Are The “Alt-Left” & Alt-Right &

“The Deep State” Going To Destroy

Our President And Country?

The 2017 Trump

Presidency - #16
October 23, 2017 – November 14, 2017

See How The Main Stream Media, The

Neocons, & the Deep State Are Trying To
Destroy The Trump Presidency
And United States of America
A
Arrttiicclleess C
Coom
mppiilleedd FFrroom
mT Thhee IInntteerrnneett iinn O
Orrddeerr B
Byy D
Daattee
BByy FFrreedd JJaam
meess
1
 PRINTED FOR RESEARCH USE ONLY

Not For Sale

____ of 10 Copies

[Articles and Pictures & Cartoons Found On The Net]

Disclaimer: We encourage all comments and feedback on our articles as we value free speech and
everyone's right to express themselves. We also will not tolerate abusive language, threats or other
behavior that could be considered unlawful. Anything to the contrary will be deleted.

©2017
WARNING CONCERNING COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS:
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code)
governs the making of photo copies or other reproductions of copyrighted material.
Under certain conditions specified by law, libraries and archives
are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction.
One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be
"used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research."
If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction
or purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement.

This printing typeset / compiled by Fred James

F.R.E.D. Productions
September 2017
FIRST EDITION
0987654321
2
CONTENTS

3
 White House Unloads On Dem Senator Who Called
Another Trump Official A ‘White Supremacist’
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 23, 2017
This is largely why Democrats keep losing elections.
(National Sentinel) Slander: If you haven’t figured out the
disgusting Democratic Party’s election strategy moving
forward, it’s this: Paint everyone associated with President
Donald J. Trump and his supporters as bigots, racists and
“white supremacists.”
The latest slimeball to make the accusation is Sen. Sherrod
Brown of Ohio, who called Trump senior advisor Stephen
Miller a white supremacist over the weekend.
On Sunday the White House fired back. Press secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders chastised Brown for his
appearance on — where else? — CNN, in which he dog-
whistled to the Democratic base that Miller “seems to be”
a white supremacist.
Further, and without citing any specific evidence, he also
said that
“studies of shown that they have their allies
sprinkled around the White House.”
“Senator Brown’s comments are
outrageous and slanderous,” Sanders said
in a statement. “The nonstop name-calling
from the left continues to show an inability
to build consensus and fix the problems
ailing hardworking Americans. Senator
Brown needs to understand that when he
.
4
calls out public servants who are part of the
Trump Administration, he is indicting the
voters in Ohio themselves who
overwhelmingly voted for the President’s
agenda.”
“Instead of performing theatre for the
extreme left fringe, his time would be better
spent fighting for everyday people by
supporting the Trump Agenda of pro-
worker trade and immigration policies that
will raise wages and living standards for all
Americans,” Sanders added.
During the CNN interview, Brown also said he considered
Stephen Bannon, former White House chief strategist and
current executive chairman of Breitbart News, to
definitively be a white supremacist, using even stronger
language than accusations he threw at Miller.
Brown’s comments come following Democratic Rep.
Frederica Wilson’s remarks Friday. In an interview with
The New York Times, Wilson charged that
“The White House is full of white
supremacists.”
Riiight.
These kinds of slanderous, ad hoc attacks — were they
being made by a private citizen — would be legally
actionable. But as a sitting U.S. senator, Brown gets away
with libelous hate speech in which he disparages better
than half the country.
Still, this is largely why Democrats keep losing elections.
But honestly, as far as we’re concerned here at TNS, by all
means, we’d like Democrats to keep them up because the
longer they do so, the more they will continue to remain
out of power.
 Mueller Investigating Infowars
Expose Of Dems On Russia’s Payroll
Uranium One Scandal Expands To Podesta Involvement In Russian Deals
Jerome Corsi | Infowars.Com
October 23, 2017
WASHINGTON, D.C. – NBC News
announced Monday that Special
Counselor Robert Mueller’s
investigation into Russian collusion has
expanded to include Tony Podesta,
brother of Hillary’s 2016 campaign
manager, after Infowars.com reported
on Friday that documents prove Tony
Podesta’s Podesta Group, a
Washington-based consulting and
lobbying firm, were also on Russia’s
payroll.
On Friday, Infowars.com reported that among the
revelations made public through the 11.5 million
documents leaked by the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists detailing the legal and financial
arrangements behind secretive off-shore banking
transactions dating back to the 1970s was
the disclosure Russia’s largest bank, the state-owned
Sherbank, uses the Podesta Group as its registered
lobbyist in Washington.
5
Infowars.com can now confirm that in 2011, Sberbank
invested $800 million in Skolnovo, Russia’s answer to
Silicon Valley that Putin established to facilitate
technology transfer from the United States to Russia after
the Obama administration established the “Russia Reset”
policy, quarterbacked by Secretary Hillary Clinton.
Hillary transfers military technology to
Russian “Silicon Valley” under “Reset”
To head Skolkovo, Putin appointed Viktor Vekselberg, one
of Russia’s most wealthy oligarchs with close ties to Putin,
who had become a multi-billionaire through controlling the
Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate with extensive
investments in mining, oil and natural gas, and
telecommunications. In 2011, Vekselberg not only headed
Skolnovo, he also arranged through Sberbank a syndicated
loan facility for Renova in Swiss Francs valued at over $2
billion USD.
The U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies program at Fort
Leavenworth concluded in 2012 the purpose of Skolokovo
was to serve as a vehicle for worldwide technology
transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology,
biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, as
well as nuclear technology.
Soon, the U.S. government was aware the Obama
administration was approving the transfer of classified,
sensitive, and emerging military technology to Russia,
including approving the first weapons-related project in the
development of a hypersonic cruise missile engine.
A 2006 report entitled “From Russia With Money,”
released in August by the Government Accountability
Institute where “Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer is
president and Steve Bannon, a key advisor to Donald
Trump’s campaign and White House, was a director,
charged that Secretary Clinton used the “Russian Reset”
and the Skolkovo Project to funnel U.S. military
technology to Russia.
Clinton Foundation ties to U.S. firms
partnering with Skolnovo
Dozens of U.S. tech firms, including Clinton Foundation
donors like Google, Intel, and Cisco made major financial
contributions to Skolkovo, with Cisco committing $1
billion.
Skolkovo had assembled 28 Russian, American, and
European “Key Partners,” 17 of whom (60 percent) had
made financial commitments totaling tens of millions of
dollars to the Clinton Foundation, or sponsored speeches
by Bill Clinton.
State Department emails obtained by Citizens United
