn’t a spy movie,” the company said on Twitter. “We’re a data analytics company doing research & analysis on commercial, public and data sets for clients.”
Lawmakers are calling on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain what happened.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, and John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, called on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday to hold a hearing with tech company CEOs to examine what they are doing to protect online data.
“The lack of oversight on how data is stored and how political advertisements are sold raises concerns about the integrity of American elections as well as privacy rights,” the senators wrote.
Consumer advocates are noting that Facebook didn’t notify the affected users for two years. Others are questioning whether Facebook users have had their privacy invaded.
“I think Facebook users should be deeply concerned,” said Patrick Hynes, president of the online communications firm Hynes Communications in Washington. “They have been given all kinds of public assurances that this wasn’t going to happen to their data. And they accepted a social media environment that said they’re going to be served ads based on their preferences, but that their personal information was never going to be given to any outside entity that would then use that information for ad sales or psychological profiling or any other kind of third-party activity. This violates the ‘contract’ that we have with Facebook.”
Mr. Ruffini, a former Republican National Committee strategist who runs the digital analytics firm Echelon Insights, said companies conduct similar kinds of online market research constantly.
“It’s no different than what companies every day are doing to figure out, based on available data points about you, to model out whether you’re going to buy a car,” Mr. Ruffini said. “Those things happen on the internet every day. Hundreds of people are doing this to you right now.”
Democrats, overlooking the fact that President Obama’s re-election campaign pioneered data mining of social media to reach voters younger than 30, see a sinister development in the Trump campaign’s reported use of the information.
Rep. James A. Hines, Connecticut Democrat and a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which has interviewed Mr. Bannon, said he cannot believe that a company formerly run by Mr. Bannon and owned by wealthy Republican donor Robert Mercer would not have exploited the Facebook data to Mr. Trump’s advantage.
“That work was used,” Mr. Himes said Monday on CNN. “By whom, and exactly when, I’m not sure. [But] that work was used.”
Cambridge Analytica said Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign “was famously data-driven, pioneered microtargeting in 2012, talking to people specifically based on the issues they care about.”
That statement prompted a former Obama campaign official, Jeremy Bird, to fire back on Twitter that Cambridge is accused of stealing data on 50 million Facebook users.
“That’s not ‘data-driven,’” Mr. Bird tweeted. “That’s theft. Do not use the Obama campaign to justify your shady business.”
Some congressional Democrats are pouncing on the development as another possible indication that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, sent a letter to Mr. Wylie on Monday inviting him to testify before the panel’s Democrats about Cambridge Analytica’s use of the Facebook data.
“The company has repeatedly touted its ability to influence voters through ‘psychographic’ targeting and has claimed it was the fundamental reason that Donald Trump won the 2016 election,” Mr. Schiff said. “Indeed, it may be that through Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign made use of illegitimately acquired data on millions of Americans in order to help sway the election.”
Mr. Schiff said Mr. Kogan’s Russian background “raises further questions, which the committee must investigate.”
AND NOW A WORD FROM MAXINE WATERS ...
Monday, March 19, 2018
I ALWAYS THANK THE DOT FOR BY-PASS ROUTES AROUND CITIES
The city with Highest Per Capita Murder Rate Starts Defense Fund for Illegal Aliens
March 13, 2018
Less than a year after Baltimore prosecutors ordered staff not to charge illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes because it could get the offenders deported, Maryland’s largest city will hire immigration attorneys to help those facing removal. It’s important to note that Baltimore has the nation’s highest per capita homicide rate and has been coined the deadliest big city in the United States by a mainstream newspaper. Nevertheless, a city panel approved spending $200,000 this month to pay for lawyers to represent illegal aliens with deportation orders. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh says in a local news report that the goal is for everyone to get due process. “We’re not making a decision as to their status, we’re making the decision to be supportive of individuals who live in our city,” according to the mayor.
Unlike the criminal justice system, in immigration court, the government doesn’t offer free lawyers to those who can’t afford them. This means that illegal aliens who don’t have the money to pay for one must represent themselves in legal proceedings or rely on volunteer attorneys or paralegals provided by immigrant rights groups. This leaves many illegal aliens in removal proceedings without adequate legal representation. The trend of using taxpayer dollars to assist illegal aliens in deportation proceedings started under the Obama administration. In 2015, the former president allocated $2 million to hire attorneys to represent the influx of illegal alien minors in federal immigration proceedings. The money flowed through a special program, Justice AmeriCorps, launched by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
In response to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, American sanctuary cities took matters into their own hands by creating local funds to help illegal aliens facing deportation. Chicago’s City Council led the way by approving a $1.3 million legal defense fund and the city of Los Angeles followed with a $10 million fund to help illegal immigrants dodge justice. Shortly after the city announced its special immigrant legal project, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors offered to kick in another $3 million to provide more lawyers. The only L.A. County Supervisor who voted against the fund said it’s irresponsible to allocate taxpayer money for such a program. In the city’s case, the city attorney, whose office prosecutes crimes and represents L.A. in litigation, said the money will ensure that there is “more fairness and more effectiveness in the immigration system,” which, of course, is a federal and not a state matter.
