FBI Deputy Director McCabe "Retiring" After "Trump Insurance Policy" Debacle

Just hours after the FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, was reassigned, WaPo reports that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe will retire in a few months - once he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits.

McCabe, who has been the target of Republican critics for more than a year, spent hours in Congress this past week, facing questions behind closed doors from members of three committees.

Republicans said they were dissatisfied with his answers:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), has called for McCabe’s ouster, saying he “ought to go for reasons of being involved in some of the things that took place in the previous administration. We want to make sure that there’s not undue political influence within the FBI — the [Justice] Department and the FBI.”

Democrats called it a partisan hounding:

Democrats emerging from Thursday’s questioning of McCabe urged him to resist Republicans’ calls to step down, saying the GOP’s new focus on McCabe smells of political opportunism. “Mr. McCabe should in no way be fired by biased political commentary,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.).

But whichever it was, The Washington Post reports, according to people familiar with the matter, McCabe plans to retire in a few months when he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits.

As a reminder, McCabe was former director James B. Comey’s right-hand man, a position that involved him in most of the FBI’s actions that vex President Trump as well as the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, a matter that still riles Democrats.

McCabe won’t become eligible for his full pension until early March. People close to him say he plans to retire as soon as he hits that mark.

“He’s got about 90 days, and some of that will be holiday time. He can make it,’’ said one.

A spokesman for McCabe declined to comment, as did an FBI spokesman.

There is good reason to question McCabe"s perspective and un-biasedness...

His wife, a Democratic candidate for a Virginia Senate seat in 2015, had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the political action committee led by a close ally of the Clintons. He had also been part of discussions with Justice Department officials that critics said prevented FBI agents from more aggressively pursuing their investigation of the Clinton Foundation. Agents were trying to determine if donations to the foundation were made with an expectation of government favors from Clinton or her allies.

 

After reports about those issues surfaced in October 2016, then-candidate Trump singled out McCabe for criticism, and congressional Republicans demanded detailed answers from the FBI about his role in the Clinton probes — questions they insist remain unanswered.

 

McCabe’s role is being examined by the Justice Department’s inspector general, who has said a report on how the Clinton probe was handled should be finished by spring.

 

Republicans are also focusing on the FBI’s relationship with the author of a dossier containing allegations against Trump. The bureau offered to pay the author of that document after the election to keep pursuing leads and information, but the agreement was never finalized, The Washington Post reported earlier this year.

 

And most recently, one of his senior advisers, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, had exchanged numerous pro-Clinton and anti-Trump text messages with Peter Strzok, the top FBI agent on Mueller’s probe. Strzok was removed by Mueller when he learned of their communications; Page had left the Mueller team two weeks earlier for what officials said were unrelated reasons. In one text, Strzok texted that he thought Clinton should win “100,000,000-0.’’

 

More problematic for McCabe is a text in which Page told Strzok, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.’’

 

Republican lawmakers have seized on that text as evidence Strzok, Page, and possibly McCabe were involved in an effort to somehow ensure Trump would not win the election. But people familiar with the exchange said the officials were debating how overtly they should begin investigating Trump, and that one of the factors they considered was the likelihood Trump could win the presidency - which they considered small.

 

Even that explanation presents a headache for McCabe because it places a conversation in his office about how the expected election outcome should or should not affect the FBI’s investigative decisions.

But apart from that.. he is a great guy, according to his former boss James Comey took to the Twitter to defend him and his lackey James Baker today...

"Sadly, we are now at a point in our political life when anyone can be attacked for partisan gain."

With The FBI"s reputation in tatters (and former FBI Director claiming that anything that exposes corruption or bias is off-limits, "for partisan gain"), it appears FBI Director Christopher Wray may be - just maybe - starting to clean house as first Baker and McCabe (following Peter Strzok"s and Bruce Ohr"s reassignment) are thrown under the bus, perhaps in an effort to appease those looking for Mueller blood.

Meanwhile, Trump predictably wasted no time to lash out at the FBI asking "How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?"

How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017

Followed up by "FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!"

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017

"Give Us The Man, We Will Make The Case": Civil Forfeiture, RussiaGate, And The Police State

Authored by Jim Jatras via TheDuran.com,

When do we realize we’re already living in a police state?

Maybe one clue is when our betters make a point of assuring us that we aren’t. Here’s Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testifying before a House Judiciary Committee inquiry into political bias in the Robert Mueller “Russia-gate” investigation:

Department of Justice employees are united by a shared understanding that our mission is to pursue justice, protect public safety, preserve government property, defend civil rights, and promote the rule of law.

Rosenstein’s contempt for his interlocutors’ intelligence was unconcealed. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

Rod’s on the job! Americans can certainly sleep peacefully tonight.

Or maybe not. Besides cracking down on states’ playing fast and loose with federal marijuana laws, one of the first enforcement actions ordered by Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R-Recused) was to step up use of civil forfeiture, which is a fancy way of saying “taking the property of people who have not been convicted of anything, or even accused of anything, with little recourse.”

But no sweat, there are “safeguards” to assure that property seizures only impact drug kingpins and gangsters – right?

Sessions’s order . . .  resuscitates a practice known as “federal adoption,” which allows police and prosecutors to circumvent state restrictions on asset seizures by collaborating with federal authorities. Through this partnership, state and local authorities turn their seizures over to federal colleagues, who “adopt” them for prosecution—ultimately returning up to eighty per cent of the assets to the originating cops or prosecutors to keep. One result, often unaddressed in critiques of forfeiture, is the tacit encouragement of racial profiling and targeting of property owners of color, who remain prime targets of the practice in much of the country.

 

A seventy-three-year-old Amtrak retiree named Elizabeth Young understands what’s at stake in Sessions’s civil-forfeiture endorsement. In 2009, she was resting in her West Philadelphia home, recovering from a hospitalization for two blood clots in her lungs, when suddenly she felt her house begin to shake. “I really thought we’d had one of those landslides, like they have in California,” Young told me recently. “I said, ‘What in the world is happening?’ ” She poked her head out into the hallway from her second-floor bedroom, and that’s when she saw them: “a bunch of cops in fatigues,” storming her stairs in a swat-style raid; down below, they were ransacking rooms. The Narcotics North Division was tearing up the house in pursuit of Young’s son, whom they later alleged had sold some hundred and forty dollars’ worth of pot from the residence and from his mom’s 1997 Chevrolet. Nearly a year after the raid, Ms. Young got another round of alarming news: the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had filed a petition to seize her house and car, by way of civil forfeiture. [ . . . ]

 

Sessions sees a different picture. “Four out of five administrative civil-asset forfeitures filed by federal law enforcement agencies were never challenged in court,” he said recently, implying that a lack of legal challenge is proof of guilt. But if hiring a lawyer to fight your civil-forfeiture case costs more than your property is worth, the math prevails. Unlike a criminal defendant, Young’s 1997 Chevrolet had no right to a public defender.

