Tag: Russia

Jim Jordan Goes on Media Blitz Against ‘Collusion Delusion’

Anthony Gockowski

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) blasted his Democratic colleagues for their “collusion delusion” during several cable news appearances this week. Fox and Friends, America’s Newsroom, Hannity, Ingraham Angle—if there was coverage of the Russia investigation, then Jordan was likely there to talk about it, and his message was clear: “no new indictments, no sealed indictments, no collusion, no obstruction.” But he didn’t stop there. Jordan, along with Rep. Mark Meadows (R-SC-11), believes that the other side of the story needs to be investigated. “Let’s do everything we can to work with Chairman Graham to get to the bottom of this and expose how they used one party’s opposition research document to get a secret warrant to spy on the other party’s campaign and launch this whole ridiculous thing that we saw unfold over the last several years,” Jordan said during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s show. During an appearance on Fox New’s Ingraham Angle, Jordan agreed with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich that the Democratic Party is “in denial” after the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. “It was so strong what Bill Barr said about Bob Mueller’s investigation. Remember the numbers – 19, 40, 500, 2,800. 19 lawyers, most…

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Trump: Russian Military Must ‘Get Out’ of Venezuela

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U.S. President Donald Trump says Russia “has to get out” of Venezuela, following the recent arrival of Russian military personnel in that country. “All options are open,” Trump repeated several times in response to a reporter’s question Wednesday about whether the United States is willing to put “boots on the ground” to remove the Russians. Trump added that Moscow is well aware of the U.S. stance. Trump spoke to reporters at the White House alongside Fabiana Rosales, the wife of Venezuelan opposition leader and self-declared interim President Juan Guaido. She went into the Oval Office following a meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. “The United States views Russia’s arrival of military planes this weekend as an unwelcome provocation,” Pence said alongside Rosales in the Roosevelt Room. “We call on Russia today to cease all support of the Maduro regime and stand with Juan Guaido, stand with nations across this hemisphere and across the world until freedom is restored.” “Today, in Venezuela, it is freedom or dictatorship. It is life or it is death,” Rosales said. “And those who are paying the price of this hate are the children.” She added that children are dying in hospitals which are without…

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Rep. Green Says in Wall Street Journal Op-Ed That ‘Democrats Talk Tough’ Over Russian Election Meddling, But They Are Only After Trump

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Rep. Dr. Mark Green (R-TN-07) said “Democrats talk tough” when it comes to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential elections, but they are only after President Donald Trump, who has acted to counter that nation’s aggression. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no evidence President Donald Trump, his campaign or associates conspired or coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, according to a summary released Sunday by Attorney General William Barr, as The Tennessee Star reported. Green tweeted, “Democrats talk tough, but their actions reveal they’re interested only in “getting” Donald Trump. GOP has long seen Russia as a threat, and we – including the president – have acted to counter its aggression. Read my thoughts via @WSJopinion” Democrats talk tough, but their actions reveal they’re interested only in “getting” Donald Trump. GOP has long seen Russia as a threat, and we—including the president—have acted to counter its aggression. Read my thoughts via @WSJopinion https://t.co/sdfaOZJLIa — Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) March 25, 2019 Green’s tweet links to an op-ed he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, which is also available here. Green said that threats by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff to investigate Mueller’s investigation…

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Jim Jordan Reminds Nation That Democrats Used to Talk About Mueller Like He’s ‘Next to Jesus’

Anthony Gockowski

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) sat down for an interview with George Stephanopoulos Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” where he said his Democratic colleagues viewed Robert Mueller as “next to Jesus” heading into the Russia investigation. Prior to his interview, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA-28) was on the show and suggested that a lack of indictments in the Mueller report doesn’t necessarily vindicate President Donald Trump. “Well we’ve got to read the report, but what I do know is to date not one bit of evidence to show any type of coordination, collusion, conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election. And that was the charge, George, when this thing started almost two years ago,” Jordan said in response. “The Democrats were all saying that the president of the United States worked with a hostile foreign country to steal the election, and again, there has not been one bit of evidence to suggest that any of that happened.” Jordan repeatedly emphasized that the focus of the special counsel investigation was to determine whether or not there was “collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to impact the election.” “And again, remember, this is Bob Mueller, this was the guy…

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US Officials Issue Sanctions Warnings to Europe Over Russian Gas

