Tag: Russia

Senate Rejects Symbolic Gesture ‘Backing Intelligence on Russian Meddling’

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US Senate

The Republican-led Senate on Thursday rejected two symbolic measures to support U.S. intelligence agencies in the face of President Donald Trump’s  clarifying statements on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential contest and the Kremlin’s continuing threats to U.S. elections. The chamber’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, objected to a bipartisan non-binding resolution backing intelligence reports on Russian election meddling and last week’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers. The resolution also urged full congressional examination of Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and called for full implementation of U.S. sanctions against Moscow. Moments earlier, Kentucky’s Rand Paul objected to a similar Democratic resolution that added support for the special counsel in the Justice Department’s Russia probe, Robert Mueller. Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, who co-authored the bipartisan resolution, said congressional action is needed after Trump “let down the free world [in Helsinki] by giving aid and comfort to an enemy of democracy” and “dimmed the light of freedom ever so slightly in our own country.” “We should stand and be counted in defense of our democracy,” said Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, who crafted the resolution with Flake. Speaking in support of the Democratic measure,…

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Commentary: Why Should Trump Pick A Fight With Putin Over The Failures Of Obama, Clapper, Strzok and Brennan?

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Russia meddling

by George Rasley   President Trump’s statement about the poor state of US – Russian relations, “I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we’ve all been foolish. We should have had this dialogue a long time ago — a long time, frankly, before I got to office. And I think we’re all to blame,” seems to have sent the establishment media and #NeverTrump crowd into chicken little-level fits of hysteria never before seen in American politics or media. Pearl Harbor, Kristallnacht and treason were just a few of the insane comparisons Democrats and Republicans have made to denigrate the President’s performance in Helsinki. Keep in mind, what all the hysteria is obfuscating is that President Trump did discuss Russian interference in our election with President Putin, “During today’s meeting, I addressed directly with President Putin the issue of Russian interference in our elections. I felt this was a message best delivered in person. We spent a great deal of time talking about it…” With all the brouhaha about what Trump said or meant to say during his post-Summit news conference with Putin one important thing seems to be lost on Trump’s critics.…

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Trump to Germany: Don’t Give Russia More Weapons

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Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin

By Sheryl Kaufman   The press and former CIA Director John Brennan are expressing hysterics over a press conference where President Trump disappointed them by not showering outright insults on the Russian President. The reporters moved past what may be the most significant development of Mr. Trump’s very busy trip to Europe, what they read at the time as an insult to Germany. Last Wednesday at the NATO summit, President Trump spoke against the proposed expansion of the natural gas pipeline from Russia directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea. The Nord Stream 2 project has nearly completed permitting and is set to begin laying pipe later this year. It will run parallel an existing nearly 800-mile undersea pipeline and double the capacity of Russia to move gas directly to Germany. About a third of Europe’s natural gas is currently supplied by Russia. The new pipeline would allow Russia to expand its dominant position as an energy supplier to Europe and give it flexibility to bypass an onshore pipeline that passes through Ukraine, Slovakia, and Czech Republic to Germany. That would deprive these countries of transit fees, but more significantly it would allow Russia greater control of their energy supplies.…

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Trump Says He Misspoke at Helsinki Press Conference: ‘I Accept Our Intelligence Community’s Conclusion’ That Russia Meddled in 2016 Election

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Donald Trump

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he accepts the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia sought to influence the 2016 U.S. election. “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also. A lot of people out there,” Trump told reporters in remarks from the White House. His comments come a day after the president publicly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial that Moscow was involved in election interference, drawing sharp criticism from U.S. lawmakers for taking the foreign leader’s word over his own intelligence agencies. The president said that after he reviewed a transcript of his Helsinki remarks, he said he realized he misspoke. “In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word would instead of wouldn’t. The sentence should have been…’I don’t see any reason why it WOULDN’T be Russia,” he said. The president continued to assert Tuesday that the media misrepresented his remarks while traveling abroad. On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, responded to Trump’s rosy assessment. “Let’s be very clear: Russia meddled in our election,” Ryan said. “We know they interfered with our elections, and we have passed sanctions…