Or consider the global move toward what is euphemistically called international financial “transparency.” I mean, who can be opposed to a certified doubleplusgood concept like transparency?

But it depends on who’s being transparent about what. Take Ken Silverstein’s examination of the International Consortium of Independent (sic) Journalists: why do hardly any Americans get transparency-ed in the Panama Papers but so many folks with connections with Russia do? Why so little transparency about who’s lavishly paying the ICIJ piper and for what purpose? Why does a law like FATCA (“Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act”) catch so few actual “fat cat” tax cheats and recover so little revenue, but pours tons of private financial data of innocent middle class people into the maw of the intelligence agencies?

Why? For the same reason James Clapper perjured himself telling Senator Rand Paul that the NSA doesn’t collect our cell phone metadata:

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

If you have nothing to hide, why would you object.

 

Big Brother Is Watching You (and listening, and compiling your data, etc)…

 

…but it’s all for your own protection.

This is literally the opposite of genuine transparency: “It is a practice of good government for institutions to be transparent and open to the people. It is a practice of tyranny for individuals to be made transparent to the government.”

Police state? We hardly need mention the feds’ zeal to protect our virgin eyes and ears from “Russian propaganda” or any American media that betrays its disloyalty by carrying any news or opinion that allegedly resembles it.

Or take the guilty pleas of former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and peripheral Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos for the non-crime of “lying to the FBI.” Both detractors and defenders of the Trump administration have gleefully piled on the hapless Flynn and Papadopoulos. They lied! They lied! They lied!

But did they lie? Are we that naïve about how our diligent organs of state security work? Take the case of Flynn:

Russia-gate enthusiasts are thrilled over the guilty plea of President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI about pre-inauguration conversations with the Russian ambassador, but the case should alarm true civil libertarians.

 

What is arguably most disturbing about this case is that then-National Security Adviser Flynn was pushed into a perjury trap by Obama administration holdovers at the Justice Department who concocted an unorthodox legal rationale for subjecting Flynn to an FBI interrogation four days after he took office, testing Flynn’s recollection of the conversations while the FBI agents had transcripts of the calls intercepted by the National Security Agency.

 

In other words, the Justice Department wasn’t seeking information about what Flynn said to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak – the intelligence agencies already had that information. Instead, Flynn was being quizzed on his precise recollection of the conversations and nailed for lying when his recollections deviated from the transcripts.

Keep in mind that when these “interviews” take place –

…the federal agent is typically well-informed about the facts of the case, but plays dumb in order to instill a false sense of confidence in the interview subject. And, unlike you, the agent has had time to examine all relevant documents. (It also bears noting that the FBI will usually not tape record the interview and that the only official interview report will be an FBI 302, which is the agent’s own dictated version of the conversation. Agents usually work in pairs as well, so in any later dispute over what was said in the interview, guess whose version is likely to prevail? Yours, or the two FBI agents who dictated the 302?)

Good grief! You’re better off not saying anything at all. Except that’s not an option either:

If you are not in custody, your total silence, especially in the face of an accusation, can very possibly be used against you as an adoptive admission under the Federal Rules of Evidence.

This means you are subjected to questioning on a matter where you have done nothing wrong, your responses are being compared (without your knowledge) to detailed records (which you haven’t consulted) and to the agent’s subjective notes (to which you are not privy). Even though you’re not under oath every discrepancy of date, time, name, sequence, or other detail becomes a separate felony charge, each one of which is punishable by years in prison: Alright, Mr. or Ms. X. We’re prepared to charge you with 14 felony counts, which will put you in prison for the rest of your life. Or you can plead guilty to one charge of lying to the FBI, with a light or possibly suspended sentence. Which will it be?

Your other option is to go to trial before a jury of sheep your peers, where the feds have a 90 percent-plus conviction rate. Or you can try to fight the charges until you’ve utterly bankrupted yourself, you’ve gone into debt you can never pay back, and your marriage has broken up – they can afford to wait — and still be in the same pickle. The mystery is that everyone doesn’t take the plea offer right away.

In short, if they want to nail you, they can. Like the boychiks used to say in the good ol’ NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs; ???????? ??????????? ?????????? ???): “Give Us the Man, and We Will Make the Case.” (I guess nowadays, we should say “person.”)

Oh come on! What hyperbole! We don’t torture or shoot people like the NKVD did! We don’t work people to death in concentration camps!

That’s right, we – or rather, they – don’t have to resort to that kind of thing. In fact, during the late Soviet period they hardly shot anyone and didn’t even lock that many people up. For most, it was enough to know that they could lock you up.

That’s more than sufficient for the sort of weaklings today’s Americans are.

There you have it. Your property can be seized at any time. Your “private” information, isn’t. We are told what media to believe and what not. You can be put in jail if someone decides you need to be put in jail.

Congresswoman Says Rumor Is That Trump Will Fire Mueller Before Christmas

Republican lawmakers have been increasingly frustrated by revelations that one of the FBI agents who had a pivotal role in both the early stages of what became the Mueller investigation and the bureau’s decision to excuse Hillary Clinton shared anti-Trump sentiments with his mistress, also an FBI employee.

Earlier this week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley fired off a letter to the DOJ asking Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to explain this and other disturbing revelations indicating bias toward Trump from within both the DOJ and the Mueller probe specifically. To wit, nearly every Mueller team member donated to at least one of Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. Furthermore, Mueller’s right-hand man Aaron Zebley represented the IT staffer who installed Clinton’s illegal server.

These frustrations came to a head earlier this week when Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Rosenstein engaged in a testy exchange during the latter’s public testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

Given the mounting pressure on Mueller, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said Friday that the rumor on Capitol Hill is that President Donald Trump is planning to fire Mueller before Christmas, but after Congress leaves Washington for the winter recess.

“The rumor on the Hill when I left yesterday was that the president was going to make a significant speech at the end of next week. And on Dec. 22, when we are out of D.C., he was going to fire Robert Mueller," Speier told California"s KQED News.

According to the Hill, Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that Trump was trying to shut down the committee"s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. As evidence, she pointed to the lack of interviews scheduled for the new year.

The New York Times reported Friday that the committee is scheduling its final witnesses of the year to testify in New York despite important votes coming up in Washington, DC, and confirmed no additional witnesses are scheduled yet in 2018.

"We can read between the lines I think," Speier said. "I believe this president wants all of this shut down. He wants to shut down these investigations, and he wants to fire special counsel Mueller."

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), also said Friday that he is worried that Republicans leading the committee are seeking to shut down the committee"s investigation by the end of the year.

"Republicans have scheduled no witnesses after next Friday and none in 2017 [sic]. We have dozens of outstanding witnesses on key aspects of our investigation that they refuse to contact and many document requests they continue to sit on," he tweeted Friday.

Of course, there’s also reason to take Speier’s comments with a grain of salt: Rumors that Trump might fire Mueller have been circulating since May.