revealed that three-months after Putin appointed
Vekselberg to head the Skolkovo Project, a Clinton
Foundation employee began pushing the State Department
to approve a planned trip by Bill Clinton to Russia to meet
with Vekselberg and a handful of other Russian
investments.
Donor records show Vekselberg’s Renova group had
contributed between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton
Foundation, with another firm associated with Vekselberg,
OC Oerlikon, donating $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Sherbank ties to Russian intelligence
“Sberbank (Savings Bank in Russian)
engaged the Podesta Group to help its
public image—leading Moscow financial
institutions not exactly being known for
their propriety and wholesomeness—and
specifically to help lift some of the pain of
sanctions placed on Russia in the
aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression
against Ukraine, which has caused real
pain to the country’s hard-hit financial
sector,” wrote former National Security
Agency analyst and counterintelligence
officer John R. Schindler in an article
entitled “Panama Papers Reveal Clinton’s
Kremlin Connection” published by the
Observer on April 7, 2016.
“It’s hardly surprising that Sberbank sought
the help of Democratic insiders like the
Podesta Group to aid them in this difficult
hour, since they clearly understand how
American politics work,” Schindler
continued.
“The question is why the Podesta Group
took Sberbank’s money,” Schindler
asked. “That financial institution isn’t
exactly hiding in the shadows—it’s the
biggest bank in Russia, and its reputation
leaves a lot to be desired. Nobody
acquainted with Russian finance was
surprised that Sberbank wound up in the
Panama Papers.”
6
Schindler noted that since the 1990s, Sberbank has grown
to be Russia’s dominant bank, controlling nearly 30
percent of Russia’s aggregate banking assets and
employing a quarter-million people. The majority
stockholder in Sberbank is Russia’s Central Bank, making
Sberbank functionally an arm of the Russian government,
though officially Sberbank is a private institution.
“Certainly, Western intelligence is well
acquainted with Sberbank, noting its close
relationship with Vladimir Putin and his
regime. Funds moving through Sberbank
are regularly used to support clandestine
Russian intelligence operations, while the
bank uses its offices abroad as cover for
the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or
SVR,” Schindler pointed out.
A NATO counterintelligence official explained that
Sberbank, which has outposts in almost two dozen foreign
countries, “functions as a sort of arm of the SVR outside
Russia, especially because many of its senior employees
are ‘former’ Russian intelligence officers.” Inside the
country, Sberbank has an equally cozy relationship with
the Federal Security Service or FSB, Russia’s powerful
domestic intelligence agency.
On April 17, 2014, the Moscow Times reported Ukraine
opened criminal proceedings against Sberbank and 13
other banks on suspicion of “financing terrorism.”
Schindler noted the Ukrainian criminal infestation
concluded Sberbank had distributed millions of dollars in
illegal aid to Russian-backed separatists fighting in eastern
Ukraine, with the bank serving as
“a witting supporter of Russian aggression
against Ukraine.”
On April 5, 2016, Lachlan Markay reporting in the
Washington Free Beacon published the lobbying
registration form the Podesta Group filed with the U.S.
government proving Sberbank had contracted with the
Podesta Group to advance their interests with banking,
trade, and foreign relations.
Markay further reported that according to the Organized
Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium of
journalists exploring the Panama Papers leak, Sberbank
and Troika Dialog have ties to companies used by
members of Putin’s inner circle to funnel state resources
into lucrative private investments.
“Some of these companies were initially
connected to the Troika Dialog investment
fund, which was controlled and run by
Sberbank after the bank bought the Troika
Dialog investment bank. Troika and
 Sberbank declined to comment,” Markay
noted the Organized Crime and Corruption
Reporting Project concluded in a report
published in April 2016.
7
On March 30, 2016, Politico reported the Podesta Group
registered to lobby for the U.S. subsidiary of Sherbank to
see if relief could be obtained for the bank in the easing of
U.S. sanctions against Russia for Russia’s role in the
Ukraine conflict.
 Jimmy Carter Speaks:
Defends Trump; Didn’t Vote For Clinton;
Knocks Obama
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 23, 2017
Jimmy Carter is a liberal, but an old-school Democrat who
likely doesn’t even recognize his party these days
(National Sentinel) 39: Former President Jimmy Carter
made some unexpected statements regarding the current
president, his predecessor, his opponent and the NFL in a
recent interview with far-Left New York Times columnist
Maureen Dowd.
In discussing his role in security a deal with the North
Koreans in 1994 to end their nuclear weapons program —
which they cheated on just a few years later — the 39th
president said he would definitely go back to Pyongyang
today to try to secure a new deal, and peace, with leader
Kim Jong-un if President Donald J. Trump asked him to
go.
“I would go, yes,” he said.
As for Trump himself, Carter says the media has ravaged
him more than any other president in the 93-year-old’s
lifetime.
“I think the media have been harder on
Trump than any other president certainly
that I’ve known about. I think they feel free
to claim that Trump is mentally deranged
and everything else without hesitation,” he
said.
Asked if he supported Hillary Clinton last year, Carter
responded that he and his wife, Rosalynn, supported her
Democratic opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
8
Okay, but did the Russian ‘steal the election’ for Trump,
Dowd asked leadingly.
“Rosie and I have a difference of opinion
on that,” Carter said. “I don’t think there’s
any evidence that what the Russians did
changed enough votes, or any votes.”
Carter also criticized President Barack Obama.
“He made some very wonderful
statements, in my opinion, when he first got
in office, and then he reneged on that,”
Carter said of Obama’s Middle East
policies.
Carter also lamented
“the fact that Obama joined in the bombing
of Yemen,” according to Dowd.
The Left-wing columnist then attempted to draw
comparisons between the Carter Center and the Clinton
Foundation, but the former president wasn’t having any of
that.
“Rosie and I put money in the Carter
Center. We never take any out,” he said,
implying the Clinton Foundation does.
What about the NFL player protests?
“I think they ought to find a different way to
object, to demonstrate. I would rather see
all the players stand during the American
anthem,” Carter, a former U.S. Navy
officer, responded.
 Anguished Liberals Plan To 'Scream Helplessly At The
Sky' On Anniversary Of Trump Election
By Debra Heine
October 23, 2017

an enormous community of activists who

are motivated and angry, whose actions
can make a difference."

A protester shouts during a rally near the Intrepid Air and Sea
Museum where U.S. President Trump is expected to visit in New
York, NY. (Anthony Behar, Sipa via AP Images)

Progressives have taken their Trump derangement

syndrome to a whole new level...

Thousands of anguished libs in Boston and Philadelphia

will be taking part in scream fests on Nov. 8 to
commemorate the anniversary of Donald Trump's election.
Liberals in other cities around the country are likely to step
up to the crazy plate as well as the big day draws near.

