Statesville Record & Landmark-Dec 7, 2018WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he will nominate William Barr, attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, …Trump nominating Barr as AG, Nauert as UN Ambassador WPVI-TV-Dec 7, 2018View all
Washington Post-Dec 7, 2018Balkin argues that the disruptive nature of these ploys are the whole point …. into the top echelons of U.S. diplomacy as the Trump administration ramps … an afternoon news conference that the Obamaadministration’s rule, which …. July, when he announced the outcome of the FBI investigation into Hillary …
Washington Post-Nov 29, 2018Republican women also won full four-year terms in Iowa, Alabama and ….. The FBI and the House Intelligence Committee are both investigating a letter …. for a shake-up of a top echelon inhabited by three lawmakers in their late 70s. …. court challenges given that it overturns an Obama-era interpretation of …
Chicago Tribune-May 23, 2018He tweeted Wednesday morning that the FBI has been caught in a “major SPY scandal.” … to support Trump’s claim that the Obama administration was trying to spy on … the upper echelon of federal law enforcement has conspired against him, … the information on an FBI source in the Russia investigation.Trump Seethes Over Russia Probe, ‘Major SPY Scandal’ at FBI NBC Connecticut-May 24, 2018View allRead the whole story · ·
There have been a record 94 incidents of gun violence in schools across the United States in 2018 — a nearly 60% jump from the previous high set in 2006, …
Washington • A growing number of Republicans fear that a battery of new revelations in the far-reaching Russia investigation has dramatically heightened the …
President Trump has called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt,” but more than 30 people have been charged. Many of those who’ve been accused, however, …
Ralph DeMasi, a mobster with a penchant for robbing armored trucks, will be in Worcester Superior Court as the murder trial against him begins in connection …
In a closed-door meeting with members of two congressional committees, former FBI Director James Comey was grilled on his handling of the Hillary Clinton …
The state funeral for former President George H.W. Bush captivated Washington. Bush died Nov. 30, 2018, at age 94. The controversies of his one-term presidency receded into the background as his eulogists — including son and President George W. Bush — celebrated his wartime heroism, foreign policy acumen and kindness.
Commentators couldn’t help but contrast the “kinder, gentler” elder Bush with President Donald Trump’s combative style.
Meanwhile, Special Counsel Robert Mueller continued to rile the president with sentencing memos for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Other topics in the news this week include Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Argentina to avert a trade war; the president’s tweet that he is “Tariff Man,” rattling the financial markets; continued fallout from the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey; voter fraud in North Carolina; and Republican efforts in Wisconsin and Michigan to handcuff incoming Democratic administrations.
Cartoons were drawn by Bill Bramhall, Chan Lowe, Dan Wasserman, Dana Summers, Drew Sheneman, Scott Stantis, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey, Phil Hands and Joel Pett of Tribune Content Agency; Tim Campbell, Mike Lester, Signe Wilkinson and Jeff Danziger of the Washington Post Writers Group; and Tom Toles of Andrews McMeel Syndication.
CNN-Nov 29, 2018Giuliani also told CNN that “neither of the two versions from Michael Cohen … the Justice Department by lying to the FBI and special counsel’s office. … telling theNew York Post that “It was never discussed, but I wouldn’t take …Read the whole story · · ·
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The Sun-Sep 8, 2018THE daughter of a billionaire tycoon who plunged to his death from a … ScottYoung’s youngest child, Sasha, has broken her silence for the first …
Mirror.co.uk-Sep 8, 2018The daughter of controversial tycoon Scot Young has broken her silence … Young, 52, thought to have been a billionaire, fell to his death on …
Telegraph.co.uk-Jan 14, 2018Property developer Scot Young’s final phone call in which he … ruled there was insufficient evidence to conclude that it had been suicide.
Daily Mail-Sep 8, 2018’I know it wasn’t suicide‘: In her first interview since the death of her troubled tycoon father Scot Young, the billionaire’s daughter opens up about …
Daily Mail-Jan 15, 2018The claim was made by reclusive tycoon Valery Morozov, who fled for Britain … In 2015, a coroner ruled Mr Young’s death could not be ruled as …Read the whole story · · ·
His calls were echoed by Marina Litvinenko, who husband Alexander was killed in London in 2006 with polonium-210 on the orders of the Russian state.
“It’s very important that Scotland Yard looks into these mysterious deaths, because it seems that they’re all linked somehow,” she said.
Mr Browder said that the fact that they had been identified through the blunders of agents abroad would have left Mr Putin “seething”.
“Putin will be absolutely humiliated that his entire foreign assassin operation has been compromised by its own stupidity,” he said.
The 14 deaths linked to Russia were initially re-examined in the wake of the Skripals poisoning.
Scotland Yard said in a statement: “Following a request in March from the then-Home Secretary Amber Rudd, reviews into 14 deaths of Russian nationals in the UK were carried out by the relevant local police forces, which were coordinated by Counter Terrorism Policing.
“Following the reviews a response was sent back to the Home Secretary that there was no basis on which to re-open any of the investigations. Should any new information or evidence become available, then it will be assessed by the relevant police force as appropriate.”
Deutsche Bank is in hot water after recent raids by police. What will happen next?
Deutsche Bank faces its most severe test yet in the wake of police raids on its Frankfurt offices on November 29 over suspicions of helping its clients in money laundering. The scene was dramatic: 170 officers descended on six Deutsche Bank buildings, including its headquarters, and seized documents and files, according to an NPR report.
German authorities are investigating whether Deutsche Bank employees — specifically two individuals — helped set up offshore companies in tax havens for some 900 clients to launder about $354 million from criminal activities. The investigation is related to the Panama Papers expose of 2016, Deutsche Bank said, adding that it has provided the relevant documents to the investigators.
The Panama Papers refer to the legal records of a Panamanian law firm that revealed the financial holdings in tax havens of numerous influential people including a dozen national leaders. Fourteen German banks used the Panamanian law firm of Mossack Fonseca to set up more than 1,200 anonymous shell companies, according a report in The Guardian newspaper of the UK, which worked with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to publish the Panama Papers expose.
Penalized Out of Existence?
“The bank could face a world in which it gets penalized out of existence,” said David Zaring, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. He noted that Deutsche Bank has a history of scandals involving regulatory transgressions. “It just pays fines all the time.” The bank is paying a $425 million fine in New York for helping Russians move money out of Russia; the Federal Reserve fined Deutsche Bank $41 million for failing to have effective compliance measures in place; and “German bank regulators have appointed a monitor for Deutsche Bank to make sure that it’s not laundering money and financing terrorism,” Zaring noted. According to one list, the bank has attracted some $12.5 billion in fines in 28 cases since 2000.
“Deutsche Bank is a classic [case of] ‘control fraud,’” said William K. Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He explained that “control fraud” occurs when “a seemingly legitimate entity and the people that control it use it as a weapon to defraud others and commit other predation and crimes.” A former white-collar criminologist, Black had referred to the concept in his 2005 book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is To Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry. “[Deutsche Bank] poses as the largest bank in Germany, but it’s actually the largest criminal enterprise in Germany, which is something, because it has to compete with Volkswagen,” he added, referring to the German automaker’s 2015 emissions scandal.
Deutsche Bank has been intimately involved with the German economy since its founding in 1870. Its status as a national icon grew along with its role in Germany’s reconstruction after World War II and its rise as a global bank over the last three decades. But the latest controversy threatens to upset that iconic image. “The problem is it is perceived as a national champion,” said Black. “The greater problem is that it’s a national champion that loses every joust, and it’s revealed to have cheated every time it gets into a joust. … So it’s a pathetic and embarrassing national champion in that regard.”
Zaring noted that at first sight, there is “nothing illegal” about Deutsche Bank helping its clients minimize their tax bills. “The question is whether they were using the Panama Papers [route] to fraudulently hide the money that the tax authorities would have wanted to get.”
Black identified problems on several fronts that Deutsche Bank currently faces. One is with the suspected link to the Panama Papers. That comes close on the heels of an investigation by U.S. law enforcement agencies into the alleged role of Danske Bank of Denmark in laundering money out of Russia and other former Soviet states. The US subsidiary of Deutsche Bank was named as being involved in laundering $150 billion, according to a Financial Times report. (Deutsche Bank has clarified in a fact sheet that the latest investigations are not related to the Danske Bank scandal.) Last, US President Donald Trump and his family’s relationships with Deutsche Bank in earlier years could trigger a game of political football after the Democratic Party gains control of the House of Representatives in January 2019.
Zaring noted that Deutsche Bank also failed a stress test the US Federal Reserve conducted in June. “Clearly, American regulators are worried about basic questions such as whether it’s resilient enough to survive a shock to the system,” he said.
Deutsche Bank has also managed to avoid having to comply with Basel 3, the tight capital adequacy standards set by the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, said Black. “Its stock prices have tanked, its bonds are being downgraded and most people think it’s in a death spiral,” he added. Deutsche Bank ADRs trading on the New York Stock Exchange fell to an all-time low of $9.02 intraday on December 4.