"There is no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to the special counsel," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in October.

Trump Jr. To Meet With House Intel Committee Next Week

In a hearing that we imagine will provide much of the leaked fodder for CNN and MSNBC news coverage over the coming week (certainly once leaked copies of the testimony are distributed to the NSA"s favorite media outlets, WaPo and NYT), CNN reports that Donald Trump Jr. has agreed to testify before the House Intelligence Committee during a closed session.

This wouldn’t be Trump Jr.’s first meeting with one of the Congressional committees that are investigating Russian meddling in last year’s election: He met with Senate Judiciary Committee staff back in September, but angered Democratic lawmakers when he declined to testify publicly. Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal famously accused Trump of leaving “gaps” in his testimony, and said the only way to remedy the situation would be for the president’s son to testify publicly.

Lawmakers who will be present at the Dec. 6 meeting are reportedly hoping to ask Trump more questions about the infamous “Trump Tower meeting” with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and her entourage – a meeting that Trump admitted he took because he was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. However, by all accounts, Veselnitskaya never had any intention of giving him any such information. Members of the committee recently interviewed several members of Veselnitskaya’s entourage, including Anatoli Samochornov, a translator who attended the meeting. 

According to CNN, Trump’s appearance will be one of the most anticipated events yet of the investigation, particularly following recent revelations of Twitter correspondence he had with WikiLeaks during the campaign season (as a reminder, the extent of his correspondence was exchanging three messages with whomever runs the Wikileaks twitter account.)

Furthermore, the meeting with Trump will cap off a week of hearings involving high-profile Trump associates including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Blackwater founder (and brother to Education Secretary Betsy Devos) Erik Prince.

Prince famously met with a Russian in the Seychelles to set up a purported back-channel between Russia and the Trump White House. Prince denied that was the purpose of the meeting and has said that he was there on behalf of Trump.

Rep. Mike Conaway, the Republican who is leading the House investigation, said Tuesday night that the committee had interviews with key witnesses scheduled through mid-December. He predicted the investigation would continue into next year and even expressed skepticism that it would conclude by the beginning of the midterm primary season in early 2018.

"No," Conaway said when asked if his panel would issue a report summarizing its findings by year"s end. "That would be a surprise."

Trump Jr.’s lawyer refused to confirm the report with CNN. If the committee’s previous conduct during its investigation is any guide, Democratic members hoping to discredit Trump will swiftly leak the most damaging excerpts from his testimony.

Furthermore, if Republican senators do manage to pass their tax reform bill, a well-timed Russia leak could help Democrats distract from the first Republican legislative victory of the Trump era (however, if Trump tax reform stalls, the focus on "Russia collusion" could be a welcome distraction from the complete failure of Trump"s legislative agenda).

Finally, with over a year of president Trump, it is likely that viewers have gotten some Trump "burn in" by now; and yet few things can still drum up Nielsen ratings quite like a chyron with the words “Russia” and "Trump" as MSNBC knows all too well.

Kushner "Forgot" To Disclose Contact With Putin Ally

After being accused in a letter earlier this week sent by the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee of failing to turn over emails from September 2016 pertaining to a range of topics including Wikileaks, it appears Kushner is being punished for his obstinance with a series of embarrassing leaks presumably from the same committee that publicly chastised him only days before (bonus points for subtlety). The new allegations are likely to provoke more spurious speculation that Kushner and other members of the Trump camp (Sessions etc.) perjured themselves during Congressional testimony.

According to the leaks, Kushner neglected to disclose that Aleksander Torshin, a powerful Russian central banker and former senator with ties to both President Vladimir Putin and Russian organized crime, had reached out to the campaign with a "dinner invite" and an offer to connect Trump with Putin. Kushner, who was on the email chain, reportedly instructed junior campaign aides to rebuff the meeting.

Aleksander Torshin

Also, when asked if he was aware of any contact between Wikileaks and the campaign, Kushner reportedly said he didn’t recall any contact, even though Donald Trump Jr. informed Kushner, and several other senior campaign staff, that Wikileaks had made contact. Kushner reportedly even forwarded Trump Jr.’s Wikileaks email to another campaign staffer, Hope Hicks.

Here’s NBC, which was first to report on the Torshin emails:

President Trump"s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to disclose what lawmakers called a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" involving a banker who has been accused of links to Russian organized crime, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

 

An email chain described Aleksander Torshin, a former senator and deputy head of Russia"s central bank who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as wanting Trump to attend an event on the sidelines of a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016, the sources said. The email also suggests Torshin was seeking to meet with a high-level Trump campaign official during the convention, and that he may have had a message for Trump from Putin, the sources said.

 

Kushner rebuffed the request after receiving a lengthy email exchange about it between a West Virginia man and Trump campaign aide Rick Dearborn, the sources said.

 

Kushner responded to the email by telling Dearborn and the handful of other Trump campaign officials on the email that they should not accept requests from people who pretend to have contacts with foreign officials to aggrandize themselves, according Kushner"s lawyer, Abbe Lowell. Dearborn currently serves as a deputy chief of staff in the White House.

 

"Pass on this," Kushner responded, according to a letter Lowell sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday evening. "A lot of people come claiming to carry messages. Very few we are able to verify. For now I think we decline such meetings."

And here’s CNN on Wikileaks...

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner told congressional Russia investigators that he did not communicate with WikiLeaks and did not recall anyone on the Trump campaign who had, a source with knowledge of his testimony told CNN.

 

But Kushner did receive and forward an email from Donald Trump Jr. about contact Trump Jr. had with WikiLeaks, according to a new report this week and a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

Kushner, President Donald Trump"s son-in-law, was asked in July during his closed-door congressional testimony if he had any contacts with WikiLeaks or its founder Julian Assange and he responded that he had not, according to the source. He also told Congress he did not know of anyone on the campaign who had contacted WikiLeaks.

 

A separate source familiar with Kushner"s interview with congressional investigators said he accurately answered questions about his contact and didn"t recall anyone else in the campaign who had contact.

Of course, Kushner isn’t the only person in Trump’s orbit to deny the Wikileaks’ contacts. When asked in October 2016 if the Trump campaign was “in cahoots” with Wikileaks, Mike Pence claimed “nothing could be further from the truth. But that’s beside the point. As Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell is pushing back against the Judiciary committee, claiming there were no "missing documents," as the committee has alleged, while criticizing the panel"s leaders for going to the media on Thursday with their accusations.

"I would have assumed that, if there were any questions about our productions or exchanges, that would have been communicated to me directly before you made this a media event," Lowell wrote.

Lowell (who has, we imagine, racked up his fair share of billable hours this week) defended Kushner’s responses by pointing out that Kushner said he did not recall contact with Russian entities and Wikileaks, not that they didn’t happen. Kushner’s busy schedule ( he is, after all, in charge of a range of White House initiatives from streamlining the federal government to bringing peace to the Middle East) now, and during the campaign, when he was a senior political adviser, has made it impossible for him to remember many of these details, his lawyers have argued.