Over 4,000 Facebook users in the Boston area

have RSVP'd to attend the event they're calling

"Scream helplessly at the sky on the

anniversary of the election."
Another 33,000 have expressed interest in attending the
event at the 383-year-old Boston Common.
The organizers say in a Facebook post:
Their actions may make a difference, to be sure, but
perhaps not in the way they are intending. The sight of
these unhinged minions binging on bitterness, self-pity,
and outrage coming together to collectively howl at the
moon is something that will drive more Americans into the
arms of Trump.

"Come express your anger at the current
state of democracy, and scream helplessly
at the sky!"
"This administration has attacked
everything about what it means to be
American," Johanna Schulman, an activist
and one of the organizers of the event, told
Newsweek. "Who wouldn't feel helpless
every day? Coming together reminds us
that we are not alone, that we are part of
9
"While the event calls upon people to
Scream Helplessly, we want to convert that
sense of helplessness into resistance, into
action, and maybe even into optimism,"
Schulman told Newsweek. "Although it is
important to acknowledge the tragedy that
befell our country on November 9th, we
cannot let it defeat us!"
In Philadelphia, 538 people also plan to "scream helplessly
at the sky" to mark Trump's one-year anniversary as seen
in a similar Facebook post. More than 3,000 people are The event is hosted by Philly UP (Philadelphia United for
"interested" in attending the event. Progress), which describes itself as a "grassroots, feminist,
intersectional group of passionate Philadelphia
The event description reads: progressives."

"Let's have a primal scream for the current People who are unable to attend the screamfest in Philly
state of our democracy! Gather together are encouraged to "scream in solidarity" in their own
after work at Philadelphia's City Hall." backyards.

It doesn't get any more pathetic than this, folks.

.

10
 Jimmy Carter: ‘I Don’t Think There’s
Any Evidence That Russians Changed Votes’
Mac Slavo
October 23rd, 2017
Former president Jimmy Carter has said that he doesn’t
think that the Russians stole the election from Hillary
Clinton. He also had some brutal criticisms of Barack
Obama’s foreign policy during a New York Times
interview.
“I don’t think there’s any evidence that
what the Russians did changed enough
votes or any votes,” Carter told The New
York Times in an interview published on
Saturday.
Carter was a one-term Democrat who also noted in the
interview that he and former first lady Rosalynn Carter
disagree on the matter.
“Rosie and I have a difference of opinion
on that,” he said. “They [the Russians]
obviously did,” the former first lady said.
But Donald Trump also disagreed with the
former first lady in a Twitter post, saying
that it was Facebook that was clearly on
Hillary’s side, not the Russians.
11
But Jimmy Carter’s interview unveiled a few other
interesting quotes as well. The comments from the former
president and first lady, who say they voted for socialist
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primary,
come as the congressional and federal probes continue to
investigate evidenceless ties between the Trump campaign
and Russian election meddling.
What was a little ironic, to say the least, was that Rosalynn
Carter was upset that the Russians may have stolen the
election from Hillary Clinton, but failed to express the
same outrage that Hillary and the DNC stole the primaries
away from her choice, Bernie Sanders. That one obviously
slipped by the mainstream media, but anyone with half a
functioning brain can see the hypocrisy in that phony
outrage.
Jimmy Carter also said he’s eager to partner with Trump
for a North Korea diplomatic mission. While his comments
about his North Korea plan were brief, the former
Democratic commander in chief addressed several topics,
including the Trump-Putin relationship and his
disappointment of Obama’s work in the Middle East.
“I would go, yes,” he said. Carter also said
he has talked with Trump’s national
security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster,
about his intentions but was given “a
negative’ response. “I told him that I was
available if they ever need me,” he
reiterated. But Carter didn’t stop there. He
criticized Barack Obama’s foreign policy
and blasted the media for their often overtly
and harsh coverage of Donald Trump.
The former president said Obama “refused to talk to North
Korea more” and lamented the US drone attacks in
Yemen, according to Dowd.
“He made some very wonderful
statements, in my opinion, when he first got
in office, and then he reneged on that,” he
said about Obama’s action on the Middle
East.
 GOP Challenger Calls For Rep. Maxine Waters To Be
Arrested For Threatening To 'Take Trump Out'
By Tyler O'Neil
October 23, 2017

Navarro shared the American Mirror story, tweeting,

"Secret Service should call for Maxine

Waters immediate resignation after these
comments. We don't need lip service."

YouTube screenshot of Maxine Waters promising to "take Trump

out."

Omar Navarro, a Republican running to replace Rep.

Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in the 2018 midterm elections,
on Sunday publicly called for the congresswoman's arrest
following her threat to "take Trump out tonight." Waters
issued the threat on October 13, but it was under-reported
at the time.

"I'm calling for the arrest of Maxine Waters.

Let's get ready for it," Navarro tweeted
Sunday night.
Navarro previously ran against Waters in 2016. Last year,
What did Waters say to inspire Navarro to call for her Waters took 76 percent of the vote to Navarro's 24 percent.
arrest? California's extremely liberal 43rd district hasn't been
represented by a Republican since 2003, so it might take a
"With this kind of inspiration, I will go and major shift like Waters' arrest to flip the seat.
take Trump out tonight," the
congresswoman declared at the Ali Forney Waters has been one of the most vocal advocates for
Center gala in New York City on October impeaching President Donald Trump. In one infamous
13. case, she actually declared "there is no law" on
impeachment, suggesting that Congress could impeach
Trump for any reason it wanted to. This is a horrible
twisting of the Constitution, which allows for
impeachment in cases of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Even in polls where many Americans support Trump's

impeachment, most admit he is not guilty of such crimes.
That hasn't stopped Waters from repeating her demands, of
course.

Despite Navarro's clear political motivation for calling for

The American Mirror reported that YouTube removed the Waters' arrest, these comments do cry out for a response.
original clip of Waters' speech, but other versions are still Should she be arrested?
available on the Internet.
.