Black expected some executive heads to roll at Deutsche Bank as an outcome of the latest controversy. Both Black and Zaring also predicted that the bank will reach a settlement with regulators instead of fighting its case in court. “These are very difficult cases if they prosecute; almost always, Deutsche settles,” said Black. Added Zaring: “Deutsche doesn’t get a lot of joy out of fighting these things, so it will probably settle. And then, there will be a question over criminal prosecutions of the two executives who are allegedly facilitating this money laundering.”
Ducking Regulation
Black said that Deutsche Bank has failed to fulfill promises made to regulators each time it was fined for lapses over the last 12 years. “Deutsche Bank has used up all of its second, third, fourth, fifth and six chances.”
Black pointed out that Deutsche Bank’s CEOs seem to have taken the heat of its regulatory skirmishes in recent years, while its chairman, Paul Achleitner, has stayed in the job since 2012. “The tone presumably starts with him,” he said. The bank’s CEOs have had an uneasy tenure since 2011, when it experimented with two co-CEOs before they quit over the next four years. John Cryan, who succeeded them, was replaced earlier this year by current CEO Christian Sewing.
According to Black, Gresham’s Law is at work in the Deutsche Bank case — a monetary principle that bad money drives out good. “Deutsche Bank either needs to be under completely new management, where you have to rip out the entire top leadership, or it needs to be merged [with another bank],” he said.
Zaring agreed with Black. “It could be that a course correction could save the bank,” he said. While a merger may be explored between Deutsche Bank and “a couple of other, smaller German banks that the Germans trust more,” it’s not clear that is the best option. “I wonder if [Deutsche Bank] is going to be able to downsize and wait this out.”
Fixing a Flawed Culture
Across a broad range of countries, “the culture of finance at really high levels has suffered greatly,” Black noted. “Part of it is [the role of] institutional structures and incentives. We need to make significant changes, because if you don’t fix the culture you will have recurrent problems.”
Zaring wondered if culture correction is a feasible goal. “Can you create the right kind of compliant, law-abiding culture in a bank? And how do you do it?” He noted that US and Dutch regulators, for example, have attempted to foster within banks a culture of compliance with regulation, and have encouraged bank executives to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own bonuses. “What we need to do is create that tone at the top, and get everybody in the bank to approach rules … the same way. It looks like Deutsche Bank is ripe for cultural change, and it’s not clear whether the German regulators have figured out a way to do it.” He wondered if the bank’s shareholders would also push for such a cultural transformation after tiring of the impact of fines on its bottom line.
The overriding concern now is whether it might be too late for all those changes, and if Deutsche Bank could withstand the pressure of yet another set of heavy penalties. Zaring noted that two years ago, when the US government considered imposing a fine of around $14 billion on the bank for selling faulty mortgage-backed securities, its market capitalization shrunk to nearly the same amount. “In other words, they would have had to pledge all of their equity to meet their financial penalty obligations,” he noted. The bank eventually settled for about half that amount as a fine.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.Read the whole story · · · · · ·
Daily Beast-10 hours agoInvestigators repeatedly asked Comey about the Special Counsel’s … climate change, President Trump told reporters he does not “believe” the findings. …. $20 off Cashmere (while supplies last); you’ll look perfect, stay dry, and save a bundle.
<a href=”http://Syracuse.com” rel=”nofollow”>Syracuse.com</a>-Dec 7, 2018However, President Donald Trump did not make any mention of Pearl … “I remember Pearl Harbor,” the president said in June, referring to the …Michael Flynn Has Provided ‘Substantial Assistance’ In Russia Inquiry … In-Depth-NPR-Dec 4, 2018Read the whole story · ·
Former FBI Director James Comey claimed “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” in response to dozens of questions concerning key details in the Russia probe, according to a lengthy transcript released Saturday of his closed-door interview with congressional lawmakers.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., published the 235-page transcript as a part of an agreement with Comey.
The former bureau boss frustrated GOP lawmakers during Friday’s session, in large part because his lawyers urged him not to answer numerous questions. Comey is expected to return later in the month for another round, though blasted Republicans on his way out for what he called a “desperate attempt to find anything that can be used to attack the institutions of justice investigating this president.”
But while Comey insisted in the interview that “we never investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes,” the transcript shows he claimed ignorance or memory lapses in response to questions concerning key details and events in the Russia investigation, which some GOP lawmakers continue to claim was improperly conducted.
The transcript reveals lawmakers’ frustration with his lack of specifics.
Asked if he recalled who drafted the FBI’s “initiation document” for the July 2016 Russia investigation, Comey said, “I do not.” He again claimed not to know when asked about the involvement in that initiation of Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump texts later got him removed from the special counsel’s probe.
When asked if the FBI had any evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server, Comey gave a lengthy answer referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as to why he couldn’t answer.
“Did we have evidence in July of (2016) that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server?” Comey asked rhetorically. “I don’t think that the FBI and special counsel want me answering questions that may relate to their investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry that that would cross that line.”
“I don’t think that the FBI and special counsel want me answering questions that may relate to their investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry that that would cross that line,”— Former FBI Director James Comey
When pressed further by Gowdy about what “factual predicate” the bureau had to launch a counterintelligence investigation, Comey again claimed that answering that question would be a “slope” that would ask him to reveal what the FBI “did or didn’t know about Russia activity” as it related to the 2016 election.
“You can’t tell us, or you won’t tell us?” Gowdy asks.
“Probably a combination of both … To the extent I recall facts developed during our investigation of Russian interference and the potential connection of Americans, I think that’s a question that the FBI doesn’t want me answering. So it’s both a can’t and a won’t,” Comey replied.
The former FBI director went on to say that anything related to Mueller’s investigation, to his understanding, would be “off limits” as it is an ongoing investigation.
Comey was also fuzzy on the eventual Democratic funding of the research that went into the controversial and unverified anti-Trump dossier.
Asked when he learned that the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was hired by law firm Perkins Coie – and when he learned that law firm was hired by the Democratic National Committee – Comey said “I never learned that” while director.
Comey also claimed not to know key details surrounding the involvement of Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier.
Asked when Steele was “terminated” as an FBI source, Comey said he didn’t know.
Asked about Steele’s subsequent contact with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, Comey said, “I don’t know anything about that.”
The Comey appearance comes as Republicans try to probe deeper into the FBI’s handling of both the Russia case and Hillary Clinton email investigation, before Democrats take control of the House in January and likely shut down these lines of inquiry.
Comey was asked numerous questions as well about the handling of the Clinton case, acknowledging at times that certain aspects of it were “unusual” while defending other actions.
Comey initially challenged the subpoena to appear before the committees and instead pressed for a public hearing out of concern his comments would be selectively leaked and taken out of context. He eventually agreed to appear, with an arrangement for the transcript to be made public.
Fox News’ Bill Mears, Jake Gibson, and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.Read the whole story · · · · ·
Daily Beast-14 hours agoFormer FBI Director James Comey told Congressional investigators Friday that the Justice Department was investigating four Americans …
Lawfare (blog)-16 hours agoThe transcript of former FBI Director James Comey’s interview before the House judiciary committee and oversight committee is available here …Read the whole story · ·
Admiral Lord West issued the dire warning as Putin’s forces are accused of massing to invade Ukraine – with president Petro Poroshenko begging for NATO aid.
The former First Sea Lord laid out the danger of the situation as both sides test each other – warning about the possibility of NATO’s intervention against Russia in the Black Sea.
He told Daily Star Online: “It was exactly this that lead to World War 1. While the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the stimulus, it was the brinkmanship.”
Tensions around Crimea – which was annexed by Russia in 2014 – have reignited after Putin’s forces opened fire upon and seized three ships from Ukraine.
Russia has denied any aggressive intent, accusing Poroshenko of inflaming the situation to boost his flagging poll numbers ahead of next year’s election.
Admiral West – one of Britain’s most senior Royal Navy figures – warned against both sides “pushing and pushing” against one another as tensions rage.
Russia has already committed an “act of war” in attacking the Ukraine vessels and warned Putin may send troops into the war-torn Donbass.
Donbass is a region of Ukraine that is currently torn-apart by civil war as pro-Russian rebels and fighting against Kiev.
Moscow has already been accused of aiding the rebels with weapons and stoking up the uprising, something which has been firmly denied by the Kremlin.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Russia’s leader has denied any aggressive intent to Ukraine (Pic: GETTY)
Admiral West told Daily Star Online: “It is a highly dangerous thing when you start playing this game, and I really do wonder about Putin.
“[Putin] just lies, and while Trump also lies, at least Trump isn’t going to try and attack us and trigger a nuclear war.”
NATO held a two day summit earlier this week, but did not commit to aiding Ukraine despite calls from Poroshenko for warships to be sent to the Black Sea.
UKRAINE: Kiev fears Russia are going to invade after the seizure of three ships (Pic: GETTY)
WAR: Russia has moved missile defence systems into Crimea (Pic: GETTY)
Admiral West went on: “I think where this becomes extremely serious is Putin starts using Russian troops in [the Donbass] to fight Ukraine, and it becomes as war between Russia and Ukraine.
