Tag: State Department

State Dept. Officials Told They Broke Law by Monitoring Americans During Ukraine Scandal

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State Department officials were explicitly ordered in spring 2019 to stop tracking 13 prominent Americans’ social media accounts for information about the Joe Biden-Ukraine scandal because the monitoring violated federal law, according to emails that were originally redacted to hide the concerns from the American public.

“We are barred by law from actively monitoring the accounts of American citizens in aggregate — and particularly from identifying and monitoring individual, selected accounts,” a State Department official wrote in an April 1, 2019 email to officials in Washington and the U.S. embassy in Kiev.

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United States Has Revoked Over 1,000 Visas for ‘Security Risks’ from China

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Since June, over 1,000 Chinese nationals located in the United States have had their visas revoked after being labeled national security risks, as reported by CNN.
The State Department released a statement on Wednesday addressing the matter, revealing that the initiative had specifically targeted “graduate students and research scholars” at various American universities who had been determined to be “high-risk,” and were thus removed from the country.

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State Department Monitored 13 Americans’ Social Media in Possible Legal Violation

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Officials at the U.S. embassy in Kiev ordered the monitoring of 13 prominent Americans’ social media accounts during the early days of the Ukraine scandal in spring 2019 and later were informed their activities potentially violated the Privacy Act, according to State Department memos made public on Tuesday.

The memos, released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, show those targeted for monitoring included President Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., the president’s personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Fox News personalities Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Lou Dobbs. This reporter was one of the 13 individuals on the list targeted.

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State Department Inspector General Is Fired, Was Investigated for Mishandling Sensitive Information

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President Donald Trump fired Steve Linick, the State Department’s inspector general, on Friday night, sources told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Trump notified House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he was removing Linick from office, effective in 30 days. He said in the letter that “it is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General.”

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State Department Suspends Visa Services Across the World

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The State Department is suspending visa services in most countries across the world, the Trump administration’s latest response to mitigating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement released late Wednesday, the State Department announced it’s cancelling all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant appoints at embassies and consulates in numerous countries. The suspensions became effective immediately, and no specific date was provided on when services would begin again.

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Hunter Biden Was on Board of Trade Coalition Lobbying Obama Admin on Ukraine Aid

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Hunter Biden was on the board of a trade coalition that lobbied the Obama administration in 2014 on foreign assistance to Ukraine, and appears to have set up a State Department meeting for the group’s president.

Biden’s links to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) and its affiliate, the Center for U.S. Global Leadership, have gone largely unreported in the coverage of his various business dealings, which have caused a headache for his father as he runs for president.

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Commentary: It’s Time for Civilian Control of the State Department

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Consumers of the corporate leftist media’s political coverage have heard a drumbeat of reports that an honorable, highly capable, long-serving diplomat recently was driven from office following a vicious, conspiracy-driven smear campaign by dishonest, shameless partisans who leaked misleading stories to the media, generally abused power, and disregarded the constitutional chain of authority.

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Americans Not ‘Buying’ Democrats’ Impeachment Narrative, Rep. Burchett Tells C-SPAN

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) on Wednesday appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” call-in program to discuss the impeachment inquiry. He blamed a “cocky attitude” among some in the State Department and said they are upset over not being involved in President Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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Commentary: Attorney General Barr’s Intelligence Review Should Include the DNC Servers

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by Robert Romano   The Hill’s John Solomon made big news on June 6 when he reported that Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, said in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report to be a Russian agent, was an intelligence source for the U.S. State Department. “In a key finding of the Mueller report, Ukrainian businessman…

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Obama White House Tracked FOIA Request for Hillary Emails that Was Improperly Denied

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by Chuck Ross   The Obama White House kept tabs on a Freedom of Information Act request for information on former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s email accounts that the State Department improperly denied, according to newly released emails. The emails, which were provided to Judicial Watch, show for the…

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Dr. Carol M. Swain Commentary: Trump’s Heroic Efforts to Fulfill His ‘Make America Great Again’ Promises

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by Dr. Carol M. Swain   With President Donald Trump about to begin his third year in office, it’s fitting to discuss what he has accomplished since his election. Although the news is currently dominated by the federal government shutdown and the conflict between Trump and Democratic leaders over the…

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State Department Cancels Next Round of North Korea Talks Without Explanation

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by Will Racke   An upcoming round of high-level talks between the U.S. and North Korea has been postponed, the Department of State announced early Wednesday morning. “The meeting between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, which had been scheduled for Thursday in New York,…

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Legal Watchdog, Citing Secret Material in Clinton Emails, Presses State Department in Court

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by Kevin Mooney   In federal court hearings this week, a watchdog legal group keeps the heat on the State Department for answers about the exposure of classified information during Hillary Clinton’s use of unsecure email to conduct official business when she was secretary of state. A hearing is set…

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PROOF: Trio of Project Veritas Videos Expose Unaccountable Federal Government Employees Pushing a Soclialist Agenda From Within the Administrative State

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By Natalia Castro   When federal bureaucrats are unaccountable to even their own managers, it can be hard to identify and correct abuse within the system. In his most recent undercover expose, James O’Keefe sought to uncover the stories of the federal government’s worst employees directly from the source. This week,…

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FAKE NEWS Fact Check: Trump Administration Challenges Washington Post Hispanic Passport Story

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Donald Trump

by Fred Lucas   The Trump administration is pushing back against the accuracy of a Washington Post story that suggests Hispanics applying for passports are facing discrimination from the federal government. Writing that “a growing number of people whose official birth records show they were born in the United States…

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller Used Hillary Clinton’s ‘Enemies List’ Disguised As an Intelligence Document

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Robert Mueller

By Robert Romano   When you get right down to it, almost every person being targeted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller or targeted by the Justice Department in 2016 and 2017 via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court was named in the Christopher Steele dossier, which was paid for by the…

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Rex Tillerson Plans Major Staff Cuts in State Department Restructuring

Tennessee Star Staff

The State Department is planning to reduce staffing by thousands as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson moves forward with efforts to streamline the agency that conservative critics say has outgrown its core functions. As many as 2,300 foreign and civil service positions—about 9 percent of the Americans in State’s workforce…

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Hillary Clinton Had Astonishing Access to Top Secret Documents After She Left State Department

Tennessee Star Staff
Tennessee Star

Hillary Clinton may have resigned her secretary role at the State Department in 2013 – but her access to top secret and classified information didn’t end then. Under Barack Obama, she was allowed to continue to view highly sensitive intel documents for years – well past her announced run for…

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Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Approved by State Department

Tennessee Star Staff

The State Department finally has approved the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a back-and-forth process inside the federal government that lasted nearly a decade. Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas A. Shannon issued the presidential permit Friday morning, representing the Trump administration’s formal green-lighting of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline. Secretary…

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Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith Among 100 Catholic and Evangelical Leaders Critical of Trump’s Plans to Cut Foreign Aid Funding

Wendy Wilson

More than 100 Christian leaders from across the country have signed a letter asking Congress to protect funding for America’s foreign aid programs. The letter reveals divides among Christians over President Trump, whose plans continue to enjoy the support of many other Christians. The letter comes as Trump is proposing a…

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