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U.S. officials have warned at an energy conference in Brussels that the Trump administration will take punitive action against European companies that are building the Kremlin-favored Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which will deliver energy from Russia to Germany while bypassing Ukraine. Nord Stream 2 (NS2) will largely replace an older pipeline running through Ukraine and Poland that has the backing of the German government. But it is prompting the alarm of Central European governments, increasingly infuriated with Berlin’s dismissal of their concerns. They object to Nord Stream 2 — which will run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany, and snake under the Baltic Sea — not only because they’ll lose lucrative transit fees from the older pipeline, but because they fear the Kremlin wants to develop NS2 largely for political reasons, not commercial ones. Speaking at the energy conference in the Belgian capital, Nicole Gibson, deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s office for Europe, warned that if European companies resume laying pipe later this year they “risk significant sanctions.” Declining to go into any details about the threatened sanctions, Gibson said Washington doesn’t accept that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal. “Some people say…

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As 2020 Nears, Pressure Grows to Replace Voting Machines

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Voting experts say time is running short for states to replace voting machines in time for the start of the 2020 presidential primaries. Time and money are running short for states to replace aging or inadequate voting machines before the 2020 presidential primaries, according to a report released Tuesday. State and local election officials in 31 states say they want to replace their voting equipment before the elections, but the vast majority said they don’t have enough money to do so, according to The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s School of Law. “We basically have this year and then it’s too late,” said Lawrence Norden, deputy director of the center’s Democracy Program and author of the report. It can take months to decide on replacement machines, secure the funding, develop security protocols, train workers and test the equipment. States received $380 million in election security grants from Congress last year, but experts have said that’s merely a down payment on what is needed. Pennsylvania received $13.5 million from the federal government, but that’s just a quarter of what it would cost to switch to voting machines that use paper ballots, said J. Alex Halderman, director of the Center for…

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Commentary: Trump Knows When to Fold ‘Em

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by Michael Walsh   In the course of a high-stakes negotiation, the player who walks away from the table is the one with the least to lose. Ronald Reagan did it to Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik in 1986, and Donald Trump did it to Kim Jong-un this week in Vietnam. Good for the president. A lot of people have brought up Reykjavik; I discussed the similarities on the Hugh Hewitt radio show with guest host Kurt Schlichter on Thursday. Reagan met Gorbachev in Iceland in the fall of 1986 and the two men were approaching an agreement that might have included the abolition of all nuclear weapons. But the Soviet premier wanted the Americans to drop the Strategic Defense Initiative, colloquially known as “Star Wars.” That was a bridge too far for Reagan, who abandoned the talks and went home. Naturally, the hostile press was appalled—the abolition of all nukes! And this cowboy won’t give up a pet program that probably won’t work anyway! Warmonger! Reagan was widely viewed at the time as an “amiable dunce” who didn’t understand the first thing about the complexities of international diplomacy; why, the doddering old fool actually thought “We win, they lose” was…

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Commentary: How the Space Force Can Restore Our Edge Against China, Russia

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by John Venable   The U.S. just moved one step closer to creating a Space Force. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Defense to draft legislation to establish the Space Force as a new branch of the military under the secretary of the Air Force. This move is an important step toward defending the space domain, which is home to critical assets that deliver everything from precision targeting and missile launch warning, to the communications and signals that allow banking, commerce, travel, and almost every other aspect of our high-tech society to function. Russia and China are aware of our near-complete reliance on space systems, and they have positioned themselves to move against them. It’s been over 11 years since China proved it is capable of destroying satellites in space using ground-based missiles, and in the years since, Russian satellites co-orbiting in close proximity with ours have been equally provocative. In 2018, an independent report emerged from a bipartisan congressional directive that recommended the U.S. establish an independent Space Force through a two-phased approach that would re-establish our dominance in the space domain. In the months since, the Trump administration has used the president’s current authorities to…

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Pompeo Warns Central European Allies Over Russia, China Ties