“What exactly do we do? It’s not an attack on NATO, and do we really want to send troops in and get in a hot war with Russia over Ukraine.
“It’s a very good question. And if we don’t, then we let Ukraine be extinguished, it’s a very hard one to decide.”
“I can see easily a situation where a war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine, in which the Russians would win – clearly – where NATO say they are not going to get involved.”
MAPPED: Russia and Ukraine’s clash is feared to rope in NATO (Pic: DS)
Ukraine has been holding war drills over the past few weeks, declared martial law, called army reservists and banned the entry of all men of fighting age from Russia.
Poroshenko has openly said he expects Putin’s forces to invade, warning tank divisions are massing just 11 miles from the border of Ukraine.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea from the former-Soviet state back in 2014 was internationally condemned as illegal, and triggered a larger NATO presence within eastern Europe.
Kiev fears Moscow are moving to capture the Crimean ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, which is home to key trading routes and is the latest battleground between Russia and Ukraine.
ROYAL NAVY: Admiral Lord West warned Russia and Ukraine’s clash is like the days before WW1 (Pic: WIKICOMMONS)
Admiral West was unconvinced a large military operation by NATO would deter Russia and warned it may inflame the situation even more – instead urging for further sanctions of Moscow.
The Royal Navy hero described Putin as a “mafia boss” – and added: “How do you get the mafia? You go after their money.”
He said: “We need to hammer every oligarch, freeze assets not just in this country but around the world, stop them shoving money through tax havens.”
Tensions continue to rage as Ukraine has vowed to send warships into the Kerch Strait to stop Russia “totally occupying” the Sea of Azov.Read the whole story · · · · · · · · · ·
The U.S. military flew an “extraordinary” Open Skies Treaty flight over Ukraine on Thursday in response to Russia’s “unprovoked attack” on allied Ukrainian forces late last month in the Black Sea near the Kerch Strait.
The maneuver is the first flight of its kind over Ukraine since 2014, when Russian forces annexed Crimea, according to Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman.
Daily Beast-10 hours agoInvestigators repeatedly asked Comey about the Special Counsel’s … climate change, President Trump told reporters he does not “believe” the findings. …. $20 off Cashmere (while supplies last); you’ll look perfect, stay dry, and save a bundle.
<a href=”http://Syracuse.com” rel=”nofollow”>Syracuse.com</a>-Dec 7, 2018However, President Donald Trump did not make any mention of Pearl … “I remember Pearl Harbor,” the president said in June, referring to the …Michael Flynn Has Provided ‘Substantial Assistance’ In Russia Inquiry … In-Depth-NPR-Dec 4, 2018Read the whole story · ·
Former FBI Director James Comey claimed “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” in response to dozens of questions concerning key details in the Russia probe, according to a lengthy transcript released Saturday of his closed-door interview with congressional lawmakers.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., published the 235-page transcript as a part of an agreement with Comey.
The former bureau boss frustrated GOP lawmakers during Friday’s session, in large part because his lawyers urged him not to answer numerous questions. Comey is expected to return later in the month for another round, though blasted Republicans on his way out for what he called a “desperate attempt to find anything that can be used to attack the institutions of justice investigating this president.”
But while Comey insisted in the interview that “we never investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes,” the transcript shows he claimed ignorance or memory lapses in response to questions concerning key details and events in the Russia investigation, which some GOP lawmakers continue to claim was improperly conducted.
The transcript reveals lawmakers’ frustration with his lack of specifics.
Asked if he recalled who drafted the FBI’s “initiation document” for the July 2016 Russia investigation, Comey said, “I do not.” He again claimed not to know when asked about the involvement in that initiation of Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump texts later got him removed from the special counsel’s probe.
When asked if the FBI had any evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server, Comey gave a lengthy answer referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as to why he couldn’t answer.
“Did we have evidence in July of (2016) that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server?” Comey asked rhetorically. “I don’t think that the FBI and special counsel want me answering questions that may relate to their investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry that that would cross that line.”
“I don’t think that the FBI and special counsel want me answering questions that may relate to their investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry that that would cross that line,”— Former FBI Director James Comey
When pressed further by Gowdy about what “factual predicate” the bureau had to launch a counterintelligence investigation, Comey again claimed that answering that question would be a “slope” that would ask him to reveal what the FBI “did or didn’t know about Russia activity” as it related to the 2016 election.
“You can’t tell us, or you won’t tell us?” Gowdy asks.
“Probably a combination of both … To the extent I recall facts developed during our investigation of Russian interference and the potential connection of Americans, I think that’s a question that the FBI doesn’t want me answering. So it’s both a can’t and a won’t,” Comey replied.
The former FBI director went on to say that anything related to Mueller’s investigation, to his understanding, would be “off limits” as it is an ongoing investigation.
Comey was also fuzzy on the eventual Democratic funding of the research that went into the controversial and unverified anti-Trump dossier.
Asked when he learned that the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was hired by law firm Perkins Coie – and when he learned that law firm was hired by the Democratic National Committee – Comey said “I never learned that” while director.
Comey also claimed not to know key details surrounding the involvement of Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier.
Asked when Steele was “terminated” as an FBI source, Comey said he didn’t know.
Asked about Steele’s subsequent contact with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, Comey said, “I don’t know anything about that.”
The Comey appearance comes as Republicans try to probe deeper into the FBI’s handling of both the Russia case and Hillary Clinton email investigation, before Democrats take control of the House in January and likely shut down these lines of inquiry.
Comey was asked numerous questions as well about the handling of the Clinton case, acknowledging at times that certain aspects of it were “unusual” while defending other actions.
Comey initially challenged the subpoena to appear before the committees and instead pressed for a public hearing out of concern his comments would be selectively leaked and taken out of context. He eventually agreed to appear, with an arrangement for the transcript to be made public.
Fox News’ Bill Mears, Jake Gibson, and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.Read the whole story · · · · ·
Former FBI Director James Comey claimed “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” in response to dozens of questions concerning key details in the Russia probe, according to a lengthy transcript released Saturday of his closed-door interview with congressional lawmakers.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., published the 235-page transcript as a part of an agreement with Comey.
The former bureau boss frustrated GOP lawmakers during Friday’s session, in large part because his lawyers urged him not to answer numerous questions. Comey is expected to return later in the month for another round, though blasted Republicans on his way out for what he called a “desperate attempt to find anything that can be used to attack the institutions of justice investigating this president.”
But while Comey insisted in the interview that “we never investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes,” the transcript shows he claimed ignorance or memory lapses in response to questions concerning key details and events in the Russia investigation, which some GOP lawmakers continue to claim was improperly conducted.
The transcript reveals lawmakers’ frustration with his lack of specifics.
Asked if he recalled who drafted the FBI’s “initiation document” for the July 2016 Russia investigation, Comey said, “I do not.” He again claimed not to know when asked about the involvement in that initiation of Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump texts later got him removed from the special counsel’s probe.
When asked if the FBI had any evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server, Comey gave a lengthy answer referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as to why he couldn’t answer.
“Did we have evidence in July of (2016) that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server?” Comey asked rhetorically. “I don’t think that the FBI and special counsel want me answering questions that may relate to their investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry that that would cross that line.”
“I don’t think that the FBI and special counsel want me answering questions that may relate to their investigation of Russian interference during 2016. And I worry that that would cross that line,”— Former FBI Director James Comey
When pressed further by Gowdy about what “factual predicate” the bureau had to launch a counterintelligence investigation, Comey again claimed that answering that question would be a “slope” that would ask him to reveal what the FBI “did or didn’t know about Russia activity” as it related to the 2016 election.
“You can’t tell us, or you won’t tell us?” Gowdy asks.
“Probably a combination of both … To the extent I recall facts developed during our investigation of Russian interference and the potential connection of Americans, I think that’s a question that the FBI doesn’t want me answering. So it’s both a can’t and a won’t,” Comey replied.
The former FBI director went on to say that anything related to Mueller’s investigation, to his understanding, would be “off limits” as it is an ongoing investigation.
Comey was also fuzzy on the eventual Democratic funding of the research that went into the controversial and unverified anti-Trump dossier.
Asked when he learned that the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was hired by law firm Perkins Coie – and when he learned that law firm was hired by the Democratic National Committee – Comey said “I never learned that” while director.
Comey also claimed not to know key details surrounding the involvement of Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier.
Asked when Steele was “terminated” as an FBI source, Comey said he didn’t know.
Asked about Steele’s subsequent contact with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, Comey said, “I don’t know anything about that.”
The Comey appearance comes as Republicans try to probe deeper into the FBI’s handling of both the Russia case and Hillary Clinton email investigation, before Democrats take control of the House in January and likely shut down these lines of inquiry.
Comey was asked numerous questions as well about the handling of the Clinton case, acknowledging at times that certain aspects of it were “unusual” while defending other actions.
Comey initially challenged the subpoena to appear before the committees and instead pressed for a public hearing out of concern his comments would be selectively leaked and taken out of context. He eventually agreed to appear, with an arrangement for the transcript to be made public.