Baltimore took it a step further by also creating a policy to go easy on alien criminals in state cases to avert collateral immigration consequences. An internal memo issued by Baltimore’s Chief Deputy State’s Attorney in mid-2017 instructs prosecutors to think twice before charging illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes. The chief deputy, Michael Schatzow, writes in the memo that the Trump administration’s deportation efforts “have increased the potential collateral consequences to certain immigrants of minor, non-violent criminal conduct.” Schatzow is second-in-command to Baltimore’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, and oversees major crimes at the state agency. “In considering the appropriate disposition of a minor, non-violent criminal case, please be certain to consider those potential consequences to the victim, witnesses, and the defendant,” Schatzow wrote to his staff.
Besides Baltimore, two Maryland counties—Montgomery and Prince George’s—offer illegal immigrants sanctuary. When the Trump administration announced it would enforce immigration laws, Baltimore Mayor Pugh reiterated that police and other public agencies in her city never ask about immigration status. “We are a welcoming city,” the mayor said in a local news report. “We want everyone here. We want to be able to provide opportunities and jobs and careers for folks. That’s where we are in Baltimore.” This year Maryland legislators tried to pass a measure to make the state an official illegal alien sanctuary but the bill, known as the Trust Act, hit a roadblock in a Senate committee after passing in the House of Delegates and the governor has vowed to veto it even if it survives.
Less than a year after Baltimore prosecutors ordered staff not to charge illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes because it could get the offenders deported, Maryland’s largest city will hire immigration attorneys to help those facing removal. It’s important to note that Baltimore has the nation’s highest per capita homicide rate and has been coined the deadliest big city in the United States by a mainstream newspaper. Nevertheless, a city panel approved spending $200,000 this month to pay for lawyers to represent illegal aliens with deportation orders. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh says in a local news report that the goal is for everyone to get due process. “We’re not making a decision as to their status, we’re making the decision to be supportive of individuals who live in our city,” according to the mayor.
Unlike the criminal justice system, in immigration court, the government doesn’t offer free lawyers to those who can’t afford them. This means that illegal aliens who don’t have the money to pay for one must represent themselves in legal proceedings or rely on volunteer attorneys or paralegals provided by immigrant rights groups. This leaves many illegal aliens in removal proceedings without adequate legal representation. The trend of using taxpayer dollars to assist illegal aliens in deportation proceedings started under the Obama administration. In 2015, the former president allocated $2 million to hire attorneys to represent the influx of illegal alien minors in federal immigration proceedings. The money flowed through a special program, Justice AmeriCorps, launched by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
In response to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, American sanctuary cities took matters into their own hands by creating local funds to help illegal aliens facing deportation. Chicago’s City Council led the way by approving a $1.3 million legal defense fund and the city of Los Angeles followed with a $10 million fund to help illegal immigrants dodge justice. Shortly after the city announced its special immigrant legal project, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors offered to kick in another $3 million to provide more lawyers. The only L.A. County Supervisor who voted against the fund said it’s irresponsible to allocate taxpayer money for such a program. In the city’s case, the city attorney, whose office prosecutes crimes and represents L.A. in litigation, said the money will ensure that there is “more fairness and more effectiveness in the immigration system,” which, of course, is a federal and not a state matter.
Baltimore took it a step further by also creating a policy to go easy on alien criminals in state cases to avert collateral immigration consequences. An internal memo issued by Baltimore’s Chief Deputy State’s Attorney in mid-2017 instructs prosecutors to think twice before charging illegal immigrants with minor, non-violent crimes. The chief deputy, Michael Schatzow, writes in the memo that the Trump administration’s deportation efforts “have increased the potential collateral consequences to certain immigrants of minor, non-violent criminal conduct.” Schatzow is second-in-command to Baltimore’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, and oversees major crimes at the state agency. “In considering the appropriate disposition of a minor, non-violent criminal case, please be certain to consider those potential consequences to the victim, witnesses, and the defendant,” Schatzow wrote to his staff.