And while many on the left have been quick to cry perjury, proving that somebody deliberately lied when testifying about their recollections is notoriously tricky.

Lowell also pointed out in his rebuttal to the allegations that his client voluntarily testified before the House and Senate committees that are investigating Russian interference (or other malfeasance) related to the 2016 election.

Furthermore, Kushner endured grueling six-hour sessions, and answered every question he was asked.

"Mr. Kushner was asked if he had contacts with Wikileaks, Guccifer or DC Leaks and said no. He also said he did not know of such contacts by the campaign. From all I have now seen, his statement was accurate then as it is now. In over 6 hours of voluntary testimony, Mr Kushner answered all questions put to him and demonstrated that there had been no collusion between the campaign and Russia."

Kushner famously neglected to include meetings with Russian officials, including former ambassador Kislyak, during his security-clearance application, something his office confirmed was the result of a clerical error.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats have already capitalized on these embarrassing leaks to insist that Kushner return for more testimony – possibly in a public forum, which hints at the real reason these documents were leaked.

Full Kushner lawyer response to Senate Judiciary Committee letter calling Kushner’s document production “incomplete” pic.twitter.com/xSKqf3tIhl

— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) November 18, 2017

 Since the investigations began, Congress have been trying, unsuccessfully, to push Kushner to testify in a public hearing – an event that would inevitably create a media circus and allow Democrats on the committee a tantalizing opportunity for grandstanding. We imagine those calls will only grow louder as the coming holiday-shortened week begins.

Sessions Rages, White House Leaks "Have Reached Epidemic Proportions"

While tesifying today to the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the politicians that the Justice Department currently has 27 open investigations into leaks underway.

"We had about nine open investigations of classified leaks in the last three years,” Sessions said.

 

“We have 27 investigations open today. We intend to get to the bottom of these leaks.

 

I think it…has reached epidemic proportions. It cannot be allowed to continue and we will do our best effort to ensure it does not continue.”

As DailyCaller"s Alex Pfeifer notes, President Donald Trump has been enraged about the amount of national security leaks during his administration. These leaks have included transcripts of his phone calls with foreign leaders.

 

This admission comes just hours after Donald Trump Jr"s DM discussions with WikiLeaks were leaked to The Altlantic - having only been provided by his lawyer to congress - after which he released the entire chain...

Here is the entire chain of messages with @wikileaks (with my whopping 3 responses) which one of the congressional committees has chosen to selectively leak. How ironic! 1/3 pic.twitter.com/SiwTqWtykA

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 14, 2017

Pointing out the selective leaks from the Congressional Committes.

"Hopelessly Compromised": Judiciary Member Calls For Mueller"s Resignation Over Uranium One Scandal

Earlier this morning House Judiciary Committee representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) submitted a resolution calling for Robert Mueller to resign as special counsel overseeing the FBI investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government saying, among other things, that the former FBI director is "hopelessly compromised" as a result of his failed oversight of the controversial Uranium One transaction.  Here is an excerpt from a press release posted to Gaetz"s website earlier today:

“Evidence has emerged that the FBI withheld information from Congress and from the American people about Russian corruption of American uranium companies. A confidential U.S. witness, working in the Russian nuclear industry, revealed that Russia had deeply compromised an American uranium trucking firm through bribery and financial kickbacks.

 

Although federal agents possessed this information in 2010, the Department of Justice continued investigating this “matter” for over four years. The FBI, led at the time by Robert Mueller, required the confidential witness to sign a non-disclosure agreement. When the witness attempted to contact Congress and federal courts about the bribery and corruption he saw, he was threatened with legal action. By silencing him, Obama’s Justice Department and Mueller’s FBI knowingly kept Congress in the dark about Russia’s significant and illegal involvement with American uranium companies.

 

These deeply troubling events took place when Mr. Mueller was the Director of the FBI. As such, his impartiality is hopelessly compromised. He must step down immediately,” Rep. Gaetz said in a statement.

Gaetz’s resolution currently has two cosponsors, both of whom are members of the House Freedom Caucus: Representatives Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

Of course, pressure has been growing on Mueller for the past couple of weeks and reached a fevered pitch when the The Hill recently reported the sordid tale of "Confidential Source 1," a man that the FBI used as an informant back in 2009 and who says he was silenced by the FBI and Obama administration when he attempted to come forward with information that linked the Clinton Foundation directly to the Uranium One scandal.

Toensing added her client has had contact from multiple congressional committees seeking information about what he witnessed inside the Russian nuclear industry and has been unable to

provide that information because of the NDA.

 

“He can’t disclose anything that he came upon in the course of his work,” she said.

 

The information the client possesses includes specific allegations that Russian executives made to him about how they facilitated the Obama administration"s 2010 approval of the Uranium One deal and sent millions of dollars in Russian nuclear funds to the U.S. to an entity assisting Bill Clinton"s foundation. At the time, Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of State on the government panel that approved the deal, the lawyer said.

 

It has been previously reported that Bill Clinton accepted $500,000 in Russian speaking fees in 2010 and collected millions more in donations for his foundation from parties with a stake in the Uranium One deal,

transactions that both the Clintons and the Obama administration denied had any influence on the approval.

 

“All of the information about this corruption has not come out,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “And so my client, the same part of my client that made him go into the FBI in the first place, says, "This is wrong. What should I do about it?"”

 

When he tried to bring some of the allegations to light in the lawsuit last year, “the Obama Justice Department threatened him with loss of freedom. They said they would bring a criminal case against him for violating an NDA,” she added.

 

“The government was taking a very harsh position that threatened both your reputation and liberty,” the civil lawyer wrote in one email. In another, she added, “As you will recall the gov’t made serious threats sufficient to cause you to withdraw your civil complaint."

As we pointed out last week, "Confidential Source 1" has since been cleared by the DOJ to meet with Congress to tell his tale.

Meanwhile, the scandal took another turn for the worse earlier this week when, despite numerous assurances to the contrary from the Obama administration, new memos obtained by The Hill confirmed that, in fact, Uranium One yellowcake was exported from U.S. shores repeatedly between 2012 - 2014.

Yet NRC memos reviewed by The Hill shows that it did approve the shipment of yellowcake uranium — the raw material used to make nuclear fuel and weapons — from the Russian-owned mines in the United States to Canada in 2012 through a third party. Later, the Obama administration approved some of that uranium going all the way to Europe, government documents show.

 

NRC officials said they could not disclose the total amount of uranium that Uranium One exported because the information is proprietary. They did, however, say that the shipments only lasted from 2012 to 2014 and that they are unaware of any exports since then.

 

NRC officials told The Hill that Uranium One exports flowed from Wyoming to Canada and on to Europe between 2012 through 2014, and the approval involved a process with multiple agencies.