Fox News’ Bill Mears, Jake Gibson, and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.Read the whole story · · · · ·
Daily Beast-14 hours agoFormer FBI Director James Comey told Congressional investigators Friday that the Justice Department was investigating four Americans …
Lawfare (blog)-16 hours agoThe transcript of former FBI Director James Comey’s interview before the House judiciary committee and oversight committee is available here …Read the whole story · ·
Admiral Lord West issued the dire warning as Putin’s forces are accused of massing to invade Ukraine – with president Petro Poroshenko begging for NATO aid.
The former First Sea Lord laid out the danger of the situation as both sides test each other – warning about the possibility of NATO’s intervention against Russia in the Black Sea.
He told Daily Star Online: “It was exactly this that lead to World War 1. While the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the stimulus, it was the brinkmanship.”
Tensions around Crimea – which was annexed by Russia in 2014 – have reignited after Putin’s forces opened fire upon and seized three ships from Ukraine.
Russia has denied any aggressive intent, accusing Poroshenko of inflaming the situation to boost his flagging poll numbers ahead of next year’s election.
Admiral West – one of Britain’s most senior Royal Navy figures – warned against both sides “pushing and pushing” against one another as tensions rage.
Russia has already committed an “act of war” in attacking the Ukraine vessels and warned Putin may send troops into the war-torn Donbass.
Donbass is a region of Ukraine that is currently torn-apart by civil war as pro-Russian rebels and fighting against Kiev.
Moscow has already been accused of aiding the rebels with weapons and stoking up the uprising, something which has been firmly denied by the Kremlin.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Russia’s leader has denied any aggressive intent to Ukraine (Pic: GETTY)
Admiral West told Daily Star Online: “It is a highly dangerous thing when you start playing this game, and I really do wonder about Putin.
“[Putin] just lies, and while Trump also lies, at least Trump isn’t going to try and attack us and trigger a nuclear war.”
NATO held a two day summit earlier this week, but did not commit to aiding Ukraine despite calls from Poroshenko for warships to be sent to the Black Sea.
UKRAINE: Kiev fears Russia are going to invade after the seizure of three ships (Pic: GETTY)
WAR: Russia has moved missile defence systems into Crimea (Pic: GETTY)
Admiral West went on: “I think where this becomes extremely serious is Putin starts using Russian troops in [the Donbass] to fight Ukraine, and it becomes as war between Russia and Ukraine.
“What exactly do we do? It’s not an attack on NATO, and do we really want to send troops in and get in a hot war with Russia over Ukraine.
“It’s a very good question. And if we don’t, then we let Ukraine be extinguished, it’s a very hard one to decide.”
“I can see easily a situation where a war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine, in which the Russians would win – clearly – where NATO say they are not going to get involved.”
MAPPED: Russia and Ukraine’s clash is feared to rope in NATO (Pic: DS)
Ukraine has been holding war drills over the past few weeks, declared martial law, called army reservists and banned the entry of all men of fighting age from Russia.
Poroshenko has openly said he expects Putin’s forces to invade, warning tank divisions are massing just 11 miles from the border of Ukraine.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea from the former-Soviet state back in 2014 was internationally condemned as illegal, and triggered a larger NATO presence within eastern Europe.
Kiev fears Moscow are moving to capture the Crimean ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, which is home to key trading routes and is the latest battleground between Russia and Ukraine.
ROYAL NAVY: Admiral Lord West warned Russia and Ukraine’s clash is like the days before WW1 (Pic: WIKICOMMONS)
Admiral West was unconvinced a large military operation by NATO would deter Russia and warned it may inflame the situation even more – instead urging for further sanctions of Moscow.
The Royal Navy hero described Putin as a “mafia boss” – and added: “How do you get the mafia? You go after their money.”
He said: “We need to hammer every oligarch, freeze assets not just in this country but around the world, stop them shoving money through tax havens.”
Tensions continue to rage as Ukraine has vowed to send warships into the Kerch Strait to stop Russia “totally occupying” the Sea of Azov.Read the whole story · · · · · · · · · ·
The U.S. military flew an “extraordinary” Open Skies Treaty flight over Ukraine on Thursday in response to Russia’s “unprovoked attack” on allied Ukrainian forces late last month in the Black Sea near the Kerch Strait.
The maneuver is the first flight of its kind over Ukraine since 2014, when Russian forces annexed Crimea, according to Eric Pahon, a Pentagon spokesman.
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“The timing of this flight is intended to reaffirm U.S. commitment to Ukraine and other partner nations,” a Pentagon statement said. “Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea near the Kerch Strait is a dangerous escalation in a pattern of increasingly provocative and threatening activity.”
The Open Skies flight was requested by top Ukrainian defense officials, Pahon said, and it came after Pentagon officials announced their intentions to sail a warship into the Black Sea in the coming days to shore up support for Ukraine following the capture of 24 sailors and three of its vessels by Russia.
The Open Skies flight also took place one day after a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer sailed into waters claimed by Russia this week near the port city of Vladivostok, home to Russia’s Pacific Fleet. It was the first such voyage for the U.S. Navy in Russia’s contested waters since 1987, when George H.W. Bush was vice president and Russia and the U.S. agreed to an intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty — a pact that’s currently in jeopardy due to alleged Russian violations.
A Ukrainian serviceman stands onboard a coast guard ship in the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, on Dec. 3. The Ukrainian military has been on increased readiness as part of martial law introduced in the country in the wake of the Nov. 25 incident in the Sea of Azov, in which the Russian coast guard fired upon and seized three Ukrainian navy vessels along with their crews. (AP)
This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited NATO headquarters in Brussels to announce the Trump administration’s plans to exit the treaty in 60 days if Russia does not come back into compliance. The deal prohibits the deployment of land-based cruise missiles with a range of 310-3,420 miles.
The Treaty on Open Skies was established in 1992 to allow unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its 34-signatories to gather information about military forces and activities. The signatories include the U.S. and Russia.
“Open Skies is one of the most wide-ranging international arms control efforts to date to promote openness and transparency in military forces and activities,” the State Department has said.
A U.S. Air Force OC-135 reconnaissance plane flew over Ukraine on Thursday with 25 U.S. military personnel — as well as Canadian, German, French, British, Romanian and Ukrainian officials — on board, according to Pahon.
Among the American crewmembers, eight were Defense Threat Reduction Agency personnel. Seventeen crewmembers came from the 55th Wing from Offut Air Force Base in Nebraska.
The American reconnaissance plane departed Andrews Air Force Base on Nov. 30 for the mission, Pahon said.Read the whole story · · ·
<a href=”http://defence-blog.com” rel=”nofollow”>defence-blog.com</a> (press release) (blog)-Dec 8, 2018Satellite imagery shows hundreds of Russian tanks near the border with … from the border with toward rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine.
UNIAN-Dec 4, 2018General Viktor Muzhenko gestured to a series of satellite images, which he said showed the presence of Russian T-62 M tanks stationed 18 km …Muzhenko: Russia’s military threat to Ukraine highest since 2014 International-Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news-Dec 5, 2018
Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news-Nov 27, 2018Number of Russian tanks near border with Ukraine has tripled – … data and satellite images: “The intelligence provided several proofs. I want to …Threat looming of full-scale war with Russia: Poroshenko International-UNIAN-Nov 27, 2018View all
The Ukrainian Weekly (press release)-Dec 7, 2018That could soon be tested as tensions between Ukraine and Russia escalated on … military, think tanks, business and media from over 70 countries. … government to restore the sharing of satellite images with Ukraine’s …Read the whole story · · ·
<a href=”http://defence-blog.com” rel=”nofollow”>defence-blog.com</a> (press release) (blog)-Dec 8, 2018Russia has been ramping up its forces near the border with Ukraine since August and now poses the greatest military threat since 2014, the …
Kyiv Post-Nov 30, 2018A Russian tank participates in the Vostok-2018 (East-2018) military drills at Tsugol training ground not far from the Chinese and Mongolian …
The Guardian-Nov 27, 2018The number of Russian units deployed along the Ukraine–Russian border had “grown dramatically” and the number of Russian tanks had …Russian ‘creeping annexation’ hits Ukraine in Sea of Azov In-Depth-<a href=”http://NBCNews.com” rel=”nofollow”>NBCNews.com</a>-Nov 26, 2018View all
Wall Street Journal-19 hours agoConcern about Russian hostility toward Ukraine is escalating in the U.S. … negotiations at the State Department, and several major think tanks.Read the whole story · · · · ·
In November, Russia pulled to the border with the occupied Ukrainian territories “, L/DNR” large amounts of military equipment.
Related pictures done with the help of Google Earth, reports Defence Blog.
Satellite photos show hundreds of Russian main battle tanks on a new military base on the outskirts Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, which is located 18 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
“The images show hundreds of main battle tanks like T-64 and T-62M, while thousands of military trucks, artillery systems and tankers located a little higher,” – said in the message.