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US Ambassador To Russia: Trump Is ‘Most Experienced Negotiator Ever Elected To The Presidency’

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Jon Huntsman

by Evie Fordham   U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman called President Donald Trump “the most experienced negotiator ever elected to the presidency” ahead of Trump’s summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on “Fox & Friends” on Sunday morning. “I can tell you that in the president, we have the most experienced negotiator ever elected to the presidency,” Huntsman said. “You have a lot of presidents who have never had a negotiation before, unbelievable as that sounds, before they were elected president. So the president has pretty good instincts on these kinds of things.” Huntsman discussed U.S. strategy going into the talks in Helsinki, Finland, on the show. The summit will be the first time that Trump and Putin have had a one-on-one meeting. “We need to reduce the tension in the relationship,” the ambassador said. “We need to take the danger to the American people out of a bilateral relationship, a relationship that contains 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons … You have to build trust in a relationship that has none.” Watch the latest video at foxnews.com He listed some of the challenges Trump will face at the summit. “[The U.S. and Russia are] not talking with…

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Trump’s Broadside Against Germany at NATO Finds Some Republican Support

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NATO allies

Reuters   They might not have agreed with the U.S. president calling Germany a “captive” of Russia, but some Republican lawmakers on Wednesday said they believe Donald Trump is right to shame one of America’s most important allies into spending more on defense. The Republican president, in Brussels for the NATO summit, took a swipe at Germany for supporting a new pipeline for Russian gas, saying at a pre-summit meeting: “We’re supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.” Trump kept up his assault on NATO members, particularly Germany, for failing to spend a target two percent of national income on defense, a goal they must meet by 2024. He told fellow leaders he would prefer a 4 percent target, closer to the 3.6 percent of GDP the United States spends on defense. While Democratic congressional leaders condemned Trump’s attacks on Germany as “brazen insults and denigration of one of America’s most steadfast allies,” Republicans took a more benign view, and some backed him outright. “I think the president is right to raise the issue of whether they’re meeting their responsibilities to NATO and whether they are…

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Dr. Mark Green Commentary: It’s Time for NATO to Draw a Line in the Sand in Ukraine

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Mark Green

by Dr. Mark Green, Tennessee State Senator and Candidate for Congress   Today starts the annual NATO Summit with President Trump in attendance. Founded in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been one of the most effective alliances in history, from standing against the Soviet Union to cooperating fully in the War on Terror. When in Iraq and Afghanistan, I served alongside British Special Operations Soldiers deployed as a joint special operations task force. In one firefight my aircraft hauled off three wounded British Special Operators. It was a rewarding experience and reinforced the link between NATO countries. The challenges facing NATO today are no less strenuous than at the organization’s founding. The primary protagonist, Russia, seeks to recreate the power and influence of the former Soviet Union. Nowhere is this more prominent than in Ukraine, where as many as 12,000 Russian soldiers work with separatist to destabilize the country, where Ukrainian Defense leadership asserts Russia shelled Ukrainian positions over 15,000 times in 2017, and where Russian hybrid warfare focuses on shifting public opinion. Perhaps the most egregious act was the illegal and forced annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. NATO has a significant relationship with Ukraine: “Ukraine joined the…

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller Will NOT Present ‘Collusion’ Evidence at Manafort Trial