Besides Baltimore, two Maryland counties—Montgomery and Prince George’s—offer illegal immigrants sanctuary. When the Trump administration announced it would enforce immigration laws, Baltimore Mayor Pugh reiterated that police and other public agencies in her city never ask about immigration status. “We are a welcoming city,” the mayor said in a local news report. “We want everyone here. We want to be able to provide opportunities and jobs and careers for folks. That’s where we are in Baltimore.” This year Maryland legislators tried to pass a measure to make the state an official illegal alien sanctuary but the bill, known as the Trust Act, hit a roadblock in a Senate committee after passing in the House of Delegates and the governor has vowed to veto it even if it survives.
Sunday, March 18, 2018
THE DICE WERE LOADED ... SO, WHO CHANGE THEM AT THE LAST MINUTE
This trap was set well before Trump won
So they changed the rules. We can pick our president. But then the powerful established bureaucracy must conduct a massive, sprawling, limitless investigation into any and all aspects of the president we pick.
The basis of this “investigation” is an increasingly debunked frame-up designed and drafted by the Kremlin and paid for by President Trump’s political opponent in the presidential election. And then spread to all four corners of the globe by the oldest creatures of the powerful establishment in Washington.
At the height of the presidential election, the administration of the outgoing president of the United States — Mr. Trump’s most powerful political enemy — handed over the controls of America’s spy apparatus to begin moving against Mr. Trump and his campaign.
They exposed people, spied on people and began setting the trap just in case the stupid people of America picked Mr. Trump to be their president. They lied, conspired and held secret meetings.
So special counsel Robert Mueller’s endless investigation in search of a crime should have been no surprise. It was cooked up long before Mr. Trump even won the election. Of course, these people were going to do this.
It is the new standard for “self-governance” in America. The people can elect any president they want. But then these people will do everything including assassinating their character to hound them from office.
Truly, these people cannot fathom how much innocent taxpayers despise them.
⦁ Contact Charles Hurt at churt@washingtontimes.com; @charleshurt.
So they changed the rules. We can pick our president. But then the powerful established bureaucracy must conduct a massive, sprawling, limitless investigation into any and all aspects of the president we pick.
The basis of this “investigation” is an increasingly debunked frame-up designed and drafted by the Kremlin and paid for by President Trump’s political opponent in the presidential election. And then spread to all four corners of the globe by the oldest creatures of the powerful establishment in Washington.
At the height of the presidential election, the administration of the outgoing president of the United States — Mr. Trump’s most powerful political enemy — handed over the controls of America’s spy apparatus to begin moving against Mr. Trump and his campaign.
They exposed people, spied on people and began setting the trap just in case the stupid people of America picked Mr. Trump to be their president. They lied, conspired and held secret meetings.
So special counsel Robert Mueller’s endless investigation in search of a crime should have been no surprise. It was cooked up long before Mr. Trump even won the election. Of course, these people were going to do this.
It is the new standard for “self-governance” in America. The people can elect any president they want. But then these people will do everything including assassinating their character to hound them from office.
 |
| ENTERING A VOTING BOOTH SHOULD NOT BE DIFFICULT |
Truly, these people cannot fathom how much innocent taxpayers despise them.
⦁ Contact Charles Hurt at churt@washingtontimes.com; @charleshurt.
Friday, March 16, 2018
THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AT THE LOWEST IN RECENT MEMORY ... GET A JOB SHOULDN'T BE A PROBLEM
 |
| NOW GO AND GET A REAL JOB |
By the time President Trump’s presidency is over, one of the biggest pieces of fake news we will look back on is when we were told by the media that Trump was good for the media business. According to what is happening in a place called the real world, the truth is that business for the media is horrible.
We will start with the Denver Post, which announced Thursday that, between April 9 and July 1, 30 jobs will be cut from its newsroom. That is a massive 30 percent cut of its current staff of 100 journalists. Just 10 years ago according to the far-left Washington Post, the Denver Post employed 600 journalists. That is close to a 90 percent reduction in only a decade.
Last month, the San Jose Mercury News was hit with another round of terminations, as many as 27 staffers were either laid off or bought out.
In late January, the East Bay Times wiped out a quarter of its editorial staff through layoffs and buyouts — a total of 28 staffers.
We also learned in January that a total of five publications owned by Southern California News Group will face “significant layoffs,” including the OC Register and Los Angeles Daily News.
On our cable dials, while Fox News and MSNBC are open about their respective biases and thrive, the far-left CNN is not only collapsing in the ratings but dealing with some massive layoffs of its own. Over the past few years, CNN, which continues its ludicrous pose as an objective news organization, has been in a credibility death spiral, and that is finally starting to take a real toll on the anti-Trump cable channel.
None of this should be surprising. Americans are losing faith in the media, and for good reason. The belligerent biases, the unrelenting fake news. As an example, just look at the past 18 hours. Both ProPublica and the New York Times have been caught spreading fake news about Gina Haspel, Trump’s pick to run the CIA, and the Washington media falsely reported that Trump had fired his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.