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned during a trip to NATO allies Slovakia and Hungary that Russia and China are trying to fill a political vacuum in central Europe caused by what he described as the United States’ absence in the region over recent years. Arriving Tuesday in Bratislava, Pompeo said the United States had been a friend through three decades of post-Soviet independence. The warm sentiments echoed those given to Hungary during a visit Monday to Budapest, where he urged his Hungarian counterpart to offer more support to Kyiv following Russia’s forced annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. “I spoke with the foreign minister about the urgent importance of supporting Ukraine in its quest for sovereignty and territorial integrity. We must not let [Russian President Vladimir] Putin drive wedges between friends and NATO. Hungarians know all too well from their history that an authoritarian Russia will never be a friend to the freedom and sovereignty of smaller nations,” said the top U.S. diplomat. Budapest is often accused by allies of being too close to Russia. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has regularly visited Putin in Moscow, while Russia is set to build two nuclear reactors in…

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Commentary: A Liberty Movement Is Growing in Putin’s Russia

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by Lawrence W. Reed   Except for a fishing trip to northern Canada in the 1960s, my first visit to a foreign country was to the old Soviet Union in March 1985. It was the month in which Soviet leadership passed from the aging old guard of communist hardliners into the hands of a younger and less rigid generation personified by Mikhail Gorbachev. Almost immediately, life loosened up. The Fall of Communism Between 1985 and 1991, I traveled four more times to the USSR. On my fifth visit, two weeks before the August 1991 failed coup against Gorbachev, I stopped in Kiev, Ukraine, and participated in a mass demonstration for Ukrainian independence from the Evil Empire. Other former satellites from Poland to Romania had already liberated themselves, and in December 1991, the USSR itself ceased to exist. Ukraine and 14 other constituent parts of the USSR became independent nations again. Those were heady days. Transformative ideas, circumstances, and personalities—the three elements that must be aligned to produce big changes—assembled in an extraordinary constellation. It yielded the most explosive geopolitical alterations of my lifetime. As a person whose first appreciation of liberty sprung from a teenage aversion to communist tyranny, witnessing…

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Sen. Blackburn Urges President Trump to Protect Kurdish Allies as America Looks to Leave Syria

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) on Thursday sent a letter urging President Donald Trump to protect the United States’ Kurdish partners in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Blackburn posted a copy of the letter on Twitter, tweeting, “This morning, I joined @SenDuckworth in writing a letter to the president to express the importance of protecting our Kurdish friends as the administration plans its withdrawal of American troops from Syria.” “The protection of our Kurdish friends and allies is in the national security interest of the United States,” said Blackburn. “The Kurds have been a reliable partner in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and we must not abandon them now.” Nashville is home to the largest Kurdish population of any city in the United States, Blackburn said. The letter comes as the administration considers a withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria. Blackburn and Duckworth are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The White House officially announced Dec. 19 that nearly 2,000 U.S. troops would leave Syria, Townhall reported. “Five years ago, ISIS was a very powerful and dangerous force in the Middle East, and now the United States has defeated the territorial caliphate. These…

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Trump, Guaido to Collaborate on Efforts to Restore Democracy to Venezuela

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The White House says President Donald Trump reinforced his “strong support” for efforts to restore democracy in Venezuela during a conversation Wednesday with opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has proclaimed himself as the country’s president. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump and Guaido also committed to maintaining “regular communication to support Venezuela’s path back to stability, and to rebuild the bilateral relationship” between the two countries. Trump said earlier Wednesday that embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is willing to negotiate with representatives of Guaido’s opposition movement to solve the political crisis in the South American nation, but warned Americans not to travel to Venezuela “until further notice.” Trump’s early morning tweet referred to Maduro’s offer to hold talks with the country’s opposition forces and hold early legislative elections. He added the threat of U.S. sanctions, including cutting off Venezuelan oil revenues, contributed to the apparent softening of Maduro’s stance. Maduro made the offer earlier Wednesday during an interview with Russia’s RIA news agency, saying he is willing to sit down at the negotiating table “for the good of Venezuela.” But he said there will not be a new presidential election until 2025, rejecting a demand by Guaido, president…

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US Intel Chief: Russia, China Biggest Espionage, Cyber Threats

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Reuters   Russia and China pose the biggest espionage and cyber-attack threats to the United States and are more aligned than they have been in decades, the leader of the U.S. intelligence community told U.S. senators on Tuesday. While the two countries seek to expand their global reach, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said, some American allies are pulling away from Washington in reaction to changing U.S. policies on security and trade. “China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea increasingly use cyber operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding number of ways – to steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure,” Coats said. “Moscow’s relationship with Beijing is closer than it’s been in many decades,” Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee’s annual hearing on worldwide threats, where he testified with the director of the CIA, FBI and other top intelligence officials. He also said some U.S. allies are seeking more independence, responding to their perceptions of changing policies on security and trade and “are becoming more open” to new partnerships. “The post-World War Two international system is coming under increasing strain amid continuing cyber and WMD proliferation threats, competition in space and regional…