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Paul Manafort

by Chuck Ross   Special counsel Robert Mueller said in a court filing Friday that his prosecutors will not present evidence regarding Trump campaign collusion with Russia at an upcoming trial for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. “The government does not intend to present at trial evidence or argument concerning collusion with the Russian government,” reads a filing submitted by Mueller’s team in federal court in Virginia on Friday. The filing sheds light on one of the largest questions looming over the Manafort case. Mueller’s prosecutors have indicted Manafort in federal court in Virginia and Washington, D.C., on a slew of charges related to his consulting work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort ended the work in 2014, and it has been unclear whether Mueller’s team planned to reveal evidence about Trump or the campaign. Manafort is accused in the unverified Steele dossier of directing the Trump campaign’s efforts to coordinate with the Kremlin to help Trump in the 2016 election. The dossier, which was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC, claims that Manafort worked with former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on the effort. Both Page and Manafort have said they have never met each other. Manafort has…

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Trump-Putin Summit Shows Why the President Is Ahead of the Curve

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Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump

By Robert Romano   President Donald Trump will be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland on July 16. There the two will discuss nuclear weapons and U.S.-Russian relations. This is not only the right time to cool tensions between the two foremost nuclear powers — who have clashed over Syria, Ukraine and other potential hotspots — but also the right time politically for Trump to take to the international stage. Coming off a successful summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, achieving an agreement in principle to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, President Trump’s popularity is soaring. He has the political capital to meet with Putin. Trump’s surge, simultaneously stunning and perplexing to D.C. elites — but not to his supporters — comes as he does not appear to be hampered even in the slightest by the ongoing Russia investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Probably because there was no collusion. But not only does Trump have the political capital to meet with Putin from a position of strength, it is politically smart for him to do it. Peace is popular. Not only is this what Trump ran on in 2016 — achieving a better relationship with American adversaries…

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Kremlin: Trump, Putin Will Meet for Summit

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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

Kremlin officials say there is an agreement for Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump to hold a summit in a third country. The announcement came Wednesday as U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was in Moscow for talks with Putin and other senior Russian officials. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said details about the venue for a Trump-Putin summit would be announced Thursday. The meeting is expected to take place after Trump attends the NATO summit July 11 and 12 and visits Britain on July 13. Vienna and Helsinki are among the venues being considered. Earlier, Putin told Bolton that his visit to Moscow increased the chances of a restoration of Russian-U.S. relations. Putin said relations between the two countries were “not in the best shape.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters “the sad state” of bilateral relations between the two countries would be discussed, as well as a range of international issues. Bolton had said he hoped his one-day visit would lay the groundwork for what would be the first summit between Putin and Trump. Trump and Putin have met twice on the sidelines of international summits and have spoken several times by telephone. Washington-Moscow relations…

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Commentary: Three Myths of Socialism Debunked by Venezuela’s Nightmare

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Venezuela

by Barry Brownstein   History provides endless examples of vicious despots ruling under various collectivist ideologies. Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and – today – Kim Jong-un and Nicolás Maduro may have had different names for their collectivist ideologies, but they have resulted in the deaths of countless millions of people and endless misery for the survivors. Alarmingly, a majority of millennials would prefer to live under socialism or communism. Economically illiterate and ahistorical, they cling to the fantasy that if the right people came to power, they would live in their imagined utopia where society would be ordered according to their whims and wishes. Reporter Anatoly Kurmanaev has lived in and covered Venezuela for the past five years. He describes his experience of the Venezuelan meltdown in a recent essay for the Wall Street Journal, “The Tragedy of Venezuela.” Kurmanaev grew up in Russia in the 1990s and witnessed “corruption, violence and degradation.” “Venezuela’s collapse has been far worse than the chaos” he experienced in Russia. In my FEE essay, “Venezuela’s Road to Literal Serfdom,” I cover delusions people have about socialism. Through the eyes of Kurmanaev’s reporting, we can further explore myths about socialism still embraced by many. Myth 1: Collectivists Care More About the Poor No…

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Report: Plans Underway for Possible Trump-Putin Summit