12
 Nets Blackout Russia
Investigation News Unrelated To Trump
By Nicholas Fondacaro
October 23, 2017 9:43 PM EDT
The Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) appear to
be fed-up with Russia investigations. In the last few days,
there had been numerous new developments in the Russian
election interference investigation and other Russia
influence related investigations.
The breaking news included a possible criminal
investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the
FBI tracking Russian spies trying to get close to Hillary
Clinton, all of which had gone largely unreported during
their broadcasts even though one of the stories was an
NBC exclusive.
Following NBC’s lead from earlier Monday morning, both
ABC's World News Tonight and CBS Evening News
ignored NBC’s report exposing how
“Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group
are now the subjects of a federal
investigation being led by Special
Counsel Robert Mueller.”
Tony Podesta was the brother of John Podesta who was the
campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton. NBC Nightly News
also omitted it from there broadcast.
It was an investigation that might actually go somewhere,
because as reported by NBC online:
The sources said the investigation into
Podesta and his company began as more
of a fact-finding mission about the ECMU
and Manafort's role in the campaign, but
has now morphed into a criminal inquiry
into whether the firm violated the Foreign
Agents Registration Act, known as FARA.
13
As for the Russian spies trying to get close to Clinton: It
had been 6 days since The Hill first broke the story of
how the FBI was tracking a Russian bribery plot aimed at
gaining influence to aid in their purchasing of Uranium
One, which included donations to the Clinton Foundation.
And late on Sunday, another report by The Hill
explained hot the FBI monitored spies as they moved into
positions close to power before being arrested.
CBS's John Dickerson was the only network personality to
ever dare bring this report up about the Clintons.
Unfortunately, Dickerson did appear to be the lone outlier.
On the subject of the Clinton-Uranium scandal, Fox News
Channel Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine
Herridge noted on Monday’s Special Report how:
In a separate development, an Obama era deal in which a
Russian backed company bought a uranium firm with
mines in the U.S. is under fresh scrutiny by the House
Oversight Committee. Hillary Clinton dismissed the story.
“I would say it’s the same baloney they
have been peddling for years. And there's
been no credible evidence by anyone,”
Clinton claimed in an interview.
And in relation to the election-meddling investigation,
former President Jimmy Carter came out over the
weekend and backed up President Trump on that Russia
matter.
“He does not think there's any evidence
that Russians changed enough votes or
any votes in last fall's election to
 change the result,” reported Fox News
Anchor Bret Baier on Monday.
Carter also argued that “the media have
been harder on Trump than any other
president certainly that I’ve known
about.”
And there was truth to back up those words. The networks
had ignored Carter’s positive comments about Trump
while fawning all over former presidents George W. Bush
and Barack Obama beating up on him.
In addition, the principal national evening newscasts of the
nation's top two Spanish-language television networks,
Univision and Telemundo, have also failed to report on the
latest revelations surrounding the Clinton/Uranium scandal
and Tony Podesta. Both also studiously avoided reporting
on 93-year-old former President Jimmy Carter's pro-
Trump comments.
Instead of reporting on the Russia stories unrelated to
Trump, they filled their airtime with drivel. CBS did a full
report on the California wildfires destroying part of the
state’s marijuana crop. ABC talked about motorcycle cops
doing stunts. And NBC once again ignored their own
Russia reporting while opting to report on a rumor about
Trump attacking 401(k)s, the World Series being played in
hot weather, a video of a high school volleyball player
jumping over a teammate, and the French President’s dog
peeing on a fireplace.
Transcript below:
Fox News Channel
Special Report
October 23, 2017
6:00:37 - 6:03:28 PM Eastern [2 minutes 50 seconds]
.
14
BRET BAIER: There is evidence tonight that the Special Counsel
investigation into Russian interference in last fall's election may
be changing course, or at least shifting tone. Chief Intelligence
Correspondent Catherine Herridge has the latest information.
[Cuts to video]
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: The Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
office is exploring whether Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta’s
firm violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act when it worked
on behalf of Ukraine. In a statement, a spokesperson for
Podesta, who is the brother of former Hillary Clinton campaign
manager John Podesta, said they complied with government
rules and are fully cooperating with investigators.
(…)
HERRIDGE: In a separate development, an Obama era deal in
which a Russian backed company bought a uranium firm with
mines in the U.S. is under fresh scrutiny by the House Oversight
Committee. Hillary Clinton dismissed the story.
HILLARY CLINTON: I would say it’s the same baloney they have
been peddling for years. And there's been no credible evidence
by anyone.
HERRIDGE: The deal was stuck when Clinton was secretary of
state with some investigators working with Bill Clinton and
reportedly contributing to the family foundation. Clinton went
further today, calling out the President and his allies.
(…)
BAIER: Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter says he
does not think there's any evidence that Russians changed
enough votes or any votes in last fall's election to change the
result.
(…)
 Do Shifting Democrat Talking Points Confirm That
"Trump Is Unlikely To Be Implicated" In Russia Probe?
By Tyler Durden
Oct 23, 2017 8:40 PM

Over the past several weeks, the Russia-related talking "comprehensive, authoritative and
points of Democrats and their mainstream media echo bipartisan accounting of the
chambers have shifted from constantly insisting that extraordinary efforts of a hostile power
Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election to to disrupt American democracy appears
focus on a seemingly irrelevant amount of advertising to be dwindling."
dollars that may have been spent on various social media
platforms by people that "may have been connected" to the
Kremlin...which, to our understanding, is defined as
anyone with their browser language set to Russian.

Alas, as the Washington Examiner points out today, this

shift in talking points could finally indicate that Democrats
are admitting that there is no 'there' there when it comes to
the 'Trump collusion' narrative.

Have you noticed? In recent public comments, the

lawmakers investigating the Trump-Russia affair, along
with some of the commentators who dissect its every
development, seem to be focusing more on the facts of
Russia's attempts to interfere with the 2016 election and
less on allegations that Donald Trump or his associates
colluded with those efforts.
Why the change?
"Because that's where the evidence is
going," one lawmaker who follows the
matter closely told me in a text exchange. "I
mean, things could always change, but that
observation is just the reality of the
situation right now, as I see it."
"Because they've been spinning their
wheels on something for which
evidence has yet to emerge," said
another lawmaker.
"I think it's 1) the Mueller probe means that
stuff [allegations of collusion] is sort of in
his wheelhouse now," said yet another
lawmaker, "and 2) I think there's
recognition that Trump himself is
unlikely to be implicated in this."
All three committees looking into Russian interference —
one in the House, two in the Senate — have run into
problems, from insufficient staffing to fights over when the
committees should wrap up their investigations. The
Senate Judiciary Committee’s inquiry has barely started,
delayed in part by negotiations over the scope of the
investigation. Leaders of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, while maintaining bipartisan comity, have
sought to tamp down expectations about what they might
find.
Nine months into the Trump administration, any notion
that Capitol Hill would provide a comprehensive,
authoritative and bipartisan accounting of the
extraordinary efforts of a hostile power to disrupt
American democracy appears to be dwindling.
And even CNN's Chris Cuomo seemingly revealed some
frustration and doubt in a recent interview with Adam
Schiff saying
"if it was so obvious, it if were so
egregious, you should have known by
now."