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Liberal Billionaire Apologizes For Funding Russian Bot ‘False Flag,’ But Questions Remain Unanswered

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Tennessee Star

by Chris White   Billionaire Reid Hoffman apologized Wednesday for funding an effort to dupe Alabama voters into believing Russian bots were fueling Republican Roy Moore’s failed senatorial bid. But he left crucial questions unanswered. His statement left several important facts about the so-called experiment unaddressed, including a detailed accounting of everyone involved in the caper, as well who crafted and executed the campaign. The effort was the subject of a closed-door presentation in Washington, D.C., to a group of liberal technology experts, The Washington Post reported, citing anonymous sources. “I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing,” Hoffman said in his statement. “For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track AET — the organization I did support — more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject.” The Hoffman-financed group allegedly used Facebook and Twitter to undermine support for Moore and boost Democrat Doug Jones, who narrowly won the race. Hoffman referred to a group he funded, American Engagement Technologies (AET), as being involved in the effort. He poured $750,000 into the organization, much of it going to the project, the report notes. Democratic operatives associated with the…

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Schiff Will Subpoena Mueller Report if White House Tries to Block its Release

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by Chuck Ross   California Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday that he is prepared to subpoena a report from the special counsel’s Russia investigation should the White House try to block its release. “At the end of the day, this is just — this case is just too important to keep from the American people what it’s really about,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” CNN host Jake Tapper had asked Schiff, a Democrat, whether he would use his subpoena power when he takes over next month as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to obtain the report, should the Trump administration attempt to block its release. https://youtu.be/_BY7odWtwrw?t=1591 “I’m prepared to make sure we do everything possible so that the public has the advantage of as much of the information as it can,” Schiff said. “That sounds like a yes,” said Tapper. “Well, that pretty much is a yes, from my point of view,” Schiff replied, adding that “we ought to make sure this report is public.” Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly planning to send his report to the Justice Department as early as mid-February, NBC News reported Friday. The Justice Department, which is…

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Democrats Spent Same Amount of Money Building Fake Russian Bots as Russia Did on Real Russian Bots

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by Joe Simonson   While the debate rages on over how much Russia really influenced the results of the 2016 presidential elections, one detail put the entire controversy in perspective: Democratic operatives spent an identical amount of money on their project to create a Russian bot “false flag” campaign during the Alabama 2017 special election. Multiple reports detailed the Russian government-backed Internet Research Agency spent up to $100,000 on Facebook advertisements throughout their entire disinformation operation. As The Daily Caller News Foundation reported Wednesday, billionaire-backed Democrats “created more than a thousand Russian-language accounts that followed [Roy] Moore’s Twitter account overnight.” The group of Democrats behind the “elaborate ‘false flag’ operation,” as described in an internal report obtained by The New York Times, also created fake conservative Facebook accounts for the purpose of convincing voters not to support Republican candidate Roy Moore. The cost of the effort totaled $100,000 — the identical amount Facebook says the Russian IRA spent during the last presidential election. Much of Russia’s activity during the 2016 campaign, however, cost little-to-nothing. According to analyses of the IRA’s activity, many of the Facebook posts created by the organization were seen by millions of Americans without a single dollar spent. The $100,000 spent by the Russian…

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Google CEO Splashes Cold Water On a Major Russian Meddling Narrative

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by Chris White   Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared to catch Democratic lawmakers off guard Tuesday after disclosing in a congressional hearing the paltry amount of money Russia spent on ads on the 2016 election. Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler asked Pichai about the extent to which Russia used Google to interject itself in that year’s presidential election. Pichai’s answer seemed to genuinely surprise the New York Democrat. “We undertook a very thorough investigation, and in 2016, we now know of two main Russian accounts linked to Russia which advertised on Google for about $4,700 in advertising,” Pichai said. Nadler then asked him to repeat the number one more time. Facebook came under similar scrutiny in 2017, when the Silicon Valley company admitted to congressional investigators to selling political ads to a suspicious Russian outlet in 2016. Most of the ads did not focus on then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump or then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and the ad sales cost roughly $100,000. Instead, the ads touched on hot-button issues, like race, gun rights, gay rights and immigration. Meanwhile, Twitter told lawmakers it found about 200 Russian-linked accounts based on what Facebook had identified. Twitter sold more than $274,000 worth of ads to the news outlet RT, a…