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Trump and Putin

White House officials are making plans for a possible summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to The Wall Street Journal. The report, citing a senior administration official, said U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, has been in Washington to help schedule the meeting. “This has been an ongoing project of Ambassador Huntsman, stretching back months, of getting a formal meeting between Putin and Trump,” the official said. People familiar with the plans said the purpose of the summit would be to address long-standing differences between the two countries. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the intent of helping Trump win. The findings have led to a special counsel investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. Trump has denied any collusion. The U.S. also has denounced Russia’s alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has expressed opposition to Moscow’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine. Tensions between Washington and Moscow escalated in March when the U.S. and dozens of other nations ordered Russian diplomats to leave their countries after a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned in the United Kingdom with a military-grade nerve…

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The Connection Between Russia and Two Green Groups Fighting Fracking in US

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Cuomo

by Kevin Mooney   New Yorkers who are missing out on the natural gas revolution could be victims of Russian spy operations that fund popular environmental groups, current and former U.S. government officials and experts on Russia worry. Natural gas development of the celebrated Marcellus Shale deposits has spurred jobs and other economic growth in neighboring Pennsylvania. But not in New York, which nearly 10 years ago banned the process of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, to produce natural gas. Two environmental advocacy groups that successfully lobbied against fracking in New York each received more than $10 million in grants from a foundation in California that got financial support from a Bermuda company congressional investigators linked to the Russians, public documents show. The environmental groups Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club Foundation millions of dollars in grants from the San Francisco-based Sea Change Foundation. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] “Follow the money trail, and this [New York] ban on fracking could be viewed as an example of successful Russian espionage,” Ken Stiles, a CIA veteran of 29 years who now teaches…

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Commentary: Deputy AG Rosenstein Memo to Special Counsel Mueller Proves Probe into Former Trump Aide Manafort is Beyond Scope of AG Sessions Recusal

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Tennessee Star

by Robert Romano   On March 2, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself “from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” Arguably, as far as recusals go, it was too broad and did not narrowly list what specific part of the campaign that Sessions would have an appearance of impropriety. But there it is. This led eventually to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on May 17, 2017 to investigate, mainly, “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump…” Since then, Mueller has produced several indictments, including some that appear far outside the scope of Sessions’ original recusal. For example, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was indicted for supposedly lying to investigators about a conversation he had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kisylak in Dec. 2016, which was after the election. The interview with FBI agents happened in Jan. 2017. If Sessions was only recused from “matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States,” then how could have Mueller delivered an indictment for actions after the campaign was…

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More Diplomat Ousters in Spy Poisoning Row

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Russia on Saturday demanded that Britain further reduce its diplomatic staff in Moscow, the latest move in an escalating tit-for-tat dispute following the poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil. Russia had already kicked out 23 British envoys and closed a British consulate in response to the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats by Britain, which accuses Moscow of poisoning former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.

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Russia Hits Back Against EU Countries in Spy Row

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Russia Hits Back

Russia on Friday expelled Dutch diplomats and told Britain it had one month to reduce its diplomatic presence in the country, hitting back at EU countries after a coordinated campaign by the UK and its allies over a nerve agent attack on a former spy. Earlier in the day Russia had summoned the ambassadors of a number of nations including Britain, France, Germany and Canada to inform them of retaliatory measures.

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President Trump Expels 60 Russian Officials Over UK Nerve-Agent Attack

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President Trump expelled 60 Russian intelligence officers Monday and closed Russia’s consulate in Seattle in response to Moscow’s nerve-agent attack on a British former double agent in England. In one of his most dramatic confrontations with Moscow on its covert actions, Mr. Trump ordered the expulsion of 48 officials working at the Russian Embassy in Washington, and 12 intelligence officers assigned to Russia’s mission at the United Nations in New York City.

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US ‘Not Surprised’ by Russia’s Nuclear Claims, ‘Fully Prepared’ to Defend Itself

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The United States is brushing aside a series of claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he has an array of new strategic nuclear weapons that can hit a target anywhere in the world. Both the White House and the Pentagon dismissed the talk as rhetoric Thursday, saying Russia’s attempts to modernize its nuclear force came as no surprise and would do little to rattle the U.S.