Alternately, this same media missed completely the biggest political story of the last 60 days — Trump replacing his secretary of state with his CIA director and choosing a woman to lead the spy agency, a historic first.
Our media is shockingly useless, constantly playing catch up with the actual news while obsessing over rumor and innuendo.
Consider the fact that the media that protected Bill Clinton — a man who as president committed perjury to cover up his sexual affair with a young intern, an affair conducted just a few rooms away from his wife and daughter in the Oval Office — is now obsessed over a porn star’s story that she might have had a consensual affair with Trump more than a decade ago.
When women credibly accused Clinton of rape, groping, and harassment, our media joined the White House in destroying them as liars. But this same media hoping to turn a 12-year-old consensual relationship into a national scandal.
Americans are tired of the media lying to them, misleading them, lecturing them… Today, there are plenty of alternative sources of news. No one needs to put up with what is called the MSM anymore.
Which reminds me…
To protect Barack Obama’s anemic economic “recovery,” our media tried to convince us that unemployment in the Obama era, was really “funemployment.” When the working class, those our elitist media despise, lose their jobs to illegal immigrants, unfair trade deals, and oppressive and unnecessary environmental regulations, the media have dismissively suggested that they all catch up with the times and learn computer code.
So let me be the first to wish all of these “journalists” a Happy Funemployment and wish them luck all the luck in the world with their new careers as computer coders.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
WHEN A GUN ISN'T INVOLVED IN A MASS KILLING ... IT ISN'T A MASS KILLING?
Mass Killing In South Carolina Goes Unreported By National Media
A mass shooting is generally described as an attack involving a firearm and the killing of three or more people at one time. While some quibble on that definition, it’s at least a starting place. While some have a looser definition, few argue that such an attack isn’t a mass shooting.
So, if we take that definition and broaden it just a bit, a mass killing is any incident where three or more people are killed, right?
Then just why is no one in the national media talking about the mass killing this past weekend in Charleston, SC?
An incident report released in a quadruple homicide Saturday morning at a home in Charleston County describes the scene investigators found when they arrived.The coroner’s office identified the victims as 72-year-old Joseph Manigault, 69-year-old Rose Manigault, 42-year-old Kenya Manigault and 15-year-old Faith Manigault.All were listed as being from Mount Pleasant, though their home is outside of the city limits in an unincorporated part of Charleston County.
Why isn’t the media at least talking about this? After all, wouldn’t this bolster their narrative that guns are bad?
Oh, wait. Maybe it’s because the murder weapon wasn’t a gun.
The four victims all died from blunt trauma, according to Charleston County Deputy Coroner Kimberly Rhoton.The Manigault’s grandson, 22-year-old Lovequawn Matthew Shaire Scott, was arrested on Saturday for their deaths and charged with four counts of murder.
In other words, this one man allegedly beat the other four to death. He didn’t need an “assault rifle.” He didn’t need a handgun. He didn’t need anything except brute force to murder four members of his own family (allegedly).
They were beaten to death.
Do you want to know why I’m an advocate for gun rights? It’s because a firearm is the one tool that could have stopped this attack. It’s the one tool that any of those four could have used to stop this person who murdered them in one of the most brutal fashions possible.
Two elderly people, a woman, and a teenage girl are rarely ever going to match the strength and power of a grown man in his prime. They’re not going to be able to fend off an attack like that.
And don’t bring up the police. Despite the best efforts and fondest desires of most police officers, they’d have gotten there well after it was all done. It’s not like they were apparently given a chance to make a phone call.
But the media remains silent. This is a horrific, brutal crime. This is something that one would think would grip the national news media. After all, if it bleeds, it leads, right?
Instead, we get silence. There’s no discussion about what could have motivated someone to do this. There’s no discussion about how horrific a crime this is. Nothing.
Yes, I get that the death toll was lower than Parkland. However, Parkland was a month ago and there’s not really any new information. There’s time enough in the news cycle to talk about this one. Yet we’re not.
That’s because it doesn’t advance the narrative, and that’s why people are less and less trusting of the mainstream media.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
THE HEN HOUSE, THE FOX AND MR. MAGOO
FBI-debunked Russia-Trump story helped New York Times win journalism award
By Rowan Scarborough
One of the stories for which the New York Times won a coveted George Polk Award was a Russia-Trump report that was repudiated by former FBI Director James Comey.
The Times won the award on Feb. 20 for 12 stories it submitted on Donald Trump and his associates ties to Russia, according to a list provided by Polk to The Washington Times.
One of them was a Feb. 14, 2017 story headlined, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts with Russian Intelligence.”