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Former Soviet Leader Gorbachev Lauds George HW Bush for Political Abilities, Character

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  Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday expressed his “deep condolences” to the family of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush and all Americans following his death. Gorbachev worked closely with Bush to bring an end to the Cold War in the late 1980s and 1990s, and lauded the former president for his abilities as a politician and his personal character. “It was a time of great change,” he told the Interfax news agency, “demanding great responsibility from everyone. The result was the end of the Cold War and nuclear arms race.” Gorbachev said that he and his wife, Raisa, “deeply appreciated the attention, kindness and simplicity typical of George and Barbara Bush, as well as the rest of their large, friendly family.” Pavel Palazhchenko, who worked as Gorbachev’s translator during those years, said that a tireless search for common ground and mutual understanding paved the way for some of the greatest achievements in the history of U.S.-Russia relations. “Bush always took a balanced approach to things,” Palazhchenko told The Associated Press on Saturday. “He was not one to rush and took everything into account. He was always very well briefed. Gorbachev was too, and together they just looked…

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Trump Responds to Mueller About Two Key Collusion Allegations

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by Chuck Ross   President Donald Trump reportedly told special counsel Robert Mueller in writing earlier in November that he did not know about his son’s infamous June 2016 meeting with Russians before it occurred and that he was not informed by his longtime confidant, Roger Stone, that WikiLeaks planned to release information damaging to the Clinton campaign, according to CNN. Trump submitted the answers Nov. 20, after months of tense negotiations with Mueller’s team over the scope of the questions. Trump’s lawyers fought to exclude questions about possible obstruction of justice over the firing of James Comey as FBI director. They also opposed a sit-down interview with prosecutors, vying instead for responses provided in writing. The two sources familiar with the matter did not give CNN any direct quotes. The Trump Tower meeting and WikiLeaks email dumps have been a central focus of Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Donald Trump Jr. met with a group of Russians on June 9, 2016, after an associate contacted him offering information on Hillary Clinton. “If it is what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. responded to the associate, a music publicist who worked for Emin Agalarov, the son of Russian…

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Trump: Probably Won’t Sit for Interview in Russia Investigation

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  U.S. President Donald Trump is declaring that he “probably” won’t sit for an in-person interview with special counsel Robert Mueller probing links between his 2016 campaign and Russia, suggesting that his written answers to the prosecutor’s questions will be his final response. Trump told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that in recent days he gave “very, very complete answers to questions I shouldn’t have been asked. Probably this is the end.” In an interview at the White House taped Friday and broadcast Sunday, Trump said his lawyers are completing answers to Mueller’s two dozen or so questions, but that, “They’re writing what I tell them. It wasn’t a big deal.” https://youtu.be/g8ohzFy6eP0 Trump’s lawyers are expected to turn over his written responses in the coming days, although Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said last week some of the questions created “more issues for us legally than others.” Giuliani described some of the questions as “unnecessary,” some were “possible traps” and that “we might consider some as irrelevant.” The questions concerned events leading up to the November 2016 national election, not the two-plus months while Trump was the president-elect, or of events during Trump’s presidency, where Mueller is investigating whether Trump…

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Interpol’s Chinese President Meng Hongwei Has Disappeared

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by Ted Bromund   Nearly a month ago, Meng Hongwei, the Chinese president of Interpol, disappeared during a visit home from France. Meng – or someone acting for him – has since submitted his resignation to Interpol, and Beijing has announced that he’s under investigation for corruption. His wife, who is still in France, now calls Chinese authorities “cruel” and says she’s not sure whether he’s still alive. He has not been seen or heard from since Sept. 25. Meng wasn’t a diplomat. He was a vice minister in China’s Ministry of Internal Security. In other words, he was a high-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party and a political policeman. He almost certainly sent a lot of people to prison for their beliefs, and he evidently didn’t have any problems with the cruelty of the system he helped to run. Perhaps he and his wife should have considered the possibility that the cruel communist system might devour him before he started working for it. It was unseemly for Interpol to have a Chinese political policeman as its president to begin with. It’s also true that the danger of having the Chinese political police at the helm of Interpol was not quite…