Meanwhile, the New York Times admitted over the "Well, no one's saying this was
weekend that the 3 separate Congressional investigations obvious," Schiff answered. "Obviously,
are seemingly going nowhere as the hopes of a there was a deep interest in the Russians

15
 in keeping their work hidden. But you can't
say there's no evidence of collusion."
"We've seen even in the public realm, I
think, very graphic evidence that the Trump
campaign was willing to collude with the
Russians," Schiff continued.
That was most likely a reference to the infamous June
2016 Trump Tower meeting which Kremlin-connected
Russians enticed Donald Trump, Jr. into attending by
promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. In fact, the Russians
wanted to push their goal of killing the Magnitsky Act, and
the meeting, by all accounts, ended quickly. But Schiff
argues that it suggests the willingness to collude, if not
collusion itself.
"So you can't say even in the public realm,
let alone what we're looking at [in secret],
that there's no evidence," Schiff concluded.
"Now, is there proof beyond a
reasonable doubt? Are we ready to
.
16
announce a conclusion? We're not there
yet."
Of course, it does seem somewhat 'convenient' that
Democrats are suddenly eager to bury the Russian
collusion narratives just as pressure is building for an
investigation into the Clintons' role in a massive Russian
bribery, extortion and money laundering scheme that
ultimately handed the Russians 20% of America's uranium
reserves. For those who missed them, here are out recent
notes on the topic:
 FBI Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Before Obama
Approved Uranium One Deal, Netting Clintons Millions
 Emails Reveal Bill Clinton Met With Vladimir Putin Just
Before Uranium One Deal
 FBI Informant "Threatened" After Offering Details
Linking Clinton Foundation To Russian Bribery Case
So what say you? Is the timing pure coincidence or are the
Clintons and Democrats suddenly eager for a truce now the
Russia narratives have become "inconvenient."
 Corker: ‘The President Has Great
Difficulty With The Truth On Many Issues’
By Jeff Poor
24 Oct 2017
Corker just now: "The President has great
difficulty with the truth on many issues."
https://t.co/GnPoByj9IL
— Meg Wagner (@megwagner) October
24, 2017
Tuesday in an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju on
Capitol Hill, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who announced he
would not be seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate next
month, responded to attacks President Donald Trump
made about him on his Twitter feed.
Bob Corker, who helped President O give
us the bad Iran Deal & couldn't get elected
dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting
Tax Cuts….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
… The junior Tennessee senator would not use the word
…Corker dropped out of the race in
Tennesse when I refused to endorse him,
and now is only negative on anything
Trump. Look at his record!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
… president again if the opportunity ever presented itself.
Isn't it sad that lightweight Senator Bob
Corker, who couldn't get re-elected in the
Great State of Tennessee, will now fight
Tax Cuts plus!
.
17
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
…
Sen. Corker is the incompetent head of the
Foreign Relations Committee, & look how
poorly the U.S. has done. He doesn't have
a clue as…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
…
…the entire World WAS laughing and
taking advantage of us. People like liddle'
Bob Corker have set the U.S. way back.
Now we move forward!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
“liar” to describe Trump but was asked by Raju if Trump
was a liar.
“The president has great difficulty with the
truth on many issues,” Corker said.
He then went on to say he would not support Trump for
“Let’s just put it this way — I would not do
that again,” he said. “I think he’s proven
himself unable to rise to the occasion.”
 Donald Trump: Bob Corker
‘Couldn’t Get Elected Dog Catcher’ In Tennessee
By Charlie Spiering
24 Oct 2017
President Donald Trump again
challenged Sen. Bob Corker on Twitter
after the outgoing Senate Republican
again criticized the president during an
interview.
“Bob Corker, who helped President O give
us the bad Iran Deal & couldn’t get elected
dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting
Tax Cuts,”
Trump wrote on Twitter:
Bob Corker, who helped President O give
us the bad Iran Deal & couldn't get elected
dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting
Tax Cuts….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
Trump has previously used the “dog catcher” attack on
Hillary Clinton during the presidential race, on Sen. Marco
Rubio during the Republican presidential primary,
and on Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City.
He added that Corker decided not to run for re-election
after Trump refused to endorse him and had since
become opposed to his proposals:
18
Bob Corker, who helped President O give
us the bad Iran Deal & couldn't get elected
dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting
Tax Cuts….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
“Corker dropped out of the race in
Tennesse [sic] when I refused to endorse
him, and now is only negative on anything
Trump,” he wrote. “Look at his record!”
Corker told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos
Tuesday that he stood by the comments he made about the
White House’s becoming an “adult daycare center” under
Trump.
Corker also described Trump’s upcoming visit to Capitol
Hill as a “photo op” and urged him to let Senate
Republicans be in charge of tax overhaul policy.
“What I hope is going to happen is the
president will leave this effort, if you will, to
the tax-writing committees, let them do
their work and not begin taking things off
the table that ought to be debated in these
committees at the proper time,” he
complained.
Corker also urged Trump to stay out of foreign policy,
especially on Twitter.
“Leave it to the professionals for a while,”
he said.
Corker fired back on Twitter, calling Trump a liar.
“Same untruths from an utterly untruthful
president,” he wrote with the
hashtag #AlertTheDaycareStaff.
Same untruths from an utterly untruthful
president. #AlertTheDaycareStaff
 — Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker)
October 24, 2017
Trump responded that “sad” Corker was a “lightweight.”
Isn't it sad that lightweight Senator Bob
Corker, who couldn't get re-elected in the
Great State of Tennessee, will now fight
Tax Cuts plus!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017
done. He doesn’t have a clue as the entire
World WAS laughing and taking advantage
of us. People like liddle’ Bob Corker have
set the U.S. way back. Now we move
forward!
…the entire World WAS laughing and
taking advantage of us. People like liddle'
Bob Corker have set the U.S. way back.
Now we move forward!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
October 24, 2017

Corker continued responding to the president in an …

interview on CNN.
Sen. Corker is the incompetent head of the
Corker just now: Foreign Relations Committee, & look how
poorly the U.S. has done. He doesn't have
"The President has great difficulty with the a clue as…..
truth on many issues." — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
https://t.co/GnPoByj9IL October 24, 2017
— Meg Wagner (@megwagner) October
24, 2017 …

Trump continued attacking Corker throughout the Isn't it sad that lightweight Senator Bob
morning: Corker, who couldn't get re-elected in the
Great State of Tennessee, will now fight
Isn’t it sad that lightweight Senator Bob Tax Cuts plus!
Corker, who couldn’t get re-elected in the — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Great State of Tennessee, will now fight October 24, 2017
Tax Cuts plus! Sen. Corker is the
incompetent head of the Foreign Relations
Committee, & look how poorly the U.S. has
.