Written by Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, the lead said:
The story, plus the infamous Christopher Steele dossier, played major roles in pushing the Trump-Russian collusion narrative in Washington as committees ramped up investigations.
More than a year later, Republicans contend there was no collusion.
Four months after the Times story appeared, at a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, had this exchange with then-former director Comey:
COTTON: On February 14th, the New York Times published a story, the headline of which was, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”
You were asked earlier if that was an inaccurate story, and you said, in the main. Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong?
COMEY: Yes.
Also, questioned by Sen. James Risch, Idaho Republican, Mr. Comey said he was so alarmed by the story he first checked with the intelligence community to see if he had missed something. Finding out he had not, he notified congressional leaders to discard the report.
RISCH: In addition to that, after that, you sought out both Republican and Democrat senators to tell them that, hey, I don’t know where this is coming from, but this is not the — this is not factual. Do you recall that?
COMEY: Yes.
RISCH: OK. So — so, again, so the American people can understand this, that report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement?
COMEY: In — in the main, it was not true. And, again, all of you know this, maybe the American people don’t. The challenge — and I’m not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information, is that people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on.
The New York Times public affairs office did not immediately return a message.
Headquartered at Long Island University, a Polk award is one of the most coveted in journalism. Awards for Trump Russia coverage in 2017 went to the Washington Post as well as the Times.
The citation said in part, “Special recognition goes out this year to the staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post for their extraordinary effort in uncovering the connection between the Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation. The Polk judges felt the investigative work, based on the cultivation of sources, was equally outstanding on the part of both newspapers and may play a significant role in safeguarding our democracy from foreign interference.”
While Mr. Comey debunked the Feb. 14 story, The Times did not back off it.
The Times won for 12 stories in all. They included its exclusive on Mr. Comey’s private memos he wrote for the record after one-on-one meetings with President Trump. The Times also broke the story that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation in July 2016 after receiving a report from a diplomat about Trump volunteer George Papadopoulos. The volunteer said he heard from a Kremlin-linked professor that Moscow owned “thousands” of Hillary Clinton emails.
Wikileaks released stolen Democrat Party emails that month that the U.S. says came from Russian hacking. The hack is part of the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russiaelection interference and if Trump people helped.
The FBI placed a wiretap on onetime Trump volunteer Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016 that would last nearly a year. Mr. Page, a former Moscow resident, had traveled to the city in July to deliver a public speech at a university.
The dossier said he met with two Kremlin operatives and discussed bribes. Under oath, Mr. Page has repeatedly denied he ever met the men and says he will not be charged with wrongdoing.
When Mr. Comey testified in June, the FBI was obtaining its last 90-day surveillance warrant on Mr. Page.
The FBI has not confirmed the dossier’s major charges, but continues to investigate.
The dossier, written by ex-British spy Steele and financed by Democrats, said there was an “extensive conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
The dossier was posted by BuzzFeed on Jan. 10, a month before the New York Times story which basically made the same charge.
The Washington Times Comment PolicyThe Washington Times is switching its third-party commenting system from Disqus to Spot.IM. You will need to either create an account with Spot.im or if you wish to use your Disqus account look under the Conversation for the link "Have a Disqus Account?". Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
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Condoleeza Rice’s brilliant defense of guns
Firearms in the hands of the law-abiding serve as a not-so-subtle warning to government that the people aren’t defenseless.And this is why we will never allow the government to take our guns, our defenses, our power to fight back against tyranny. An armed citizenry can never be forced into long marches, train cars, gas chambers, or mass graves. It cannot be trampled and crushed under the boots of the government, starved as the politicians grow fat, or made to bow down to a government that thinks it's the master.An armed citizenry is necessary to keep our government Of The People.
Nathan Deal, Georgia governor, signs bill without Delta tax break after NRA rift
Excellent! Delta supports Planned Parenthood and organization that Kills 325,000+ babies a year but doesn't want to partner with NRA who kills no one.
Chilling: Play titled ‘Kill Climate Deniers’ launches theatrical run
CLIMATE CHANGE GLOSSARYPEER REVIEW: The act of banding together a group of like-minded academics with a funding conflict of interest, for the purpose of squeezing out any research voices that threaten the multi-million dollar government grant gravy train.SETTLED SCIENCE: Betrayal of the scientific method for politics or money or both.DENIER: Anyone who suspects the truth.CLIMATE CHANGE: What has been happening for billions of years, but should now be flogged to produce ‘panic for profit.’NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: Leftist Nutcase Prize, unrelated to “Peace” in any meaningful way. DATA, EVIDENCE: Unnecessary details. If anyone asks for this, see “DENIER,” above.CLIMATE SCIENTIST: A person skilled in spouting obscure, scientific-sounding jargon that has the effect of deflecting requests for “DATA” by “DENIERS.” Also skilled at affecting an aura of “Smartest Person in the Room” to buffalo gullible legislators and journalists.JUNK SCIENCE: The use of invalid scientific evidence resulting in findings of causation which simply cannot be justified or understood from the standpoint of the current state of credible scientific knowledge.