Note that Russia in recent time increases the concentration of military equipment near the border of Ukraine, drew the attention of blogger Michael Golub. He pointed out the coordinates on Google maps which can be viewed as the aggressor taking his technique.
According to the President, in the occupied territories of the Crimea, Donbass and along the border with the state of the Russian Federation has deployed ground forces a total of more than 80 thousand troops, about 1,400 artillery and rocket systems of volley fire, tanks, 900, 2300 armored combat vehicles, more than 500 aircraft and 300 helicopters.
About The Author
magictr
Ted Stone has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining The Koz Week, Ted Stone worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella.Read the whole story · · · · · · ·
Mueller’s filing also said Cohen had provided information about Russian attempts to contact the campaign, information “concerning discrete Russia-related matters” considered “core” to the Russia investigation, information about his contacts and communications with the White House and Trump administration officials after the president took office, and details about his lies to Congress.
Yet on Wednesday Mr Cohen, for years Mr Trump’s “fixer”, will be sentenced for the crimes of bank and tax fraud, and for lying to Congress – for which he pled guilty.
Prosecutors in New York are seeking “substantial” jail time, but Mr Mueller does not recommend additional time behind bars as a result of his inquiry.
Despite intense public interest, the inquiry itself may yet remain secret.
Mr Mueller is bound to “provide the [US] attorney general with a confidential report” explaining the prosecutions he brought or decided not to pursue.
However, it is then up to the attorney general, who leads the Justice Department, to decide whether the report is published or handed over to the US Congress. There is no obligation to do either.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Mr Trump, who has railed against the “witch hunt, recently sacked his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and replaced him with an arch critic of the Mueller probe, Matthew Whitaker.
The uncertainty means there are fears details of Mr Mueller’s findings could become the subject of intense legal and political wrangling and may never fully be revealed.
Mr Trump’s own lawyers were once optimistically predicting the probe would be wrapped up by Christmas 2017.
When Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Helus and a California Highway Patrol officer responded to a shooting last month in Thousand Oaks, Calif., they faced a …View full coverage on Google NewsNext Page of StoriesLoading…Page 4
Oil prices climbed sharply Friday after OPEC and other producers led by Russia agreed to cut output to reduce global inventories of crude oil. OPEC countries and the Russian-led coalition agreed to collectively slash oil production by 1.2 million barrels a day, said OPEC president Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei, more than the 1 million barrel cut the market anticipated. After two days of negotiations, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries said they would cut 800,000 barrels a day, while non-OPEC allies agreed to an additional 400,000 barrels per day. The cuts, from which OPEC members Iran, Venezuela and Libya are exempt, will begin in January and remain in effect for six months. The deal highlights Russia’s new-found influence on the global oil market and the significance of Russia’s alliance with Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC. Oil-producing nations have been under pressure to cut production to stabilize oil prices, which have dropped sharply over the past few months. Global oil prices have plummeted by more than 30 percent since early October. The cuts were agreed to despite pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to maintain current levels of oil production, which have surged since the end of 2017. The surge is primarily due to the U.S., which has increased production by 2.5 million barrels a day since early 2016, making the U.S. the world’s largest producer. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted, “The World does not want to see, or need, higher oil prices!”
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko expects that the newly elected leader of the German Christian Democratic Union Party, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, …
President Donald Trump is inching closer to his long-teased major White House shake-up, gearing up for the twin challenges of battling for re-election and dealing with the Democrats’ investigations once they take control of the House.
The biggest piece of the shifting picture: Chief of Staff John Kelly’s departure now appears certain.
Trump announced Friday he was picking a new U.S. attorney genera l and a new ambassador to the U.N. , and at the same time two senior aides departed the White House to beef up his 2020 campaign. But the largest changes were still to come. Kelly’s replacement in the coming weeks is expected to have a ripple effect throughout the administration.
According to nearly a dozen current and former administration officials and outside confidants, Trump is nearly ready to replace Kelly and has even begun telling people to contact the man long viewed as his likely successor.
“Give Nick a call,” Trump has instructed people, referring to Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, according to one person familiar with the discussions.
Like all of those interviewed, the person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.
Trump has hardly been shy about his dissatisfaction with the team he had chosen and has been weighing all sorts of changes over the past several months. He delayed some of the biggest shifts until after the November elections at the urging of aides who worried that adding to his already-record turnover just before the voting would harm his party’s electoral chances.
Now, nearly a month after those midterms, in which his party surrendered control of the House to Democrats but expanded its slim majority in the Senate, Trump is starting to make moves.
He announced Friday that he’ll nominate William Barr, who served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, to the same role in his administration. If confirmed, Barr will fill the slot vacated by Jeff Sessions, who was unceremoniously jettisoned by Trump last month over lingering resentment for recusing himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation.
Sessions was exiled less than 24 hours after polls closed. But Trump’s broader efforts to reshape his inner circle have been on hold, leading to a sense of near-paralysis in the building, with people unsure of what to do.
Trump also announced that State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert is his pick to replace Nikki Haley as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and he said he’d have another announcement Saturday about the military’s top brass.
All this came the same day that Trump’s re-election campaign announced that two veterans of the president’s 2016 campaign, White House political director Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, the director of the office of public liaison, were leaving the administration to work on Trump’s re-election campaign.
“Now is the best opportunity to be laser-focused on further building out the political infrastructure that will support victory for President Trump and the GOP in 2020,” campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement.
The moves had long been planned, and will give Kelly’s eventual successor room to build a new White House political team.
Kelly was not at the White House on Friday, but was expected to attend an East Room dinner with the president and senior staff.
Ayers, who is a seasoned campaign veteran despite his relative youth — he’s just 36 — has the backing of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law and senior advisers, for the new role, according to White House officials. But Ayers has also faced some resistance. During Trump’s flight home from a recent trip to Paris, some aides aboard Air Force One tried to convince the president that Ayers was the wrong person for the job, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Trump and Kelly’s relationship has been strained for months — with Kelly on the verge of resignation and Trump nearly firing him several times. But each time the two have decided to make amends, even as Kelly’s influence has waned.
Kelly, a retired Marine Corps four-star general, was tapped by Trump in August 2017 to try to normalize a White House that had been riven by infighting. And he had early successes, including ending an open-door Oval Office policy that had been compared to New York’s Grand Central Station and instituting a more rigorous policy process to try to prevent staffers from going directly to Trump.
But those efforts also miffed the president and some of his most influential outside allies, who had grown accustomed to unimpeded access. And his handling of domestic violence accusations against the former White House staff secretary also caused consternation, especially among lower-level White House staffers, who believed Kelly had lied to them about when he found out about the allegations.
Kelly, too, has made no secret of the trials of his job and has often joked about how working for Trump was harder than anything he’d done before, including on the battlefield.Read the whole story · · · ·Next Page of StoriesLoading…Page 5
U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed he will nominate Army General Mark Milley to replace Marine General Joseph Dunford as his next top military adviser. “I am thankful to both of these incredible men for their service to our Country! Date of transition to be determined,” Trump wrote in a Saturday morning tweet.
Milley is a combat-experienced military leader and the current Chief of Staff of the Army, a position he has held since 2015. Milley, who commanded troops during multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, must be confirmed by the Senate to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some military officials at the Pentagon said Air Force General David Goldfein was also a top contender for the job but added that Milley has a good relationship with the president. Trump hinted Friday he would make the announcement Saturday while attending the annual Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. Instead, he announced it at the White House before departing for Philadelphia. As the Army’s top officer, Milley helped lead the effort to allow women to serve in front-line infantry and other combat positions. He has worked to reverse a decline in Army recruiting, which fell far short of its annual goal this year. Milley is an infantry officer by training, and has also commanded Special Forces units. His career includes deployments in the 1989 invasion of Panama, the multinational mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Iraq war. If confirmed, Milley will replace Dunford, a former commandant of the Marine Corps and commander of coalition troops in Afghanistan. Dunford is expected to serve the remainder of his term as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, which ends October 1, 2019.
About 90 suspected mobsters have been arrested across Europe and South America with vast quantities of cocaine and other drugs seized in a mafia purge.
German federal police confirmed in a statement there had been multiple arrests in the early morning raids, with the main focus of the operation in western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders Holland and Belgium.
The ‘Ndrangheta – which derives its meaning from the Greek word for “heroism” – is made up of numerous village and family-based clans in Calabria, the rural, mountainous and under-developed “toe” of Italy’s boot.
Officials hailed Wednesday’s operation – dubbed “Operation Pollina” – as a serious blow to the group.
Some 140 kilograms of ecstasy pills and 3 000-4 000 kilos of cocaine were seized during the operation, Dutch prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said at a press conference in The Hague on Wednesday. The AD said past year that Dutch police had introduced a special police unit completely dedicated to fighting mafia activities on Dutch soil.
The vast anti-mafia operation was carried out by Italy’s anti-mafia and anti-terrorism force in collaboration with German, Belgian and Dutch authorities, it said. They are accused of committing “serious crimes” including activities linked to worldwide drug trafficking, Italian police said in a statement.