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Trump Notches a Big Win Against Russia After Merkel Folds on US Gas Imports

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by Chris White   German Chancellor Angela Merkel is offering government support for a for project that would supply Germany with U.S. natural gas — the move comes as U.S. President Donald Trump seeks to loosen Russia’s hold on Europe’s energy markets. Merkel told lawmakers in early October that her government will co-finance the construction of a $576 million liquefied natural gas shipping terminal, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The project had failed for years to gain any traction in a country that receives the bulk of its gas from Russia. Trump has lobbied intensely for European countries — Germany in particular — to shift their energy imports from Russia to the U.S., if for no other reason than to diversify their energy markets. He told world leaders at a Group of 20 summit in 2017 that the U.S. wants to make it easier for companies to ship natural gas products to Eastern Europe. German and U.S. officials said Berlin is hoping that forging ahead on the project might help lessen the possibility of Washington leveling sanctions against Nord Stream 2, an unbuilt gas pipeline that would double Russia’s energy exports to Germany. Some U.S. officials believe the White House’s…

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Trump Says US Will Pull Out of Intermediate Range Nuke Pact with Russia

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Donald Trump

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would pull the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because Russia had violated the agreement, but he provided no details of the violations. The 1987 pact, which helps protect the security of the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Far East, prohibits the United States and Russia from possessing, producing ortest-flying a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. “Russia has violated the agreement.They have been violating it for many years,”Trump said after a rally in Elko, Nevada. “And we’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and go out and do weapons and we’re not allowed to.” The agreement has constrained theU.S. from developing new weapons, but America will begin developing them unless Russia and China agree not to possess or develop the weapons, Trump said. China is not currently party to the pact. “We’ll have to develop those weapons, unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they all come to usand say let’s really get smart and let’s none of us develop those weapons, but if Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it, and we’re adhering…

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Report: Mueller Will Present Findings From Trump-Russia Probe After Midterms

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FBI Mueller and President Trump

by Chuck Ross   Special Counsel Robert Mueller is planning to present key findings from his investigation of President Trump after next month’s midterm elections, according to a report from Bloomberg News. Two U.S. officials told Bloomberg that Mueller could very well continue his investigation after presenting his findings to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Trump-Russia probe because of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal. Rosenstein will then have the option of releasing the Mueller findings to the public and making recommendations to Congress. Since May 2017, Mueller has been investigating whether members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russian government officials to release emails stolen from Democrats. He is also investigating whether Trump himself obstructed justice by firing James Comey as FBI director. Comey’s firing, on May 9, 2017, paved the way for Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. Mueller’s investigation so far has received mixed reviews, largely along partisan lines. Trump often calls the probe a “witch hunt” that he considers illegal. Mueller has obtained guilty pleas from former Trump associates Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, and Rick Gates, though none have admitted to colluding with Russia. He has also indicted another 25 Russian nationals…

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Trump Takes Aim at Fusion GPS Founder, DOJ Official Linked to Dossier

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by Chuck Ross   President Donald Trump took aim Tuesday at Glenn Simpson and Bruce Ohr, two central figures in a congressional investigation into the FBI and Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the infamous Steele dossier. In a series of tweets, Trump noted that Simpson, the founder of opposition research firm Fusion GPS, is planning to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during a congressional appearance Tuesday. Trump noted Ohr, a DOJ official, provided testimony to Congress in August that directly conflicts with what Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee in November. Ohr told lawmakers Aug. 28 that he met Simpson twice, once in August 2016 and once in December 2016. That conflicts with Simpson’s Nov. 14, 2017, testimony in which he claimed only to have had contact with Ohr after the election. “Conflict between Glen Simpson’s testimony to another House Panel about his contact with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. Ohr was used by Simpson and Steele as a Back Channel to get (FAKE) Dossier to FBI. Simpson pleading Fifth,” Trump wrote, quoting Fox News’s Catherine Herridge. “Where is Jeff Sessions?” Trump asked, referring to the attorney general. “Conflict between Glen Simpson’s testimony to another House Panel about his…

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A Senate Democrat Reportedly Outsourced Parts of the Trump-Russia Probe to Operative Linked to Soros, Fusion GPS