19
 GOP Chairmen Announce
Probe Of OBAMA Justice Department
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 24, 2017
“No entity or individual is exempt from
oversight”
(National Sentinel) Corruption:
As a special counsel continues to probe
thus-far unsubstantiated charges that the
Trump campaign “colluded” with the
Russian government to “steal the election”
from Hillary Clinton, a pair of House
chairmen have announced their panels will
probe actions the Obama Justice
Department may have taken during
Election 2016.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, and Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina,
chairman of the Oversight Committee, announced the
probe, reports The Associated Press.
Specifically, both chairmen said they have a number of
questions, including why then-FBI Director James Comey
made the decision to publicly announce the investigation
into Clinton’s mishandling of classified information, but
did not publicly announce investigations into then-GOP
presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s campaign
associates.
“Our justice system is represented by a
blind-folded woman holding a set of scales.
Those scales do not tip to the right or the
left; they do not recognize wealth, power,
20
or social status,” the chairmen said in a
statement.
“The impartiality of our justice system is the
bedrock of our republic and our fellow
citizens must have confidence in its
objectivity, independence, and
evenhandedness. The law is the most
equalizing force in this country. No entity or
individual is exempt from oversight,” they
said.
“Decisions made by the Department of
Justice in 2016 have led to a host of
outstanding questions that must be
answered,” the pair continued.
These include, but are not limited to:
 FBI’s decision to publicly announce the investigation
into Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified
information but not to publicly announce the
investigation into campaign associates of then-
candidate Donald Trump;
 FBI’s decision to notify Congress by formal letter of the
status of the investigation both in October and
November of 2016;
 FBI’s decision to appropriate full decision making in
respect to charging or not charging Secretary Clinton to
the FBI rather than the DOJ; and
 FBI’s timeline in respect to charging decisions.
“The Committees will review these
decisions and others to better understand
the reasoning behind how certain
conclusions were drawn. Congress has a
constitutional duty to preserve the integrity
of our justice system by ensuring
transparency and accountability of actions
taken,” they noted.
What are your thoughts?
 Brit Hume On Russia Probe:
‘Tide May Now Be Turning On All Of This And
Not In A Way The Democrats
Are Going To Enjoy’
By Jeff Poor
24 Oct 2017
Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson
Tonight,” network senior political contributor Brit Hume
reacted to Carlson’s earlier report that an investigation by
special counsel Robert Mueller has not solely focused on
potential collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016
presidential campaign.
Now reportedly it includes elements of Hillary Clinton’s
campaign, Donald Trump’s opponent in that election.
Hume said that the “tide may now be turning” on the
probe, which is that it may now implicate some long-time
Washington, D.C. Democrats.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: Brit Hume is a Fox News senior political analyst and
he joins us tonight. Brit, the fact, or the idea from our source that
Paul Manafort was working for the Podesta group on behalf of
Russian interests before running the Trump campaign changes
this story completely, it seems to me.
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It
does to change completely, Tucker. It suggests that what
collusion there have been between Paul Manafort and the
Podesta group on behalf of Russian interests. And the Podesta
group — these two guys, Tony and John, they lie at the heart of
the Democratic Party and certainly of the Clintons and their
political endeavors.
So, this changes the whole character and focus and it does raise
also the question, Tucker. When you’re coming around to getting
at this now, and that’s remarkable on your part to have gotten
this source to come and talk to you, how could it be that all these
journalists working for other news organizations have been
chasing this story, these many months, and never run across any
of this? Remarkable indeed.
CARLSON: Well, that’s exactly the point.
HUME: It does change things.
21
CARLSON: Well, how could actually, I mean, you’ve been in
journalism longer than I’ve been alive, how could the central front
group that Manafort was representing, the money goes through
the Podesta group and nobody notices? I mean, the Podesta
group has 75 employees in Washington, nobody has mentioned
that to a journalist in the past 11 months? I find that not
believable.
HUME: Well, it’s pretty striking, and it suggests that the work has
been done and this story has not been of the best quality or this
would have turned up and I would also suggest that you have a
pack of journalists who are so determined to follow one story line
that they completely missed this. But this is a big deal on a lot of
levels. And it is particularly noteworthy that we hear that Robert
Mueller is on this and suggested that his investigation, which
might have been initially about Russian efforts to influence the
election, is now much more broad gazed effort to determine the
extent and depth of Russian efforts to influence American policy
going back several years.
And if that’s the case, and if all we hear about the Podestas is
true, it seems to me that the Democrats have been complaining
about this and making all kinds of allegations about this all this
time are going to be very disappointed in its outcome.
CARLSON: Well, yes, I mean, considering that for the last year
we’ve heard that America faces no greater foe, has never faced a
greater foe than Putin’s Russia and they’re seeking to undermine
our democracy, destroy our country, and now it turns out the two
of the people closest to Hillary Clinton were working for them.
HUME: Yes.
CARLSON: I mean, I don’t really know how Democrats will
respond to that.
HUME: Well, it is also the case too of course, if we look at this
Uranium One matter that is coming more and more to light, it
appears that we have the Obama administration in its effort to
seek a closer relationship with Russia acquiescing a sale of
materials that are strategic and that could certainly be argued
place American security interests at some risk and, you know, all
of this going on of course while and this has been known —
unlike what you’ve just reported, this has been known for some
time, but it seems to be coming into sharper focus at the moment
and will be the subject of the Congressional investigations going
forward.
So, Democrats can scream a lot and they no doubt will that all of
that is a diversion, but I’m beginning to think that those claims
and accusations are going to ring a little hollow in light of what
your reporting and in light of what else is coming out even as we
speak tonight.
CARLSON: We can’t get a Democrat on the show tonight, we
can get a member of Congress. Of course we reach out
immediately to the Podesta group for comment on what we
found, we didn’t hear back from them. As if there isn’t enough
news today, there’s late-breaking news that apparently the
information that comprise the now-famous dossier that BuzzFeed
printed, that information was paid for by the DNC and the Hillary
Clinton presidential campaign. I’m not even sure how to respond
to this.
HUME: Right. You know, well, it is striking because, you know,
that dossier, even as it appeared at the time, was pretty widely
recognized even among media unsympathetic to Donald Trump
as curlers and a lot of it was demonstrably false. So, this was a
pretty shabby piece of business here and if it turns out that, as
we now believe, that it was paid for in considerable measure by
the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. And of course,
this contained within it, Tucker, were allegations about Trump
collusion with the Russians.
22
So, that tends to soil that whole allegation even further. So, the