Of course, we"re certain that Mueller will promptly admit his conflicts and do the right thing...right?

* * *

Below is the full text of the Gaetz" resolution:

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Robert Mueller should resign from his special counsel position.

Whereas from 2001–2013, Robert Mueller served as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation;

Whereas as early as 2009, the FBI discovered that Russian officials were engaging in bribery and extortion, tainting the American uranium industry in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to strengthen their own nuclear program;

Whereas investigations into Russia’s corruption of American uranium-related businesses were supervised by then-United States Attorney Rod Rosenstein, currently serving as Deputy Attorney General, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, currently serving as Deputy Director of the FBI;

Whereas despite knowledge of this corruption, backed by documents and an eyewitness account, neither the Department of Justice nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the leadership of Mr. Mueller brought charges;

Whereas the Department of Justice actively threatened the liberty of a confidential informant embedded within Russia’s nuclear program who wished to inform Congress about Russian corruption of American uranium-related companies, and the FBI required this informant to sign a non-disclosure agreement, intentionally depriving Congress of information vital to national security and Congressional oversight authority;

Whereas Members of Congress have raised objections to, and concerns with, the sale of American uranium assets to Russian companies, and raised these concerns in official correspondence to then-President Obama as early as 2010;

Whereas in 2010, when the Russian Federation needed American approval of uranium sales, former President William Jefferson Clinton received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from Kremlin-linked institutions, and requested approval from the State Department to meet with central figures in Russia’s nuclear industry, and eventually met with Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin at Mr. Putin’s private residence;

Whereas the Clinton Foundation has either directly or indirectly received undisclosed donations totaling millions of dollars from Russian-linked sources, including from officials in Russia’s nuclear program;

Whereas in 2010, Hillary Clinton, founder of the Clinton Foundation, wife of former President Clinton, and then Secretary of State, approved the sale of Uranium One to a Russian state-owned nuclear technology corporation;

Whereas any thorough and honest investigation into the corruption of American-uranium related business must include investigating the willful blindness of the FBI and its leaders;

Whereas under 28 CFR 45.2, no individual can participate in a criminal investigation if he has a personal or political relationship with any organization substantially involved in the conduct that is subject of the investigation;

Whereas under 28 CFR 45.2, no individual may participate in a criminal investigation if the individual’s participation would create an appearance of conflict of interest likely to affect public perception of the integrity of the investigation;

Whereas the Code of Federal Regulations, applied to Mr. Mueller, demonstrates that he cannot be allowed to investigate his former colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates;

and

Whereas these obvious conflicts of interest are unacceptable to the United States justice system and the American people:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved,

That House of Representatives expresses its sense that Robert Mueller is compromised and should resign from his special counsel position immediately.

Here Are The Congressional Aides That Traded On Insider Information Over The Past Year

Up until April 2012, members of Congress and their staff were the only people in the country actually allowed to trade stocks on insider information.  That was supposed to change with the passage of the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act which was signed into law by Barack Obama on April 4, 2012.  But, as we all know, laws are only meaningful to the extent our legislators and bureaucracies are willing to enforce them.

Given that intro, it is with great "shock" that we share with you the results of a Politico study which would seem to suggest that Congressional aides continue to trade on insider information on a fairly regular basis despite the existence of the STOCK Act.  We guess the SEC didn"t take seriously the STOCK Act"s attempt to "criminalize behavior that is normal."

The first such example of a "questionable" trade comes to us from Daniel Swanson, an aide to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) of the Judiciary Committee...why does it not surprise us that our first example comes from Illinois?  As Politico notes, Swanson made some very "timely" trades in Mylan late last year as he managed to dump up to $60,000 worth of stock just two days before the DOJ levied a $465 million penalty on the company for their EpiPen billing practices.  Ironically, Swanson"s boss worked with the DOJ on the Mylan settlement...

On Sept. 28, 2016, three members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Justice Department suggesting that the drug company Mylan was violating Medicaid laws.

Nine days later, the Justice Department reached a massive $465 million settlement with the firm.

In between, another action happened almost invisibly: A Judiciary Committee aide to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) dropped somewhere between $4,004 and $60,000 in Mylan stock from his and his child’s portfolios.

If an aide had done the same thing in the executive branch, he or she could be investigated for violating federal conflict-of-interest law. But the Durbin aide’s ownership of shares of Mylan, and their timely sale, are reflective of Congress’ persistent refusal to crack down on stock trading by staffers, even in firms overseen by their committees.

...but we"re sure the timing of the trade was just a coincidence.

But it"s not just Swanson, Paul Ryan"s Chief of Staff has also managed to get really "lucky" on the timing of some trades over the years.

David Hoppe, a fellow Wisconsin native and former Hill aide, to serve as his chief of staff. Hoppe left lobbying jobs with both his own firm, Hoppe Strategies, and the K Street powerhouse Squire Patton Boggs to work for the new speaker. After he moved back through the revolving door, Hoppe continued to trade stock in companies with interests before Congress.

David Hoppe, a longtime Capitol Hill aide-turned-lobbyist, joined the speaker’s office in late 2015 as Ryan became speaker of the House. Through personal accounts, Hoppe and his wife bought and sold shares in dozens of stocks while Hoppe worked at the speaker’s office, including purchases of energy and pharmaceutical stocks made shortly before Congress passed bills benefiting the companies he traded. Hoppe told POLITICO he did not discuss any stock trades with his brokers while working for Ryan.

And the list goes on and on...

Diane Dewhirst, deputy chief of staff to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, disclosed her spouse’s purchase of stock in two pharmaceutical companies, Astrazeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, in December 2016, shortly before Congress passed a medical research bill that benefited both companies.

Meanwhile, on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which sets energy policy and is the main committee overseeing Obamacare, at least six aides have bought and sold stock in companies with interests in the work of the committee. One longtime committee aide in an oversight role bought and sold more than two dozen health care and energy stocks during 2015 and 2016 and sold his stock in Express Scripts, the prescription drug sales company, as the company came under scrutiny over its role in setting drug prices last October.

On the House and Senate appropriations committees, which make broadly influential spending and policy decisions through annual government funding bills, at least 18 House aides and 14 Senate aides have bought or sold at least one stock, through their own accounts or family members’. For example, one senior House Appropriations aide working for a member focused on energy and water funding has, through various family accounts, bought and sold shares in companies including Royal Dutch Shell, Energy Transfer Partners, Dow Chemical and Emerson Electric. Another longtime aide on the committee’s staff who is focused on investigations and research, which are at the heart of the committee’s decision-making, holds and trades stock in companies with major interests in the committee’s work, including pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and energy companies such as Occidental Petroleum.

Of course, proving that a Congressional aide traded on insider information can be next to impossible which is precisely why watchdog groups have long called for staffers to be restricted completely from trading stocks of companies that have business before their committees. 