But he warned that it was “just a first step”, saying the arrests were “nothing for the ‘Ndrangheta, there are thousands of people who should be arrested and billions that should be seized”.
“It’s nearly a cliche, but the operation carried out today confirms again the great danger of the ‘ndrangheta, not just in drug trafficking, where it’s the undisputed leader, but (also) in the financial sphere”, said Francesco Ratta, a top police official in the southern Italian region of Calabria.
The European police agency Europol said it was a “decisive hit against one of the most powerful Italian criminal networks in the world”.
The operation took place one day after Settimo Mineo, the alleged head or “godfather” of the Sicilian Mafia, Cosa Nostra, was arrested with 46 other people in the Palermo region of Italy, according to the Italian police and anti-Mafia prosecutors in Palermo.
Just under half of the suspects were detained in Italy.Read the whole story · ·
Irish Times-19 hours agoGemany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have elected Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as party leader, a decision that …
Irish Times-19 hours agoAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer succeeds Angela Merkel as CDU party …. (CDU) has backed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as its new leader, …
WFTV Orlando-19 hours agoHAMBURG, Germany – HAMBURG, Germany (AP) – Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is elected …
Deutsche Welle-16 hours agoThe Christian Democrats (CDU) have elected the party’s secretary general and former Saarland state premier, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to …
<a href=”http://NBCNews.com” rel=”nofollow”>NBCNews.com</a>-Dec 3, 2018“I think people see me as authentic, just like I am, with my ideas, my style of doing politics,” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told NBC News after a …
<a href=”http://Novinite.com” rel=”nofollow”>Novinite.com</a>-18 hours agoAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a close ally of Angela Merkel, won a tight race to succeed her as party leader Friday, seeing off a longtime rival …
euronews-Dec 6, 2018Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is one vote away from reaching the top of German politics. She is one of the favourites to take over as the leader …
Toronto Star-18 hours agoAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 56, narrowly defeated one-time Merkel rival Friedrich Merz at a congress of the centre-right Christian Democratic …
SPIEGEL ONLINE-2 hours agoIm Augenblick des Triumphs zeigte Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, dass sie nicht einfach eine saarländische Version von Angela Merkel ist.Sie hat die CDU gepackt International-FAZ – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung-14 hours agoView allRead the whole story · · · · ·
The Russian Mob’s attempt to take over the Free World by using the old Soviet recipes ends with a big, loud, awakening bang from the Mueller’s Investigation.
And now analyze the situation properly and ask yourselves the same eternal sacramental question: “HOW COULD IT HAPPEN?!” What are the underlying root causes? How to deal with and to correct this mess?!
WHEN lawmakers hauled Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to Capitol Hill for a hearing on privacy and abuse of data in April, the only clear theme to emerge from their line of bizarre questions was the Senate’s complete misunderstanding of social media. Instead of unravelling how Russian disinformation thrived on Facebook and influenced the 2016 election, Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican representative for Utah) wasted his given time asking basic questions about the platform’s business model, while Senator Brian Schatz (Democrats representative for Hawaii) took a misguided tour of the messaging app WhatsApp.
In a more innocent time, the gang of clueless senators would have made for an amusing montage on The Daily Show. But in the age of information warfare, it showed that our leaders had little grasp on the greatest existential threat to American democracy.
Had PW Singer and Emerson Brooking’s new book, LikeWar, come out just a few months earlier, those senators might have had a better grip on Facebook’s role as a weapon in today’s war. Packed with the past five years of news and a brief account of the birth of the Internet, LikeWar is a breezy read about modern warfare, with the authors flipping through tales of Russian bots, washed-up reality stars and Silicon Valley magnates like clips on your friend’s Instagram story.
That rapid succession of stories makes it a suitable textbook for today’s journalism or political science students looking to understand how the same apps they use to communicate with friends can be amassed as tools in a potent arsenal.
There are points where LikeWar is too married to that textbook format, as when it trots out a hackneyed description of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, or may try too hard to frame old mediums in a contemporary lens, calling Benjamin Franklin “the founding father of fake news in America” because he published under the pseudonym ‘Mrs Silence Dogood’ in the New-England Courant.
But it’s not the young, digital natives that need LikeWar the most. When Singer’s novel, Ghost Fleet, was published in 2015, Washington’s national security community gripped it as both a cautionary tale and a future battle plan. LikeWar, on the other hand, is not a warning about tomorrow’s war – it’s a map for those who don’t understand how the battlefield has already changed.
To ground their readers in familiarity, Emerson and Singer have framed the players in this new kind of war as kings overseeing burgeoning empires. But these monarchs, often clustered in Silicon Valley, could rule in peace only until a powder keg exploded.
LikeWar begins with United States (US) President Donald Trump’s first tweet in 2009, announcing, “Be sure to tune in and watch Donald Trump on Late Night with David Letterman as he presents the Top Ten List tonight!” But this is not (thank goodness) another book about the President. Instead, it revolves around an unholy trinity of those who have mastered the Internet as a weapon: Trump, the Islamic State (IS) extremist group and Russia.
At times that carousel of deplorables can become dizzying. The three turn up in a journal published by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in a piece written by a Trump campaign organiser that links their use of meme warfare and shows how they capitalise on viral content.
When Emerson and Singer note the 4Ds – “dismiss the critic, distort the facts, distract from the main issue, and dismay the audience” – it’s hard to tell if it’s a reference to Russia’s new defensive strategy or a wink to Trump’s bizarre dance with the media.
In some cases, the opposing parties even complement each other’s goals. When IS posts videos that link gruesome acts with scripture, the website Breitbart seizes on them to fan the flames of its far-right supporters. With each ‘like’, IS gets new recruits and Breitbart gets ad dollars.
Beyond recapping the news, LikeWar becomes a compelling read as Brookings and Singer give historical context to today’s news to demystify the Internet as a battlefield. The authors liken the stunning capture of Mosul, Iraq, which IS publicised far outside the Middle East by bombarding social media, to the unyielding tempo of the German blitzkrieg, which paralysed French fighters with a relentless broadcast of its attacks.
Today’s ‘sockpuppets’, young Russians who masquerade online as Americans, prove to be nothing more than hipster updates to Cold War tactics deployed by the Soviet Union that targeted the extremes of American politics. The contemporary Russian General Valery Gerasimov, who in 2013 published a treatise ranking nonmilitary means above traditional weapons, is, in the authors’ telling, just a fresh take on the early-19th-Century military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Just as Clausewitz established war as politics by other means, Gerasimov laid out a radical new approach to conflict by taking advantage of the Internet as the ultimate disinformation weapon.
But if Clausewitz crops up as a motif that grounds the book in staid military doctrine, references to pop stars and reality television celebrities keep the text out of the realm of the typical think tank fare. It may seem a cheap bid for younger readers at first, but the authors draw smart and eerie parallels between terrorist groups and seemingly vapid celebrities. Even Vladimir Putin’s longtime media adviser admires the social media savvy of Kim Kardashian, who can direct millions of her supporters without the KGB.
But the heart of LikeWar, and what would have assisted our hapless senators, lies in its explanation of homophily and its role in spreading falsehoods. Online news, true or false, is sustained by the number of people who ‘like’ it. Each successive ‘like’ contributes to an algorithm that generates similar content, guaranteeing an infinite echo chamber.
LikeWar isn’t waged by sophisticated hackers but by those who know how to master the narrative with viral memes, slick videos and clickbait headlines. And when the information war is won in this abstract cyberspace, all the metal in our grand fleets and advanced fighter jets will be rendered immaterial. –The Washington PostRead the whole story · · · ·Next Page of StoriesLoading…Page 6
Rachel Martin talks to Michael Isikoff, chief investigative reporter for Yahoo News and co-author of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller has been notably free of leaks. What we know so far has come in the form of official court filings, like indictments, plea agreements and what we’re seeing this week – sentencing memos. The special counsel on Tuesday released such a memo on Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Similar memos are expected Friday for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign chair Paul Manafort. In the case of Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, Robert Mueller recommended a sentence with little to no prison time. The memo mentioned Flynn’s, quote, “substantial” cooperation in several ongoing investigations, although details were heavily redacted.
We’re going to try to put all this into the context of the larger Russia investigation with Michael Isikoff. He is chief investigative reporter for Yahoo News. He is also the co-author of the book titled “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story Of Putin’s War On America And The Election Of Donald Trump.” Michael, thanks for being here.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Good to be here.
MARTIN: So let’s be clear to start off – these memos are filings meant to serve a legal purpose and message to the judge. They’re not press releases. They’re not statements from the prosecutors. But having said all that, what should we, the public, take away from the filings?
ISIKOFF: Well, you know, it’s really like reading tea leaves here because it’s a cryptic document. It does refer to Michael Flynn’s substantial cooperation with the government over the course of the last year since he pled guilty to lying to the FBI. It does reference, as you pointed out, several investigations. But I should point out that when you read it closely, only one of those appears to be related to Robert Mueller’s core mandate of the Russia investigation itself – coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
There’s a reference to a mysterious other criminal investigation that the memos – the sentencing memo says that Flynn has provided substantial cooperation for. But the close reading suggests that that’s not something Mueller himself is handling. It’s been farmed out to other Justice Department prosecutors. There’s some reporting this morning that they may involve an illegal lobbying effort that Turkey was conducting. Flynn had been lobbying for the government of Turkey, had not registered with the Justice Department for that as he should have.