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by Chuck Ross   A Democratic senator outsourced parts of the investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion to a former Senate staffer with links to George Soros and Fusion GPS, according to a New Yorker report. The New Yorker reports the unidentified senator contacted Daniel Jones, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer, around March 2017 to review data regarding a possible link between the computer servers of the Trump Organization and a Russian bank called Alfa Bank. Jones, who worked under California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein when she chaired the intelligence panel, had just formed a non-profit group called the Democracy Integrity Project. The organization worked closely with Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, the tag-team duo that produced the Democrat-funded dossier accusing the Trump campaign of colluding with the Kremlin. Jones’s operation was also funded by a small group of billionaires, including left-wing philanthropist George Soros. Jones told the FBI in March 2017 that between 7 and 10 billionaires had put up $50 million to continue an investigation into Russian meddling in elections. Jones also told the FBI that he had secured the services of Steele and Fusion GPS “to continue exposing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.” The goal…

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Larry Kudlow Says American Energy Can Upend Russia’s Influence

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by Jason Hopkins   President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser said the U.S. is capable of upending Russia’s “hegemony” in the international energy market. “Some of the things we’re talking about do focus on the energy sector,” Larry Kudlow said during an interview with Hill.TV that aired Monday. “We are the dominant energy power. We will be producing 15 million barrels of oil per day in a couple of years. We’re passing the Saudis. We’re passing Russia.” Kudlow, who currently serves as director of the National Economic Council, bragged that there is so much natural gas coming out of the Permian Basin, for example, American producers don’t even know what to do with it. Numerous regions across the U.S. are experiencing a natural gas boom, thanks in large part to the implementation of hydraulic fracturing. “So what does that mean? Means we have to have infrastructure for pipelines, east, west, west, east. Get this stuff to the northeast, get this stuff to Europe and challenge Russia’s hegemony on nat gas and LNG [liquified natural gas],” he said. “This is doable. We have to really focus on the energy sector. Most of this stuff can be done privately.” Kudlow ended the segment by explaining that the…

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The History Russians and Communists Want Us to Forget

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by Jarrett Stepman   The Soviet Union did not free the world of tyranny in World War II. It merely helped defeat one evil while ruthlessly attempting to supplant it with another one. But you wouldn’t know that from reading an Associated Press article from early September. The Associated Press originally stated that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were “allies” at the beginning of World War II. It then issued the following correction:  … In 1939, despite sharp ideological differences, the two powers entered into a non-aggression pact that paved the way for them to carve up Poland and for the Soviet Union to take the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. That pact was never formally recognized as an alliance, and in 1941 Germany attacked the Soviet Union. It’s noteworthy that according to Haaretz, this correction took place after Russia put pressure on the publication. The Daily Signal reached out to AP about the correction, but it didn’t respond to the request for comment. The truth is that the USSR and Nazi Germany were functionally allies in the early stages of World War II, as historian Timothy Snyder explained in his book “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.” The “sharp ideological differences”…

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US Navy’s Top Admiral Cites Increased Threat in Ocean Nearest Washington

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American Navy

by Carla Babb   Chinese military vessels are now operating in the Northern Atlantic, and Russian submarines are prowling those same waters at a pace not seen since the end of the Cold War, the Navy’s top admiral told VOA in an exclusive interview. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said China’s military movements from the North Atlantic into the Mediterranean Sea is a “new dynamic.” “Even five years ago, we wouldn’t have seen anything like this,” Richardson said. According to Richardson, the Chinese navy is a global one that is both “ready and capable” of operating wherever Beijing wants. “They’re certainly a pacing competition for us in terms of the naval threat,” he told VOA. However, Chinese operations near the United States’ eastern shore are not as threatening as Russian vessels lurking below the ocean’s surface. NATO allies from North America to Europe are increasingly concerned about the uptick of Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic. “We’re talking about more (activity) than we’ve seen in 25 years,” Richardson said. U.S. officials worry that Moscow may try to use its submarines to cut or tap into undersea cables that connect the two continents. 2nd Fleet Due to these…

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Without Collusion, There Is No Obstruction as Mueller Scrambles to Make the Case Against President Trump