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13 Russians Charged in Mueller Investigation

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A federal grand jury investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election on Friday indicted 13 Russian nationals including 12 employees of a St. Petersburg, Russia-based company that carries out online influence operations on behalf of Moscow. The indictment alleges that Internet Research Agency, a propaganda outfit tied to the Kremlin, engaged “in operations to interfere with elections and political processes” during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

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Commentary: Senator Grassley Unloads on the FBI and DOJ, Demands to #ReleaseTheMemo

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by CHQ Staff   Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary, claims that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice are actively obstructing his investigation of Obama-era abuses of power. Grassley has demanded that the House Intelligence Committee release its report, which he says the Senate cannot review pre-release, and also the underlying FBI and DOJ documents, with necessary redactions to protect national security. The Federalist’s Sean Davis reports Grassley is outraged that the FBI is using false classification assertions to prevent his office from releasing certain pertinent information to the public, including one piece of information which the FBI says the Senate cannot release that the Deputy Attorney General himself repeatedly shared with Senator Grassley “in unsecure space and on an unsecure phone line.” Davis tweeted: Grassley just leveled both barrels at the dossier operation: “Steele, who was working for Fusion GPS, who was working for the DNC and the Clinton campaign, was working with the Russians. So, who was actually colluding with Russians? It’s becoming more clear.” In the meantime, the Democrats are not letting House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes dominate the narrative on the bombshell revelations contained in a soon-to-be…

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The Veracity of the ‘Steele Dossier’ Rests in the Legitimacy of Its Shadowy Sources

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Kremlin Capitol

By Robert Romano   One mystery still surrounding the outlandish allegations of Trump campaign-Russia collusion by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign-funded vendor Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele is who Steele was talking to in 2016 that led to the formulation of the now infamous dossier. The sources are everything. It’s how you can say this whole thing was Simpson and Steele catching the crime of the century or that it was all made up. In his House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence testimony on Nov. 14, 2017, Fusion GPS CEO Glenn Simpson denied to say who Steele’s sources were, saying, “We did get into assessing the credibility of the sources and whether they were in a position to know the things that they were saying. I didn’t ask for the specific identities of specific people. Some people, I think I know who they are for other reasons. But that’s about as much as I can say.” When asked by U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on how Simpson “assess[ed] the reliability of that information, given the fact that you did not talk to the sources or subsources” Simpson said, “what we did do is look at names and…

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Release of Classified FISA Abuse Memo May End Media’s Baseless Trump-Russia Collusion Narrative

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It sounds too good to be true: A top secret memo in possession of the House Intelligence Committee could seriously rupture Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. The memo doesn’t really have much to do with Russia, however, just like many of Mueller’s Republican targets also have nothing to…

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Commentary: Manafort Is Right, Mueller Has Gone Beyond His Original Mandate of Special Counsel and Sessions’ Recusal

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Paul Manafort

By Robert Romano   “Paul Manafort is absolutely correct that the charges he is facing far exceed the original mandate of potential contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and have gone years into the past prior to the 2016 election campaign and in many cases do not even invoke official Russian government contacts.” That was Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning’s reaction to a legal complaint filed by one-time Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort against the Justice Department contending that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has far exceeded the original mandate set forth by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. According to the complaint, “The investigation of Mr. Manafort is completely unmoored from the special counsel’s original jurisdiction to investigate ‘any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.’” The complaint added, “Those alleged dealings had no connection whatsoever to the 2016 presidential election or even to Donald Trump.” Here, Manafort absolutely has a point. In the 31-page Manafort and Gates indictment, Russia is only mentioned four times. The first to name Manafort’s company, Davis Manafort Partners, Inc., which had some staff in Russia, which is not a crime. And…

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Representative Ron DeSantis: Congress to Vary Measures for DOJ, FBI on Trump Dossier

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A Republican congressman said Sunday that the Justice Department and the FBI have until next week to turn over documents about the Trump dossier, or else Congress will pursue other measures to obtain them. Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis’ comments come after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes sent a letter Thursday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about the Justice Department and the FBI failing to hand over the documents about President Trump.