MARTIN: So while potentially nefarious, not connected necessarily to the core mandate.
ISIKOFF: Not connected, right – and then there’s a reference to another investigation that may or may not be within Mueller’s mandate, for which it says Flynn has provided useful information. So the substantial information says to me, that’s assistance – information that the Justice Department can use to prosecute others, to bring other cases. But the one time that that’s used in the memo when it breaks down – Flynn’s cooperation – it’s in reference to that other mysterious investigation – non-Russia.
MARTIN: So words like collusion and obstruction, which we hear about often in conversations like this – notably absent from the visible portion of the Flynn memo.
ISIKOFF: Right, this doesn’t really tell us whether Mueller has other cards to play in the core Russia investigation itself. It certainly talks about how Flynn has provided important information, timely information about contacts between the Trump transition team and Russians. That’s what Flynn originally pled guilty to lying about. But it’s not really much of a roadmap as to whether there are more prosecutions to bring on that front.
MARTIN: I want to play a bit of tape. This is Congressman Mark Meadows. He’s a stalwart supporter of President Trump. This is what he said on Fox.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “HANNITY”)
MARK MEADOWS: Let’s look at what’s not in there. There is no suggestion that Michael Flynn had anything to do with collusion. He was with the transition team. He was part of the campaign. And yet there’s no mention of collusion. I think it’s good news for President Trump tonight.
MARTIN: Do you think he’s right? Do you think it’s good news?
ISIKOFF: Well, you know, he may be. We just don’t know. Look, there’s a whole other part of Mueller’s investigation. That’s the obstruction question. Did President Trump obstruct justice when he fired James Comey, when he asked, before that, James Comey to let Michael Flynn go? One would think that Flynn’s cooperation would be very important for that part of the Mueller probe. But remember, the chief target of an obstruction investigation would be the president himself. It was his actions that that spurred all this.
And under DOJ policy, presidents cannot be indicted. So what Mueller would do with that information is provide it in a report that presumably, at this point, would go to the acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker. What happens after that is very much unclear. Certainly, Congress will want access to it. The Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee certainly will. How much of that they will see we don’t know at this point.
MARTIN: Quickly, what do we know, if anything, about the Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort memos expected?
ISIKOFF: I think those are going to be highly informative. Both are very key witnesses. Michael Cohen pled guilty last week and provided some really substantial information about the Trump Organization and contacts with the Kremlin in reference to a Trump Tower meeting. Paul Manafort, the prosecutors have accused of lying to them. And they are expected this Friday in a memo to lay out what they believe Manafort lied to them about. We’re all going to be waiting with pins and needles to read that.
MARTIN: Michael Isikoff, chief investigative reporter for Yahoo, co-author of the book “Russian Roulette,” thanks so much. We appreciate it.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Read the whole story · · · ·
Anthony T. Podesta (born October 24, 1943), commonly known as Tony Podesta, is an American lobbyist best known for founding the Podesta Group.[1] He used to be one of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists and fundraisers.[2][3][4]
Seventeen months in, Kelly and President Donald Trump have reached a stalemate in their relationship and it is no longer seen as tenable by either party. Though Trump asked Kelly over the summer to stay on as chief of staff for two more years, the two have stopped speaking in recent days.
The expected departure would end a tumultuous tenure for Kelly, who was brought on to bring order to the White House but whose time as chief of staff has often been marked by the same infighting and controversy that has largely defined Trump’s presidency from its beginning. Many of the storms in which Kelly became embroiled were by his own making.
Trump is actively discussing a replacement plan, though a person involved in the process said nothing is final right now and ultimately nothing is final until Trump announces it. Potential replacements include Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, who is still seen as a leading contender
that Trump was considering potential replacements for several senior positions in his administration as part of a post-midterms staff shakeup.
Once seen as stabilizing force
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When Kelly first replaced Reince Priebus as chief of staff last summer, he ruled with an iron fist. He curbed Oval Office access, blocked certain outsiders from being able to call the White House switchboard and had broad authority over staffing.
But in the last months, Kelly has seen his status as chief of staff diminish. Trump began circumventing many of the policies and protocols he enacted, and he was on the verge of being fired or resigning numerous times.
Trump often vacillated between criticizing and praising Kelly, sometimes within minutes of each other. Kelly started holding increasingly fewer senior staff meetings — once daily occurrences were whittled down to weekly gatherings — and began to exert less control over who talks to the President.
with national security adviser John Bolton in October. Bolton had criticized Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen during an Oval Office discussion about the border, and Kelly stormed out of the West Wing after their profanity-laced argument spilled over into the hallways.
Controversial tenure
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Kelly’s tenure working for Trump was pocked with controversies, and officials were often amazed at how he managed to survive. Weeks after taking over for Priebus, his predecessor who was unceremoniously fired over Twitter while he sat on a rainy tarmac, Kelly was faced with Trump’s controversial response
to the racially charged protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was photographed looking grim-faced in the lobby of Trump Tower as the President declared there were “good people” on both sides of the racist violence.
At times, Kelly was the source of his own downfall. He insulted Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Florida, using inaccurate information, later declaring
he would “never” apologize. He said some of those eligible for protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals were “lazy.”
of the situation involving former staff secretary Rob Porter, who was accused by two of his ex-wives of abuse. Kelly’s shifting accounts caused his credibility inside the West Wing to plummet, and it never truly recovered, according to officials. Kelly’s highly criticized handling of the Porter controversy was an inflection point in his tenure, and some of his internal relationships became strained in the months that followed the former staff secretary’s ouster.
This story is breaking and being updated.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Jeff Zeleny, Jeremy Diamond and Sarah Westwood contributed to this report.Read the whole story · · · · · · ·
Inside the mind of Robert Mueller. We’ll unpack the latest news from the Mueller investigation and explore what makes the special prosecutor tick with his biographer, Garrett Graff.
The Letter Giving Robert Mueller Charge To Investigate Russian Interference
The Carter Page FISA Documents
Mueller’s Sentencing Memo For Michael Flynn
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Wired: “14 Trump and Russia Questions Robert Mueller Knows the Answers To” — “Michael Flynn’s sentencing memo, filed yesterday with the most intriguing and interesting parts redacted by special counsel Robert Mueller, provided yet another frustrating glimpse into an investigation that seems at times almost maddeningly opaque. It made clear that Flynn was cooperating in three criminal investigations—and that he had cooperated extensively—but shed little light on the ‘what’ or the ‘how.’
“Amid the flurry of revelations from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 campaign, it’s worth revisiting the loose ends of his probe. Specifically, focusing on questions that remain mysteries to us but that clearly Mueller himself knows by this point—the Rumsfeldian “known unknowns”—provides particular clarity as to where the investigation will head next.
“Decoding Mueller’s 17-month investigation has been a publicly frustrating exercise, as individual puzzle pieces, like Flynn’s sentencing memo, often don’t hint at the final assembled picture—nor even tell us if we’re looking at a single interlocking puzzle, in which all the pieces are related, or multiple, separate, unrelated ones.
“The sheer breadth of alleged, unrelated criminality by so many different Trumpworld players—from Paul Manafort’s money laundering and European bribes to Michael Flynn’s Turkish conspiracies to Michael Cohen’s tax fraud to even the indictments of the first two members of Congress to endorse Trump, representatives Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter—make it particularly difficult to disentangle what might have transpired at Trump Tower and the White House.
“Mueller’s investigation, though, has been remarkably focused and consistent straight through—zeroing in on five distinct investigative avenues: money laundering and Russian-linked business deals; the Russian government’s cyberattack on the DNC, other entities, and state-level voting systems; its related online information influence operations, by the Internet Research Agency; the sketchy contacts by Trump campaign and transition officials with Russia; and the separate question of whether Trump himself, or others, actively tried to obstruct justice by impeding the investigation of the above.”
Book Excerpt from “The Threat Matrix” by Garrett Graff
INTRODUCTION Public Enemy #1
The final minutes of George W. Bush’s eight years as president ticked away as Bob Mueller stepped down onto the inaugural platform. Despite weeks of wall-to-wall news coverage warning of overcrowding for the inauguration—millions of people who might clog the Washington Beltway and the Metro system for hours—the chilly January day had deterred few inaugural-goers. More than perhaps anyone else on the inaugural platform, Mueller, the director of the FBI, was responsible for keeping everyone safe for the day.
The previous twenty-four hours had been nerve-racking, like so many of the days and nights of the past seven years. A threat out of the Middle East, sketchy at best. Reports of a man barreling down the Jersey Turnpike with a bomb. Agents from the FBI, the CIA, and a dozen other agencies fanned across country and several continents, hoping to run down the information before noon Tuesday, H-Hour for the handover of government, democracy’s greatest rite—the peaceful and amicable transfer of power from one party to another with nearly diametrically opposed views.