Obama not attending Billy Graham memorial
No, Obama is visiting with Rev. Wright that day. Billy Graham never ever hated America or American's, never wanted anyone to die, no matter their color, and definitely believed in God's love for ALL. Mr. o, is just being the usual, a petty little man stomping his wee foot when he can't get his way.
Schools safer today than in 1990s, study on shootings says
Flying under the radar? What I'm taking away from this last school shooting, is that this yoke was doing everything possible to scream for help. Everyone around him was screaming for help. The radar screen was lit up like the 4th of July.The problem was, no one was listening. Not the teachers, not the police, the Sheriff, nor the FBI.
U.S. commanders forecast 10,000 American casualties in war with North Korea
Truman should have listened to General Mac Arthur and we would not be in this mess. I think Truman was an historically great man and President , but after the war they should have been stopped. The world right now is a tinder box and anything could happen. This is a time for God and prayer....These are horrible Dictators: North Korea...Iran.....China is to be watched..Syria..Russia...Cuba...Venezuela..... We have our own issues with the crazy left as well. Does not look good. Need to come together and pray for this President instead of all this nasty rhetoric and opposition and back up our Chief and Commander....He is taking his job very seriously....for the American people as it should be....This is to be taken seriously and we should unite and learn respect and get back to our old fashioned values. Hollywood and music industry set better examples for our next generation.Just imagine you are a youngster looking at the way the women dress and some of the words used as wellLet's make America Great and Strong. These power hungry Dictators are very much like Hitler and no one is condemning them like they should ...our Press is like Pravda and is disgusting.
Oscars’ liberal causes, Trump-bashing to pull spotlight from Hollywood scandals
That's nice but who but the liberal loons in the few remaining liberal bubble on each coast, will be watching this Aren't we just the best thing to ever come down the pike love fest and paean of praise for each other and how wonderful they all are.............................barf..........................
Donald Trump’s rocky anti-gun reelection road
Indeed. Trump needs to ensure that every deranged, murderous sociopath can still get his hand on an AR-15.
Trump to rally next week in Pennsylvania steel country
I hope Pennsylvania cleans up its voter rolls after the findings of over 100,000 illegal aliens voted. Hillary Clinton needed to win Pennsylvania. It was a close race in that state. The illegals could have made a big difference in our nation today. Illinois surely needs to clean up their rolls also. Every election in Illinois, the good people outside of Chicago and Springfield must bear the burden of watching crooks steal their elections from them.President Trump's visit to PA. will be well received.
Man who shot himself outside White House has died: Secret Service
Just a guess, someone with severe TDS making what he thought was a profound statement, or just another anti gun nut trying to make a statement, with a gun. SMH
Marvin Quattlebaum, Trump judicial nominee, confirmed despite Chuck Schumer ‘white’ complaint
What does the color of one's skin have to do with one's knowledge of the Constitution, and his/her willingness to uphold it as written and intended? The GOP was correct to scuttle two hard left, so-called judicial activists who demonstrated little knowledge of the Constitution or their willingness to uphold it as written and intended.
Central Michigan University student used father’s gun in double homicide: Police
Hmmm - how WILL the left be able to blame this in the president and the NRA? Will the Broward Cowards chime in with some bully tactic to attack another woman for fun and games on CNN?
Kirk Cousins has 4 expected finalists: report
Good luck to Cousins wherever he goes. He is just flat out a class act player and person. So unlike Snyder it is pathetic.
Nunes: FBI on shaky legal ground with use of Dem-funded dossier to wiretap Trump campaign
Rep. Nunes is a national hero. He is the only responsible elected official, other than Trump, who is insisting the government operate according to the law. After 8 years of a regime that used the government used as a political weapon--- a bludgeon against innocent Americans---there is perhaps, finally, some accountability.
Angela Merkel, Donald Trump discuss Syrian cease-fire, Vladimir Putin’s new weapons
Kind of makes me wonder, if President Trump is doing nothing about the Russians, why are they so pissed?
By Rowan Scarborough
One of the stories for which the New York Times won a coveted George Polk Award was a Russia-Trump report that was repudiated by former FBI Director James Comey.
The Times won the award on Feb. 20 for 12 stories it submitted on Donald Trump and his associates ties to Russia, according to a list provided by Polk to The Washington Times.