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FBI Mueller and President Trump

by Robert Romano   Whatever case Special Counsel Robert Mueller intends on bringing against President Donald Trump, it does not look like it will be a collusion-with-Russia case. So far, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has not brought a case against anybody from the 2016 Trump campaign for assisting Russia with hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and John Podesta emails and putting them on Wikileaks. That is the crime that Mueller was tasked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosensteinwith investigating on May 17, 2017: “a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election” and “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.” In short, that Russia hacked the Democrats, put the emails on Wikileaks, and Trump helped, or so the allegation goes. No collusion Since that time, Mueller has brought two cases on election interference by Russia, for purchasing Facebook ads, and to be certain, for hacking the DNC and Podesta emailsand putting them on Wikileaks. But nobody from the Trump campaign is named in those indictments. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in announcing each of these indictments, took great pains to remind everyone that neither…

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Commentary: Trump Asks ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’ and Critics Won’t Stop Ripping Him

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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

by Jeffery Rendall   Why can’t we be friends, Why can’t we be friends, Why can’t we be friends, Why can’t we be friends?… I’d kinda’ like to be the president So I could show you how your money’s spent… ~ War, 1975 This classic War (the musical group) song came to mind after enduring the barrage of establishment media (and #NeverTrump’s) insults after last week’s summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It’s evident from the over-the-top reactions of some in the political chattering class that being “friends” with Russia is not possible – or even desirable. The whiners and complainers acted as though Trump gave away the keys to the American military’s lockbox and set the tone for a surrender to the diminutive Putin and his pseudo-commie lackeys. Hardly; Trump was merely advancing the widely held and accepted notion that peace is a good thing. It’s hard to fathom how advocating for perpetuating and furthering tensions with a major nuclear power would be beneficial to the average American, yet if some of these media people had their way U.S. forces would be on the doorstep of the Kremlin hoping to get a clean shot at the Russian brain trust.…

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The Carter Page FISA Application: Four Key Takeaways (Plus One More)

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Carter Page and Trump

As experts comb through the newly-released, heavily redadcted FISA application to surveil former Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, John Hinderaker at PowerLineBlog noticed four key takeaways. First, he notes, the application – which was renewed several times by the Obama-Holder-Lynch Department of Justice – strongly suggests Page is a Russian agent actively engaged in criminal activity. However, to date, Page has never been charged with a crime. Secondly, the government describes Christopher Steel and the origin of the dossier in a way that Hinderaker generously calls “misleading at best.” The application says: US-based law firm had hired the identified US person to condict research regarding Candidate #1’s ties to Russia (the identified US person and Source #1 have a long-staning relationship). The identified US person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified US person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1’s ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified US person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign. Legend: Identified US person = Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS Source #1 = Christopher Steele Candidate #1 = Donald Trump Hinderaker explains: The…

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Senior CIA Official: China Threatens US Interests ‘Far More Significantly By Any Extreme’ Than The Russians

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Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin

by Ryan Pickrell   A senior CIA official warned of the dangers of China’s rise Friday, stressing that Beijing is determined to see China replace the U.S. as the world superpower. Arguing that China is fundamentally waging a “cold war” against the U.S., Deputy Assistant Director for the CIA’s East Asia Mission Center Michael Collins indirectly described China as a “country that exploits all avenues of power — licit and illicit, public and private, economic and military — to undermine the standing of [its] rival relative to [its] own standing without resorting to conflict.” “At the end of the day, they want every country around the world, when it’s deciding its interests on policy issues, to first and foremost side with China and not the United States, because the Chinese are increasingly defining a conflict with the United States and what we stand behind as a systems conflict,” he argued at the  Aspen Security Forum. Emphasizing that China represents the greatest challenge to American interests, he stressed that Chinese ambitions set “up a competition with us and what we stand behind far more significantly by any extreme than what the Russians could put forward.” His statements echo those of FBI Director Christopher Wray, who spoke at…

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President Trump Looks Forward to More Talks with Vladimir Putin

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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

by Steve Herman   U.S. President Donald Trump, amid the uproar over his initial summit this week with Russia’s president, is indicating there could be a second such meeting with Vladimir Putin. Trump, writing on Twitter, called Monday’s summit in Helsinki “a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media.” The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear…….. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2018 In another Thursday morning tweet, the U.S. president accused mainstream media in the country of desiring “so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war.” The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war. They are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I’ll probably have a good relationship with Putin. We are doing MUCH better than any other country! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19,…

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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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