Government watchdogs say that, at a minimum, staffers should be prevented from buying shares of companies with business before their committees. But they are not. And despite the disparity between the rigorous standards for the executive branch and the laxness of Congress, the House and Senate have taken a permissive approach even to enforcing existing rules.

That’s a serious problem, watchdogs say, because aides often have more of a hands-on role than the members themselves in crafting details of legislation that could have enormous consequences for individual companies. And because aides are rarely in the spotlight, there’s more potential for ethical lapses to go unnoticed.

“The staff level is actually more dangerous, because they don’t get scrutiny and they’re not accountable,” said Meredith McGehee, chief of policy at Issue One, a watchdog group for money and politics. “If a member does it, he can get defeated. A staff person can wield enormous amounts of power that isn’t seen, and there’s really no way to hold that staff accountable.”

But we"re sure this is just an attempt by Politico to "criminalize behavior that is normal..."

Retired FBI Agent Sues DOJ For Records On Contributions Made By A Clinton Ally To McCabe's Wife

Over the weekend, Judicial Watch announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the DOJ on behalf of retired special agent Jeffrey Danik seeking records related to roughly $700,000 in political contributions made by groups tied to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a long-time Clinton confidant, to the wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe...the same Andrew McCabe who was conveniently overseeing multiple Hillary Clinton investigations at the time and even oversaw components of her email investigation. Here"s more from Judicial Watch:

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia in support of Danik’s October 25, 2016, and February 28, 2017, FOIA requests for records about McCabe’s “conflicts of interest” regarding his wife’s (Dr. Jill McCabe’s) political campaign, and McCabe’s reporting to the FBI of any job interviews or offers.  Specifically, the two FOIA requests seek:

Text messages and emails of McCabe containing “Dr. Jill McCabe,” “Jill,” “Common Good VA,” “Terry McAuliffe,” “Clinton,” “Virginia Democratic Party,” “Democrat,” “Conflict,” “Senate,” “Virginia Senate,” “Until I return,” “Paris,” “France,” “Campaign,” “Run,” “Political,” “Wife,” “Donation,” “OGC,” Email,” or “New York Times.”

In 2015, a political action committee run by McAuliffe, a close friend and political supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton, donated nearly $500,000 to Jill McCabe, wife of McCabe, who was then running for the Virginia State Senate. Also, the Virginia Democratic Party, over which McAuliffe had significant influence, donated an additional $207,788 to the Jill McCabe campaign. In July 2015, Andrew McCabe was in charge of the FBI’s Washington, DC, field office, which provided personnel resources to the Clinton email probe.

The Judicial Watch lawsuit comes after Danik"s two previous FOIA requests went unanswered.  Meanwhile, Danik says he"s pursuing records on McCabe"s conflicts because he knows he"s "not the only retired (or serving) FBI special agent who is concerned about Mr. McCabe’s conflicts of interest on the Clinton email matter."

“I am saddened by how the FBI’s reputation has been tarnished by the poor judgement and ethics of its leadership,” stated Mr. Danik. “I know I’m not the only retired (or serving) FBI special agent who is concerned about Mr. McCabe’s conflicts of interest on the Clinton email matter.  The agency seems to be illegally hiding records about this scandal, which is why I’m heading to court with Judicial Watch.”

“We’re honored to help Mr. Danik hold accountable the FBI—the agency he served for decades,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We believe Mr. McCabe’s text messages and emails will be particularly enlightening to the public seeking answers about the Clinton email debacle.”

Of course, for those who haven"t followed Andrew McCabe so closely, this is the same former Acting FBI Director who is also being investigated for sexual harassment and violations of the Hatch Act (see:  "FBI Director McCabe Subject Of Three Separate Federal Inquiries Into Alleged Misconduct: Report").

A couple of days ago we noted that, according to a report from Circa, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe may have made a serious error by refusing to recuse himself from the Michael Flynn investigation.  As it turns out, per court documents reviewed by Circa, McCabe may have harbored a personal vendetta against Flynn after he intervening on behalf of an FBI Special Agent, Robyn Gritz, who had accused McCabe and other top FBI officials of sexual discrimination.  Apparently the lack of inter-agency camaraderie didn"t sit well with McCabe as other FBI agents subsequently confirmed that his complete disdain for Fylnn was readily apparent.

But, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), McCabe"s apparent conflict of interest in the Flynn investigation may not be his only issue these days as he"s also the subject of an ongoing investigation for an alleged violation of the Hatch Act for illegally campaigning in his wife"s Virginia Senate race.  Per Circa:

Gritz also filed a complaint against McCabe with the main federal whistleblower agency in April, alleging social media photos she found show he campaigned for his wife’s Virginia state senate race in violation of the Hatch Act.

FBI employees are held to a higher standard than other federal workers under the Hatch Act and may not “endorse or oppose a candidate for partisan political office or a candidate for political party office in a political advertisement, broadcast, campaign literature, or similar material if such endorsement or opposition is done in concert with a candidate, political party, or partisan political group.”

The OSC told Circa  that complaint is still being actively investigated.

For those who aren"t familiar, this is the same Senate race in which McCabe"s wife, Jill McCabe, took nearly $500,000 from Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe to fund her campaign.  Of course, Terry McAuliffe is a long-time confidant of the Clinton family and was rumored as a potential running mate for Hillary.  All of which was apparently overlooked when former FBI Director James Comey allowed McCabe to participate in the investigation of Hillary"s email scandal.

And just when you thought McCabe"s issues couldn"t get much worse, Circa notes that the Justice Department Inspector General is also investigating allegations from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley that McCabe may not have properly disclosed campaign payments to his wife on his ethics report.

You may be good but you"re no Clinton, Mr. McCabe.

Chaffetz Blasts DOJ: No More Press Conferences On Leakers "Until You Have Some People In Handcuffs"

Since election day, the Trump administration has been hit with an unprecedented number of intelligence leaks as classified information seems to be flowing quite freely from Obama holdovers occupying various government agencies and members of the intelligence community directly to various mainstream media outlets.  At this point, one has to wonder why the Washington Post and the New York Times shouldn"t just have an office setup inside the NSA with server access and the highest security clearance...taxpayers might actually some money if we didn"t have to pay for our spies to sneak around Washington passing info to journalists.

But, some hope was offered last week by AG Jeff Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats who, after months of doing basically nothing, finally announced a plan to crackdown on leakers.  Meanwhile, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein took to the Sunday talk show circuit this past weekend for some more "tough talk" saying the DOJ will prosecute any "case that warrants prosecution no matter what their position is."

“We"re after the leakers. We’re not after
journalists we’re after people who are committing crimes.  We"re going to devote the resources we need to identify who is responsible for those leaks and who has violated the law and hold them accountable." 

"If we identify anybody, no matter what their position is, if they violated the law and that case warrants prosecution, we"ll prosecute it."