One of them was a Feb. 14, 2017 story headlined, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts with Russian Intelligence.”
Written by Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, the lead said:
“Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”In essence, the story asserted that Trump people colluded with Russian intelligence, which hacked Democrat Party computers in 2015-16.
The story, plus the infamous Christopher Steele dossier, played major roles in pushing the Trump-Russian collusion narrative in Washington as committees ramped up investigations.
More than a year later, Republicans contend there was no collusion.
Four months after the Times story appeared, at a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, had this exchange with then-former director Comey:
COTTON: On February 14th, the New York Times published a story, the headline of which was, “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”
You were asked earlier if that was an inaccurate story, and you said, in the main. Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong?
COMEY: Yes.
Also, questioned by Sen. James Risch, Idaho Republican, Mr. Comey said he was so alarmed by the story he first checked with the intelligence community to see if he had missed something. Finding out he had not, he notified congressional leaders to discard the report.
RISCH: In addition to that, after that, you sought out both Republican and Democrat senators to tell them that, hey, I don’t know where this is coming from, but this is not the — this is not factual. Do you recall that?
COMEY: Yes.
RISCH: OK. So — so, again, so the American people can understand this, that report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement?
COMEY: In — in the main, it was not true. And, again, all of you know this, maybe the American people don’t. The challenge — and I’m not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information, is that people talking about it often don’t really know what’s going on.
The New York Times public affairs office did not immediately return a message.
Headquartered at Long Island University, a Polk award is one of the most coveted in journalism. Awards for Trump Russia coverage in 2017 went to the Washington Post as well as the Times.
The citation said in part, “Special recognition goes out this year to the staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post for their extraordinary effort in uncovering the connection between the Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation. The Polk judges felt the investigative work, based on the cultivation of sources, was equally outstanding on the part of both newspapers and may play a significant role in safeguarding our democracy from foreign interference.”
While Mr. Comey debunked the Feb. 14 story, The Times did not back off it.
The Times won for 12 stories in all. They included its exclusive on Mr. Comey’s private memos he wrote for the record after one-on-one meetings with President Trump. The Times also broke the story that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation in July 2016 after receiving a report from a diplomat about Trump volunteer George Papadopoulos. The volunteer said he heard from a Kremlin-linked professor that Moscow owned “thousands” of Hillary Clinton emails.
Wikileaks released stolen Democrat Party emails that month that the U.S. says came from Russian hacking. The hack is part of the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russiaelection interference and if Trump people helped.
The FBI placed a wiretap on onetime Trump volunteer Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016 that would last nearly a year. Mr. Page, a former Moscow resident, had traveled to the city in July to deliver a public speech at a university.
The dossier said he met with two Kremlin operatives and discussed bribes. Under oath, Mr. Page has repeatedly denied he ever met the men and says he will not be charged with wrongdoing.
When Mr. Comey testified in June, the FBI was obtaining its last 90-day surveillance warrant on Mr. Page.
The FBI has not confirmed the dossier’s major charges, but continues to investigate.
The dossier, written by ex-British spy Steele and financed by Democrats, said there was an “extensive conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
The dossier was posted by BuzzFeed on Jan. 10, a month before the New York Times story which basically made the same charge.
The Washington Times Comment PolicyThe Washington Times is switching its third-party commenting system from Disqus to Spot.IM. You will need to either create an account with Spot.im or if you wish to use your Disqus account look under the Conversation for the link "Have a Disqus Account?". Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Hey guest, welcome to The Washington Times! Sign up and become a member.
Condoleeza Rice’s brilliant defense of guns
Firearms in the hands of the law-abiding serve as a not-so-subtle warning to government that the people aren’t defenseless.And this is why we will never allow the government to take our guns, our defenses, our power to fight back against tyranny. An armed citizenry can never be forced into long marches, train cars, gas chambers, or mass graves. It cannot be trampled and crushed under the boots of the government, starved as the politicians grow fat, or made to bow down to a government that thinks it's the master.An armed citizenry is necessary to keep our government Of The People.
Nathan Deal, Georgia governor, signs bill without Delta tax break after NRA rift
Excellent! Delta supports Planned Parenthood and organization that Kills 325,000+ babies a year but doesn't want to partner with NRA who kills no one.