tide may be now turning in all this in political terms, and one
might also open journalistic terms.
CARLSON: Kind of brazen though. I mean, if one of your chief
fundraisers and the guy who’s running your campaign is in effect
working with Paul Manafort, it’s a little brazen for you to run
around claiming that Paul Manafort when he worked for Donald
Trump was colluding with the Russians, no? I mean, what does it
take to claim something like that?
HUME: Well, brazen might be the right word. You know, one
hardly knows what to say about that, but it certainly reveals
another side of the story that may be bigger and more important
than these allegations, which have so far remained virtually
without evidence.
CARLSON: Yes.
HUME: The allegations of collusion between the Trump
campaign itself and the President, the man who is now president,
and the Russians, is virtually nonexistent. After all these months.
CARLSON: Yes.
HUME: And now we hear about all this other stuff. So, as I
suggest Tucker, the tide may now be turning on all of this and not
in a way the Democrats are going to enjoy.
CARLSON: No. I would be concerned if I were the Podestas,
very concern. Brit, thank you very much for that. Appreciate it.
HUME: You bet, Tucker.
 Congressional Investigations Closing In
On The MASSIVE Obama-Clinton Corruption Behind
Trump Dossier, Uranium One Deal
By JD Heyes
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
It may be too much to hope for, but it appears that we may
actually be getting closer to the day when some of the most
corrupt politicians in recent memory — Bill and Hillary
Clinton, along with President Obama and several of his
Cabinet officials — will finally be held legally responsible
for things they’ve done to our country.
By now it has become obvious, just based on open-source
reporting, that the Obama regime spied on Team Trump
under the guise of a phony national security probe. That’s
where the “Russian collusion” story comes from; it was a
hoax ginned up to legitimize politicizing the U.S. federal
law enforcement and intelligence communities so that the
Obama administration could keep tabs on Donald J. Trump
and his staffers for anything that might help Hillary.
One of the ways they created this fake Russian narrative
was by using a known Left-wing Democratic opposition
firm called Fusion GPS, the group behind the infamous
and discredited “Trump dossier.” That dossier, many in
Congress believe, was used as justification for the secret
surveillance warrants the Obama administration obtained
in order to spy on Team Trump.
Now, lawmakers want to know more about Fusion GPS
and in particular who paid for the dossier. The House
Intelligence Committee earlier this month issued a
subpoena to TD Bank seeking the firm’s banking records,
which Fusion GPS says would ‘ruin’ its business were that
information to get out, The Daily Caller is reporting.
23
“In short, compliance with this subpoena
will not only harm Plantiff’s business, it has
a high likelihood of ruining it,” said one of
the arguments presented by the firm’s
attorneys in court papers filed in
Washington, D.C.
There is only one reason why Fusion GPS is scrambling to
block the subpoena: Company execs don’t want the House
panel to find out who hired them to investigate the Trump
campaign and the president himself. That has been a
closely-held secret (in a city full of leaks) since the dossier,
which was written by former British spy Christopher
Steele, was published in January by the website Buzzfeed
(which is now been sued by Russian firms mentioned in
the document).
This dossier is just the tip of the scandal iceberg involving
the Clintons, Obama, his former FBI chief, now-fired
James Comey, and other officials. Another major scandal
pertains to the sale of the company Uranium One to the
Russians, which the FBI found early on involved
racketeering, bribery, real Russian collusion, and other
high crimes involving the Obama White House and the
Clintons. (Related: Trump takes ‘mainstream’ media to
task for REFUSING to cover Billery uranium scandal:
‘That’s your REAL Russia story’)
Here are the highlights surrounding that scandal, as laid
out perfectly by former federal prosecutor and national
security expert Andrew McCarthy at National Review:
$ The $500,000 payment given to Bill Clinton for a
“speech” was funneled to him via the regime of
Russian President Vladimir Putin via a Kremlin-aligned
bank. There was no “independence” to it; it was
a bribe, pure and simple, and it was made to win favor
with the ex-president and, it was believed at the time,
his soon-to-be-president wife.
$ The deal seriously compromised U.S. national security
because it handed control over one-fifth of the United
States’ strategic supply of uranium, which is a primary
element in the manufacture of nuclear weapons and
nuclear power.
$ The Obama regime was well aware that Republicans in
Congress were attempting to stop the deal from going
through — because, again, it was a blow to national
security.
$ The Justice Department under then-Attorney General
Eric Holder and the FBI under then-Director Robert
Mueller, who is now a special counsel leading a
collusion investigation into Trump, knew about
improper payments and transfers of money to the
Clintons and Clinton-aligned charities, principally the
.
24
Clinton Foundation, to the tune of about $145 million
from parties interested in seeing the deal go through.
$ One witness who was undercover for the FBI was
threatened with prison if he broke a non-disclosure
agreement and went to Congress to tell lawmakers
what he knew.
Taken together, this is just more evidence that Barack
Obama presided over one of the most corrupt
administrations in the history of the country.
 Fmr Clinton Spox On Steele Dossier Funding:
‘It Would Have Been Malpractice’ To Not ‘Learn
Everything It Could’ About Trump
By Ian Hanchett
24 Oct 2017
On Tuesday’s broadcast of “CNN Tonight,” former
Clinton Press Secretary Brian Fallon reacted to the report
that the Clinton campaign funded research that resulted in
the Steele Dossier by stating that it would have been
“malpractice” for the Clinton campaign to not try to learn
whatever it could about Trump.
Fallon said,
“[C]ampaigns engage in opposition
research all the time. And my
understanding of what took place is that in
the spring of 2016, in April of 2016, the
firm, Fusion GPS, having been under
contract with a Republican-aligned client
during the GOP primary, made an overture
to Perkins Coie, the law firm that was
connected to the campaign — or our
campaign, and said, ‘Hey look, we’re knee
deep in a lot of this very interesting
research related to connections between
Trump’s businesses and Russia, and our
existing client has dropped us because the
Republican primary’s over, Trump is
.
25
emerging as the Republican nominee. But
now going into the general, you might find
this interesting.’ It would have been
malpractice, in my view, for the campaign
to not to want turn over every rock and
learn everything it could about Donald
Trump. So, while I didn’t know that it — that
that meeting took place at the time, I’m
glad that Marc Elias and whoever else was
aware of it at the time authorized it and
went forward with it.”
He further stated that it is “fair” to question why the
campaign wasn’t more forthcoming about its role in
funding the dossier. He added,
“I think that probably, to the extent that
people think that there’s some gotcha here
it’s because so long has gone by without
the campaign acknowledging this. I think
it’s probably the result two of things:
Number one, how few of the people on the
campaign knew about it, because it was
pretty well sequestered to the law firm,
which in turn was contracting with an
outside firm, which in turn was contracting
with a subcontractor. I suspect most of the
people learned about it.”
Fallon also said that he didn’t know when Clinton herself
learned about the dossier arrangement and that he had only
learned about it a few days ago.
He concluded by stating that the dossier’s accuracy is what
really matters, not who funded it.
26
 Hannity On Flake, Corker:
‘Good Riddance, Happy Trails,
Don’t Let The Door Hit You On
The Way Out Of Town’
By Jeff Poor
24 Oct 2017