The last time the nation had gathered to do this, in January 2001, the world had been a different place. That was, as everyone now said, before. This was the first transfer of power after. Before, the Clinton administration had balked at targeting a shadowy terrorist named Osama bin Laden in a faraway place called Afghanistan. Before, the argument had been, What had bin Laden ever done to deserve assassination? The United States didn’t do that type of thing. Now, after, everything was different.
Just days prior to the inauguration of Barack Obama, Hellfire missiles launched from a Predator drone half a world away from Washington had killed two Kenyans suspected in the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Usama al-Kini, also known as Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan likely never saw the missiles closing on them at speeds topping Mach 1.3 and likely never felt the twenty-pound warheads explode. Although the FBI’s global footprint had expanded considerably, the United States had no other practical means to eliminate this pair of terrorists. The two men, living in South Waziristan—a remote tribal part of Pakistan most Americans would be hard-pressed to locate on a map—were unreachable. The CIA drones and their Hellfire missiles were a different type of justice, an outside-the-courtroom, permanent justice—one that, after, the U.S. government had decided was more than appropriate to mete out but had been off the table before. (The precise term for such measures—extralegal—had become all too familiar to the American people after.)
Al-Kini and Swedan were both on the Bureau’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list, making the attacks a big victory for the United States, yet, since the United States didn’t acknowledge these covert missile strikes, it didn’t officially consider them dead. Months later, both men’s names would still be on the FBI’s public list; inside the government, though, no one was looking too hard for them.
The minutes ticked away on inaugural day. Of the government men onstage, only a few had been in the fateful national security meeting the morning of September 12, 2001, the day after everything had changed. Now, in just two hours, most of them would depart government. A green-and-white Marine helicopter from HMX-1, the presidential helicopter squadron, sat on the East Front Plaza of the Capitol, waiting to ferry George W. Bush back to private life. Vice President Dick Cheney, confined to a wheelchair after straining his back moving boxes the weekend before, would also depart—only to appear in the coming months as a vocal opponent of the new administration’s approach to terrorism. Of the entire national security team, those departures would leave only Mueller still in the position he had held on September 11, 2001, that brilliant and crisp fall day when the planes had come.
Only one other member of the national security team would be carrying over from Bush to Obama—and his absence today was intentional. Hidden in a secure location outside Washington, Robert Gates—the wizened secretary of defense who on 9/11 had been a dean at Texas A&M—was, in the bland parlance of bureaucracy, the “designated successor,” part of the elaborate continuity-of-government plans created during the Cold War to ensure the United States would survive even the most catastrophic assault. Originally designed to protect against surprise Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles coming in over the North Pole, the continuity-of-government operation now mostly guarded against terrorists with a smuggled nuclear weapon stuffed in a suitcase. In the coming hours, a new national security team would begin to flow into the federal apparatus across the city and move into the White House, where air pressure is always kept elevated to ensure biological or chemical agents can’t penetrate inside. Only Mueller would be left among the security team to recall the fear, tension, and shock of September 12, 2001, the uncertainty of the day after. The soldiers in the streets; the smoke, visible from his office, rising from the Pentagon across the Potomac River; the concrete barriers that sprang up everywhere overnight like some sort of ugly, aggressive species of weed; that smell—part burning jet fuel, part burning paper, part burning flesh.
Mueller, wrapped in long overcoat and scarf, his gloved hands protected from the cold, walked to the front of the stage, his longtime wife and companion, Ann, by his side. On 9/11, just days after moving to Washington, she had sat through that historic day alone, watching the television in their temporary apartment six blocks from where they now stood. Her husband hadn’t returned until long after she’d gone to sleep.
From the banister, they could survey the largest crowd ever assembled for a presidential inauguration. It spread out for over a mile, the length of the National Mall, the nation’s so-called backyard. Somewhere out in the crowd were 155 teams of Mueller’s agents in plainclothes, watching for anything unusual. A few blocks away, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, created thirty years earlier as the nation’s elite antiterror strike force, sat poised to react. To back them up, SWAT teams, hazardous-material units, bomb squads, and even weapons of mass destruction response teams were located at strategic points around the crowded city. Armored military-like vehicles topped with flashing lights were hidden just out of sight, ready for action. Police helicopters circled the city, their expensive sensors and surveillance gear hard at work. Gas masks hung from the waists of thousands of law enforcement personnel, as well as the National Guard troops who stood on every street corner for miles. Fighter jets bristling with missiles slung under their wings waited to respond to trouble from above, while deep beneath the city Secret Service agents searched tunnels and sewers for trouble below. Most military coups in the world were carried out with less firepower, materiel, and personnel than were deployed to the streets of Washington for what everyone hoped would be a peaceful and uneventful transition of power.
The early-morning crowd before Mueller was ecstatic despite the hour, the security hassles, and the bone-chilling cold. While the crowd on the Mall and in the Capitol complex was swept up in the euphoric moment of hope and the promise of change brought about by the election of the nation’s first black president and a team representing a youthful new generation of leadership, Mueller knew the fear that prevailed behind the scenes.
Until hours earlier, it had seemed possible that the day would go very differently. Three different threads of intelligence had indicated that al-Shabaab, one of the many Islamic jihadist groups that formed the international web of al-Qaeda affiliates, had dispatched attackers from its base in Somalia to slip across the Canadian border and explode bombs on the Mall during the inauguration. The government had been tracking the intelligence for weeks, but only recently had new information moved the threat onto a different tier of seriousness.
Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen—the “Movement of Warrior Youth”—was still relatively new to the terrorism game; it wouldn’t even formally be declared a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” by the State Department for another month, yet its capabilities were already well-known enough to seriously worry the government officials in the days leading up to the inauguration. (Kenya, the president’s ancestral country and the site of the 1998 embassy attack that had helped usher in the age of al-Qaeda, was also under threat, according to the available intelligence.)
The national security teams of President Bush and President-elect Obama had been gathering repeatedly in the White House and at the guest residence, Blair House, for the week leading up to the inauguration to track the latest intelligence. The rooms pulsed with a sense of nervous energy on the part of the new Obama staff and a world-weariness on the part of the Bush officials who had only days left to go in their public service.
While the two national security teams didn’t have much history working together, sitting on one side was a face familiar to everyone: John Brennan, one of the nation’s most skilled counterterrorism leaders who had led the newly formed National Counterterrorism Center after 9/11, only to part ways with the Bush administration over its handling of the Iraq war. Brennan had become a close adviser to the Democratic nominee and had been the top candidate to take over the CIA until concerns about his role in the Agency’s enhanced-interrogation program earlier in the decade had forced him into a position that didn’t require Senate confirmation. Now Brennan served as the calming force on the Obama team in the room. He’d been through this sort of thing before.
A week before, the two national security teams had teased out a mock scenario imagining multiple bombs detonating simultaneously around the country—a domestic version of what had happened in East Africa in 1998, in Madrid in 2004, and twice in London in 2005. Hanging over every meeting and every discussion was a question spoken only in whispers: How real did the threat have to be before the government should consider canceling the ceremony or moving it indoors to a secure location? There was some precedent: President Reagan’s second inaugural had been moved to the Capitol Rotunda because of nasty cold weather. This weather was heavier.
In one meeting, incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton had asked a pointed question: “So what should Barack Obama do if he’s in the middle of his Inaugural Address and a bomb goes off way in the back of the crowd on the Mall? What does he do? Is the Secret Service going to whisk him off the podium, so the American people see their incoming president disappear in the middle of the Inaugural Address? I don’t think so.” But was that truly credible?
The decision was made: Obama would continue the speech, if at all possible.
(CNN) Robert Mueller is ready to tighten the net again. In a pair of highly significant court maneuvers, the special counsel is expected to unveil new details of his …
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Top US officials opened a secret obstruction of justice probe into Donald Trump after he sacked FBI Director James Comey, it has been revealed.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe became increasingly troubled by Trump’s behaviour following the firing.
In an attempt to reign him in, the Department of Justice launched an obstruction of justice investigation into the president’s potentially unconstitutional operations.
The covert scheme was actioned after officials grew increasingly more worried about Trump’s attempts to control other government operations – particularly Comey’s investigation into his former security advisor, Michael Flynn, CNN have said .
Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said on Thursday that Trump had a ‘legal right’ to fire Comey.
“It’s shocking that the FBI would open up an obstruction case for the president exercising his authority under Article II,” Giuliani told CNN.
The investigation started in the eight days between Comey’s termination and special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment.
Rosenstein appointed Mueller on May 17, 2017, to lead the now-19-month-long deep dive into investigating alleged collusion between the Trump administration and the Russian government.
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Last year, the Washington Post reported that the DOJ had commenced its own research project into Trump.
As part of the discussions about how to rein in Trump, Rosenstein had offered to wear a wire while meeting with Trump, though he has later said he was joking.
He also reportedly proposed looking into whether Cabinet members would be willing to impeach Trump using the 25th Amendment.Read the whole story · ·