Chilling: Play titled ‘Kill Climate Deniers’ launches theatrical run
CLIMATE CHANGE GLOSSARYPEER REVIEW: The act of banding together a group of like-minded academics with a funding conflict of interest, for the purpose of squeezing out any research voices that threaten the multi-million dollar government grant gravy train.SETTLED SCIENCE: Betrayal of the scientific method for politics or money or both.DENIER: Anyone who suspects the truth.CLIMATE CHANGE: What has been happening for billions of years, but should now be flogged to produce ‘panic for profit.’NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: Leftist Nutcase Prize, unrelated to “Peace” in any meaningful way. DATA, EVIDENCE: Unnecessary details. If anyone asks for this, see “DENIER,” above.CLIMATE SCIENTIST: A person skilled in spouting obscure, scientific-sounding jargon that has the effect of deflecting requests for “DATA” by “DENIERS.” Also skilled at affecting an aura of “Smartest Person in the Room” to buffalo gullible legislators and journalists.JUNK SCIENCE: The use of invalid scientific evidence resulting in findings of causation which simply cannot be justified or understood from the standpoint of the current state of credible scientific knowledge.
Obama not attending Billy Graham memorial
No, Obama is visiting with Rev. Wright that day. Billy Graham never ever hated America or American's, never wanted anyone to die, no matter their color, and definitely believed in God's love for ALL. Mr. o, is just being the usual, a petty little man stomping his wee foot when he can't get his way.
Schools safer today than in 1990s, study on shootings says
Flying under the radar? What I'm taking away from this last school shooting, is that this yoke was doing everything possible to scream for help. Everyone around him was screaming for help. The radar screen was lit up like the 4th of July.The problem was, no one was listening. Not the teachers, not the police, the Sheriff, nor the FBI.
U.S. commanders forecast 10,000 American casualties in war with North Korea
Truman should have listened to General Mac Arthur and we would not be in this mess. I think Truman was an historically great man and President , but after the war they should have been stopped. The world right now is a tinder box and anything could happen. This is a time for God and prayer....These are horrible Dictators: North Korea...Iran.....China is to be watched..Syria..Russia...Cuba...Venezuela..... We have our own issues with the crazy left as well. Does not look good. Need to come together and pray for this President instead of all this nasty rhetoric and opposition and back up our Chief and Commander....He is taking his job very seriously....for the American people as it should be....This is to be taken seriously and we should unite and learn respect and get back to our old fashioned values. Hollywood and music industry set better examples for our next generation.Just imagine you are a youngster looking at the way the women dress and some of the words used as wellLet's make America Great and Strong. These power hungry Dictators are very much like Hitler and no one is condemning them like they should ...our Press is like Pravda and is disgusting.
Oscars’ liberal causes, Trump-bashing to pull spotlight from Hollywood scandals
That's nice but who but the liberal loons in the few remaining liberal bubble on each coast, will be watching this Aren't we just the best thing to ever come down the pike love fest and paean of praise for each other and how wonderful they all are.............................barf..........................
Donald Trump’s rocky anti-gun reelection road
Indeed. Trump needs to ensure that every deranged, murderous sociopath can still get his hand on an AR-15.
Trump to rally next week in Pennsylvania steel country
I hope Pennsylvania cleans up its voter rolls after the findings of over 100,000 illegal aliens voted. Hillary Clinton needed to win Pennsylvania. It was a close race in that state. The illegals could have made a big difference in our nation today. Illinois surely needs to clean up their rolls also. Every election in Illinois, the good people outside of Chicago and Springfield must bear the burden of watching crooks steal their elections from them.President Trump's visit to PA. will be well received.
Man who shot himself outside White House has died: Secret Service
Just a guess, someone with severe TDS making what he thought was a profound statement, or just another anti gun nut trying to make a statement, with a gun. SMH
Marvin Quattlebaum, Trump judicial nominee, confirmed despite Chuck Schumer ‘white’ complaint
What does the color of one's skin have to do with one's knowledge of the Constitution, and his/her willingness to uphold it as written and intended? The GOP was correct to scuttle two hard left, so-called judicial activists who demonstrated little knowledge of the Constitution or their willingness to uphold it as written and intended.
Central Michigan University student used father’s gun in double homicide: Police
Hmmm - how WILL the left be able to blame this in the president and the NRA? Will the Broward Cowards chime in with some bully tactic to attack another woman for fun and games on CNN?
Kirk Cousins has 4 expected finalists: report
Good luck to Cousins wherever he goes. He is just flat out a class act player and person. So unlike Snyder it is pathetic.
Nunes: FBI on shaky legal ground with use of Dem-funded dossier to wiretap Trump campaign
Rep. Nunes is a national hero. He is the only responsible elected official, other than Trump, who is insisting the government operate according to the law. After 8 years of a regime that used the government used as a political weapon--- a bludgeon against innocent Americans---there is perhaps, finally, some accountability.
Angela Merkel, Donald Trump discuss Syrian cease-fire, Vladimir Putin’s new weapons
Kind of makes me wonder, if President Trump is doing nothing about the Russians, why are they so pissed?
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