But former House Oversight Committee Chair, and now Fox News political analyst, Jason Chaffetz is calling the bluff of the suddenly eager Deputy Attorney General saying that he "comes with absolutely zero credibility on this" issue after repeatedly refusing to investigate, much less prosecute, Hillary Clinton for lying under oath and/or her litany of other federal crimes. 

"[Rod Rosenstein] comes with absolutely zero credibility on this."

"Remember last year when we had Director Comey come before the Oversight Committee, I was the Chair, I asked him if he looked at Hillary Clinton, whether or not she told the truth under oath.  He said he needed a request from Congress so myself and Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sent that request to the Department of Justice and it"s never been answered."

"So, if they want to start, lets start with Hillary Clinton and whether or not she lied under oath.  And lets also go back to the State Department who had an open investigation.  They reopened it July 7th of 2016.  They"ve never closed it.  Nearly 300 people who are dealing in classified information in a nonsecure setting, why didn’t they ever close that investigation? They need to answer those questions. Start with that. They come with zero credibility on this issue."

"There becomes a point where you actually have to answer these things.  Don"t do another press conference until you have some people in handcuffs.  This is classified information.  It"s against the law to just leak it out and give it to whoever you want."

So what say you on Rosenstein?  Dedicated public servant intent upon tracking down and prosecuting leakers or just another political hack who will say whatever is most politically expedient at any given time to maintain his power base?  Time will tell.

House Judiciary Member Calls For Mueller Resignation Over Conflict, "Clear Violation Of Federal Code"

House Judiciary Committee member, Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ), is calling on Robert Mueller, special counsel for the Department of Justice’s Russia investigation, to resign over an alleged "conflict of interest" resulting from a personal relationship with James Comey who is a person of interest in the investigation.  Per the Washington Examiner:

"Bob Mueller is in clear violation of federal code and must resign to maintain the integrity of the investigation into alleged Russian ties," Franks said. "Those who worked under them have attested he and Jim Comey possess a close friendship, and they have delivered on-the-record statements effusing praise of one another."

"No one knows Mr. Mueller"s true intentions, but neither can anyone dispute that he now clearly appears to be a partisan arbiter of justice. Accordingly, the law is also explicitly clear: he must step down based on this conflict of interest," Franks said.

"Already, this investigation has become suspect – reports have revealed at least four members of Mueller"s team on the Russia probe donated to support Hillary Clinton for President, as President Trump pointed out. These obviously deliberate partisan hirings do not help convey impartiality," Franks said. "Until Mueller resigns, he will be in clear violation of the law, a reality that fundamentally undermines his role as Special Counsel and attending ability to execute the law."

Comey served as deputy attorney general during Mueller"s FBI tenure, and the two bonded in pushing back in 2004 against then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez"s efforts to expand domestic surveillance.

That relationship could come into play as Mueller reportedly investigates whether Trump"s dismissal of the FBI director constituted obstruction of justice amid the bureau"s probe into whether Russian agents coordinated cybercrimes with the Trump campaign.

As we"ve pointed out before, several of Mueller"s early, notable hires have all been contributors to Hillary"s and/or Obama"s previous campaigns and Jeannie Rhee actually represented the Clinton Foundation.

Michael Dreeben, who serves as the Justice Department’s deputy solicitor general, is working on a part-time basis for Mueller, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Dreeben donated $1,000 dollars to Hillary Clinton’s Senate political action committee (PAC), Friends of Hillary, while she ran for public office in New York. Dreeben did so while he served as the deputy solicitor general at the Justice Department.

Jeannie Rhee, another member of Mueller’s team, donated $5,400 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign PAC Hillary for America.

Andrew Weissmann, who serves in a top post within the Justice Department’s fraud practice, is the most senior lawyer on the special counsel team, Bloomberg reported. He served as the FBI’s general counsel and the assistant director to Mueller when the special counsel was FBI director.

Before he worked at the FBI or Justice Department, Weissman worked at the law firm Jenner & Block LLP, during which he donated six times to political action committees for Obama in 2008 for a total of $4,700.

James Quarles, who served as an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, has donated to over a dozen Democratic PACs since the late 1980s. He was also identified by the Washington Post as a member of Mueller"s team.

Starting in 1987, Quarles donated to Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis’s presidential PAC, Dukakis for President. Since then, he has also contributed in 1999 to Sen. Al Gore’s run for the presidency, then-Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) presidential bid in 2005, Obama’s presidential PAC in 2008 and 2012, and Clinton’s presidential pac Hillary for America in 2016.

Of course, any effort to forcibly remove Mueller would undoubtedly result in Maxine Waters once again calling for Trump"s impeachment and somehow we suspect that Mueller would have already stepped down if he thought his relationship with Comey was a real conflict...so don"t expect the status quo to change anytime soon.

"Senate Republicans Look Like Fools" Trump Urges End To Filibuster, Claims Russia Was Against Him In 2016

After a turmoil-filled evening, President Trump is wasting no time this morning telling the American people (via Twitter) just how he feels about Russia, Republican Senators, and the Filibuster.

With the mainstream media generally ignoring the ongoing DWS-Awan Brothers debacle and shrugging off Fusion GPS involvement, Trump"s first tweet of the day should open a few eyes (although probably not)...

In other words, Russia was against Trump in the 2016 Election - and why not, I want strong military & low oil prices. Witch Hunt! https://t.co/mMSxj4Su5z

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

As a reminder, The Hill notes that the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony this week claiming that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and others evaded registering as foreign agents even though the firm worked on part of an influence campaign to overturn the Magnitsky Act, which was passed to punish Russian officials in 2012.

As we detailed here...

Graham: So, I just want to absorb that for a moment. The group that did the dossier on President Trump hired this British spy, wound up getting it to the FBI. You believe they were working for the Russians?

Browder: That"s correct.  And in the Spring and Summer of 2016 they were receiving money indirectly from a senior Russian government official.

The White House subsequently brought up the testimony, linking it to the dossier, in a press briefing.

"Today there was public testimony that further discredited the phony dossier that"s been the source of so much of the fake news and conspiracy theories, and we learned that the firm that produced it was also being paid by the Russians,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said

The firm this week accused the White House of trying to "smear" it for investigating the president"s alleged ties to Russia. The company called it “a nonsensical argument that Russia had an agent investigate and expose Russia’s influence on the election.” The Senate Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Fusion GPS founder Simpson for testimony.

But then he refocused his aim on Healthcare, filibuster, and Republican Senators...

Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! It is killing the R Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

The very outdated filibuster rule must go. Budget reconciliation is killing R"s in Senate. Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT"S TIME!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don"t go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

....8 Dems totally control the U.S. Senate. Many great Republican bills will never pass, like Kate"s Law and complete Healthcare. Get smart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

If the Senate Democrats ever got the chance, they would switch to a 51 majority vote in first minute. They are laughing at R"s. MAKE CHANGE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

Of course - President Trump may need to adjust the "rules" a little more since "49" seems to the magic number that Republican Senators can"t count above. Still, not a bad start for a Saturday morning rant.