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President Trump Says Lengthy Mueller Probe Is ‘Bad for the Country’

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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is “bad for the country,” and the only collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign was by Democrats, President Trump said in an interview published Friday. “It makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position,” Mr. Trump told The New York Times of the Mueller probe. “So the sooner it’s worked out, the better it is for the country.”

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Pentagon Alarmed by Uptick in Close Calls with Russia Fighter Jets in Syria

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The Pentagon is voicing growing alarm that the risky flying of Russian pilots in Syria could lead to a mishap — or even the nightmare scenario of a US jet shooting down a Russian warplane. Defense officials this week highlighted several recent close calls with Russian planes, including one Wednesday where a pair of US F-22s intercepted two Russian jets over a part of Syria the Pentagon says they are not meant to be operating in.

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Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS Used Jeffrey Epstein in Donald Trump Smear Campaign

Tennessee Star Staff

Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm whose Democrat-financed Russia dossier fueled an FBI investigation into Donald Trump, pitched other stories about the Republican presidential candidate to Washington reporters, including an attempt to tie him to a convicted pedophile who was once buddies with former President Bill Clinton. Journalist sources told The Washington Times that Fusion founder…

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Representative Ron DeSantis: Congress Ready to Hold FBI, DOJ Officials in Contempt for Noncompliance

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Rep. Ron DeSantis said Monday that Congress is prepared to hold members of the FBI and Justice Department in contempt for not complying with requests related to the Trump-Russia investigation. “Devin Nunes has been trying to get this information from DOJ and the FBI for months and they’ve stonewalled every step of the way,” Mr. DeSantis, Florida Republican, said on Fox News.

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Czech Court Upholds Extradition of Yevgeniy Nikulin, Russian Man Wanted in U.S. Over LinkedIn Hack

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A Russian man arrested in Prague last year in connection with allegedly hacking LinkedIn and other American Internet companies may be extradited to the United States to face related charges, a Czech court agreed Friday. Prague’s High Court on Friday upheld an earlier ruling authorizing the extradition of Yevgeniy Nikulin to the U.S., putting the accused…

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As He Investigates Trump’s Aides, Robert Mueller’s Record Shows Surprising Flaws

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WASHINGTON — When he was named special counsel in May, Robert S. Mueller III was hailed as the ideal lawman — deeply experienced, strait-laced and nonpartisan — to investigate whether President Donald Trump’s campaign had helped with Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The accolades squared with Mueller’s valor as a Marine rifle platoon commander in Vietnam and his integrity as a federal prosecutor, a senior Justice Department official and FBI director from 2001 to 2013, the longest tenure since J. Edgar Hoover. He was praised by former courtroom allies and opponents, and by Democrats and Republicans in Congress. …

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Fusion GPS, Russian Dossier Firm, Paid Journalists for Work

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Fusion GPS, the liberal research firm that funded and distributed the anti-Trump dossier, has paid three journalists for work related to Congress’ Russia probe, according to court filings. Lawyers representing the House Intelligence Committee made the assertion in a bid to force Fusion to turn over additional bank transactions involving reporters, law firms and a media company. …

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Commentary: The Hidden Scandal More Disastrous Than ‘Uranium One’