Mueller Tries To Turn Manafort In Trump Russia Probe

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full-court press on anyone and everyone involved with the Trump campaign has finally begun – and the first target in his sights is, of course, former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, by far the easiest mark. According to Reuters, Mueller and his team are trying to recruit Manafort as a cooperating witness in the Russia investigation in exchange for immunity for possible money laundering charges.

The focus on Manafort isn"t a surprise. Not only did Manafort attend the now-infamous June 2016 Russia meeting organized by Donald Trump Jr., but investigators have already been scrutinizing his ties to deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, along with several shady real-estate deals.

“U.S. investigators examining money laundering accusations against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort hope to push him to cooperate with their probe into possible collusion between Trump"s campaign and Russia, two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller"s team is examining Manafort"s financial and real estate records in New York as well as his involvement in Ukrainian politics, the officials said.”

Specifically, Special Counsel Robert Mueller"s team is investigating several New York City real estate deals involving Manafort for evidence that the properties might have been paid for with money funneled to Manafort by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The former Ukrainian leader hired Manafort’s firm to do political consulting work. Last summer, ledgers found by Ukrainian investigators surfaced purporting to show millions of dollars in undisclosed payments to Manafort’s firm, though they haven’t been proved genuine.

According to Reuters" anonymous presumably government sources, Manafort bought three NYC properties between 2006 and 2013, arousing suspicion from then-US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, who had been looking into the source of Manafort’s funds up until he was fired by President Donald Trump, along with dozens of other Obama-appointed US attorneys.

“Between 2006 and 2013, Manafort bought three New York properties, including one in Trump Tower in Manhattan. He paid for them in full and later took out mortgages against them. A former senior U.S. law enforcement official said that tactic is often used as a means to hide the origin of funds gained illegally. Reuters has no independent evidence that Manafort did this.”

Because collusion isn"t a specific crime, obtaining evidence that could justify a criminal charge against Manafort is believed to be crucial if the government wants to turn him against President Donald Trump, or another figure involved in the campaign, Reuters noted.

"If Mueller"s team can threaten criminal charges against Manafort, they could use that as leverage to convince him to cooperate," said one of the sources.

This should be obvious to anyone who’s at all familiar with the workings of the US criminal justice system. But what’s infuriating about this strategy is that the threatened charges don’t necessarily need to be related to Manafort’s activities as Trump’s campaign manager. Apart from the fact that one of the properties was a condo in Trump Tower, Manafort’s dealings with Yanukovych have nothing to do with Trump – yet hysterical liberals, and now maybe the DOJ, will fixate on the optics of the situation without regarding the facts.

Not to mention that Manafort was forced out of the Trump campaign after only two months because of his dealings with Yanukovych.

Manafort’s representatives denied assertions that he is already cooperating with Mueller’s team. His spokesman, Jason Maloni, said, “Paul Manafort is not a cooperating witness. Once again there is no truth to the disinformation put forth by anonymous sources and leakers.”

Mueller is focusing on the Trump associates involved in the June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, including the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., Senior Adviser to the President and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Manafort. Kushner has risked losing his security clearance for failing to disclose meetings with certain Russian officials, and Don Jr. set up the meeting with Veselnitskaya and her associates, responding enthusiastically to publicist Rob Goldstone’s claim that Trump would be given damaging opposition research on Hillary Clinton that was compiled by Russian intelligence, answering an email with the now-famous line “if it’s what you say it is, then I love it.”

Manafort and Trump Jr. have managed to put off a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee by agreeing to provide records to the panel and to be privately interviewed ahead of any public session. But their day in the spotlight likely can’t be avoided indefinitely. In the meantime, presuming Mueller comes up short in his investigation into Manafort, we wonder who the special counsel will put the screws to next?
 

Amazon's Phone-Charging Robot Will Spare You The Indignity Of Talking To Strangers

Amazon is having a rough week.

The e-commerce powerhouse has celebrated a string of victories this year. Its stock price broke above $1,000 for the first time; it is presiding over an unprecedented retrenchment within the retail space as more than 8,000 brick-and-mortar stores are expected to close in the US this year, and the company announced plans to acquire yuppie favorite Whole Foods Market, promising to transform the company’s stores into laboratories for automation and AI where advanced sensors will perform tasks previously reserved for human cashiers. It also revealed that its “Prime Day” sale was the "Biggest Global Shopping Event in Amazon History", surpassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.

But the string of good news came to an abrupt halt last week when Reuters reported that the top Democrat on the House antitrust subcommittee, David Civilline, has voiced concerns about Amazon"s $13.7 billion plan to buy Whole Foods Market and requested in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee a hearing to examine the deal"s potential impact on consumers – the first stirrings of what could metastasize into an anti-trust probe.

Adding to the antitrust concerns, Reuters reported Thursday that the FTC is investigating the company for allegedly misleading customers about its pricing discounts, citing a source close to the probe. The news sent Amazon shares lower in afternoon trade:

Amid the negative news, the company’s investors enjoyed a brief moment of levity when career website Ladders reported on a patent that was awarded to the company earlier in the week. The patent, first filed in 2015, revealed the company’s plans to build a robot that, using the company’s massive data-mining apparatus, would be able to track down desperate mobile-device users in crowed public spaces like an airport or concert venue and present them with the greatest gift of all: an opportunity to charge their phones.  

Here’s a quick rundown of how it’ll work, courtesy of Ladders:

“You will make a wireless request (perhaps with your last precious few moments of juice).

The robot will find you in a crowd using sensor data. Through a cloud-based application, the robot can even find you automatically when your power hits below 10%. Nothing, of course is free, so the robot will ask you to watch an ad, complete a survey, or pay some money.

The robot would be designed for public use in airports, hotels, and shopping malls—all locations where losing battery power can be particularly inconvenient. Of course, a device like this would be perfect for business travelers, who have become accustomed to carrying heavy external batteries or even bulky power strips.

Then: the robot provides sweet, precious electricity to your phone or iPad or laptop.”

As Ladders pointed out, the patent description explains why these robots could be useful, especially for professionals who are increasingly dependent on mobile devices.

“It can be quite inconvenient to a user when one of these devices runs out of battery power. This is especially true if the user does not have an available charging adapter for the device,” the patent reads. “Users may find themselves asking friends, or even strangers, to borrow a charging adapter.”

Indeed, as Ladders notes, “there is clearly an unmet market that an army of mobile-charging robots for your personal use can fill.”

Whether Amazon intends to move forward with production of the robot remains to be seen. The company has yet to comment publicly about the patent. But as it continues to test and refine its army of package-delivering drones, it’s unsurprising that Amazon is finding other uses for robotics.

But that’s Amazon: Working tirelessly to build a future where your phone battery never creeps below 10%.

Read the patent below:

2017.07.20amazonpatent by zerohedge on Scribd