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by CHQ Staff   Our friends at the Center for Security Policy have issued one of their “occasional papers” on a scandal that we think is worse and more threatening to national security than the Uranium One scandal through which Hillary Clinton and Obama transferred 20 percent of America’s uranium to Russia. What could be worse than giving 20 percent of our uranium to Russia one might ask? How about giving a 35-year lease to one of America’s largest container ports, located just minutes from the Kennedy Space Center, to a Middle Eastern company with ties to Iran, North Korea, Russia and the evil genius behind Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program? But that’s exactly what the same players involved in the Uranium One deal did when they leased the cargo container operations at Port Canaveral, Florida after two years of secret talks with the Obama administration. Now the Center for Security Policy’s dogged and fearless team of Alan Jones and Mary Fanning have revealed exactly what could go wrong, with potentially catastrophic consequences for U.S. national security. Jones and Fanning originally broke the news that the family of Iraqi nuclear physicist Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar – known as Saddam Hussein’s…

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FBI Originally Deemed Hillary Clinton ‘Grossly Negligent’ in Handling of Emails

Tennessee Star Staff

The FBI originally planned to say that Hillary Clinton was “grossly negligent” in her handling of her secret emails, a top senator said Monday, revealing early drafts of the statement former FBI Director James Comey drew up. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, demanded the FBI detail why Mr. Comey nixed that phrase…

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The SCOTUS Case That Let Clinton Hijack Party Fundraising

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Former Democratic party leader Donna Brazile called the Hillary Clinton campaign’s takeover of party fundraising a “cancer.” Writing in Politico Thursday, Brazile said it “broke my heart” to discover that her predecessor as party chair had given the Clinton campaign power over the Democratic National Committee’s “finances, strategy, and all the money raised” during her primary…

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The Full Text of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Indictment of Former Trump Aide Paul Manafort

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The suspense is over, and we all now know who the first to be charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller – himself in peril of being sucked into the giant vortex known loosely as the ‘Clinton-Russia Scandal.’ The indictment itself runs thirty-one pages and specifically names Paul Manafort and his aide, Richard Gates. Allegations run the gamut from conspiracy to launder as much as $21 million and funneling millions more to foreign bank accounts, to working as foreign agents (Ukraine) and making false statements. The indictment contains twelve allegations (crimes or violations of law), however, that number can change over the course of adjudication.   INDICTMENT The Grand Jury for the District of Columbia Charges: Introduction: At all times relevant to this indictment: 1. Defendants Paul J. Manafort, Jr. (MANAFORT) and Richard W. Gates III (GATES) served for years as political consultants and lobbyists. Between at least 2006 and 2015, MANAFORT and GATES acted as unregistered agents of the Government of Ukraine, the Party of Regions (a Ukrainian political party whose leader Victor Yanukovych was President from 2010 to 2014), Yanukovych, and the Opposition Bloc (a successor to the Party of Regions that formed in 2014 when Yanukovych fled to…

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Paul Manafort and Former Aide Face Multiple Charges in Mueller Probe

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WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, has been indicted on 12 charges of money-laundering and conspiracy, the first charges filed in the investigation of possible connections between the Trump campaign and a Russian effort to influence last year’s presidential election. Manafort, 68, turned himself in at FBI headquarters early Monday for his…

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California Democrat Adam Schiff States the Obvious: Russia Probe Indictment Likely Tied to Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn

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The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that he suspects a reported grand jury indictment in the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election is tied to either former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort or retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser. Rep. Adam Schiff said on…

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House Intelligence Committee to Investigate Obama-Backed Uranium One Deal

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A trio of Republican representatives announced Tuesday that congressional committees would open a probe into Russia’s acquisition of U.S. uranium reserves, including the Justice Department’s mysterious handling of bribery and money-laundering allegations. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told reporters that it is important to find out what the FBI knew and whether that information…

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Roger Stone Show: Trump Confidante Roasts ‘Cowardly’ Lawmakers

Tennessee Star Staff

Longtime GOP operative and provocateur Roger Stone came out swinging in closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday morning, accusing Democrats of making false allegations against him and the whole committee of being “cowardly” for refusing to allow the testimony to take place in public. Stone skunked the committee, posting a video online at…

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