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” host Sean
Hannity reacted to remarks Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and
Jeff Flake (R-AZ) made earlier in the day about President
Donald Trump.
Flake had announced that he, like his colleague Corker,
would not be seeking re-election in 2018, which was
welcomed by Hannity.
“Here’s a simple truth: all three of these
guys [Corker, Flake and Sen. John McCain
(R-AZ)] — they’re inept, they’re ineffective,
they have completely failed to deliver on
the promises they made to their
.
constituents and you the American people
for years,” he said. “These guys have
accomplished nothing, and others like Ben
Sasse, too. And you know what? All they’re
doing here is standing in the way of
enacting an agenda to help move the
country forward, what the people voted for
last November. And they’re trying to be
martyrs in the process. You guys want to
be martyrs? You go right ahead. Here’s my
answer to all of you tonight: Good riddance,
happy trails, don’t let the door hit you on
the way out of town.”

27
 The FBI’s Political Meddling
Mueller Is The Wrong Sleuth When His Ex-Agency Is
So Tangled Up With Russia.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Oct. 24, 2017 6:17 P.M. ET
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, now special counsel on the
Russia investigation, following a Senate Judiciary Committee
meeting on Capitol Hill, June 21. Photo: saul loeb/Agence France-
Presse/Getty Images
Let’s give plausible accounts of the known facts, then
explain why demands that Robert Mueller recuse himself
from the Russia investigation may not be the fanciful
partisan grandstanding you imagine.
Here’s a story consistent with what has been reported in
the press—how reliably reported is uncertain. Democratic
political opponents of Donald Trump financed a British
former spook who spread money among contacts in
Russia, who in turn over drinks solicited stories from their
supposedly “connected” sources in Moscow. If these
people were really connected in any meaningful sense,
then they made sure the stories they spun were consistent
with the interests of the regime, if not actually scripted by
the regime.
The resulting Trump dossier then became a factor in
Obama administration decisions to launch an FBI
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign,
and after the election to trumpet suspicions of Trump
collusion with Russia.
We know of a second, possibly even more consequential
way the FBI was effectively a vehicle for Russian
meddling in U.S. politics. Authoritative news reports say
FBI chief James Comey’s intervention in the Hillary
Clinton email matter was prompted by a Russian
intelligence document that his colleagues suspected was a
Russian plant.
OK, Mr. Mueller was a former close colleague and leader
but no longer part of the FBI when these events occurred.
28
This may or may not make him a questionable person to
lead a Russia-meddling investigation in which the FBI’s
own actions are necessarily a concern.
But now we come to the Rosatom disclosures last week in
The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress.
Here’s another story as plausible as we can make it based
on credible reporting. After the Cold War, in its own
interest, the U.S. wanted to build bridges to the Russian
nuclear establishment. The Putin government, for national
or commercial purposes, agreed and sought to expand its
nuclear business in the U.S.
The purchase and consolidation of certain assets were
facilitated by Canadian entrepreneurs who gave large sums
to the Clinton Foundation, and perhaps arranged a Bill
Clinton speech in Moscow for $500,000. A key transaction
had to be approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Now we learn that, before and during these transactions,
the FBI had uncovered a bribery and kickback scheme
involving Russia’s U.S. nuclear business, and also
received reports of Russian officials seeking to curry favor
through donations to the Clinton Foundation.
This criminal activity was apparently not disclosed to
agencies vetting the 2010 transfer of U.S. commercial
nuclear assets to Russia. The FBI made no move to break
up the scheme until long after the transaction closed. Only
five years later, the Justice Department, in 2015, disclosed
a plea deal with the Russian perpetrator so quietly that its
significance was missed until The Hill reported on the FBI
investigation last week.
For anyone who cares to look, the real problem here is that
the FBI itself is so thoroughly implicated in the Russia
meddling story.
The agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it, soft-pedaled an
investigation highly embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as well
as the Obama Russia reset policy. More recently, if just
one of two things is true—Russia sponsored the Trump
Dossier, or Russian fake intelligence prompted Mr.
Comey’s email intervention—then Russian operations, via
their impact on the FBI, influenced and continue to
influence our politics in a way far more consequential than
any Facebook ad, the preoccupation of John McCain, who
apparently cannot behold a mountain if there’s a molehill
anywhere nearby.
Which means that Mr. Mueller has the means, motive and
opportunity to obfuscate and distract from matters
embarrassing to the FBI, while pleasing a large part of the
political spectrum. He need only confine his focus to the
flimsy, disingenuous but popular (with the media)
accusation that the shambolic Trump campaign colluded
with the Kremlin.
Mr. Mueller’s tenure may not have bridged the two
investigations, but James Comey’s, Rod Rosenstein’s ,
Andrew Weissmann’s , and Andrew McCabe’s did. Mr.
Rosenstein appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel. Mr.
Weissmann now serves on Mr. Mueller’s team. Mr.
McCabe remains deputy FBI director. All were involved in
the nuclear racketeering matter and the Russia meddling
matter.
29
Let’s stop here.
All this needs to be sorted out, but not in a spirit of panic
and hysteria. We are a prosperous, successful country, in
pretty good shape right now by historical standards, even if
our officials behave in the frequently dubious, self-
interested way they always have.
But still: By any normal evidentiary, probative or
journalistic measure, the big story here is the FBI—its
politicized handling of Russian matters, and not
competently so.
To put it bluntly, whatever its hip-pocket rationales along
the way, the FBI would not have so much to cover up now
if it had not helped give us Mrs. Clinton as Democratic
nominee and then, in all likelihood, inadvertently helped
Mr. Trump to the presidency.
Appeared in the October 25, 2017, print edition.
 The Trump Dossier Was
Clinton’s Dirtiest Political Trick
By Michael Goodwin
October 24, 2017 | 9:45pm

The explosive report in the Washington Post goes a long

way to explaining how the dossier was so widely spread
among political reporters during the election. The Clinton
camp must have passed it out like Halloween candy to its
media handmaidens.

News organizations tried for months to confirm the

salacious details, but couldn’t. The document became
public when BuzzFeed, a loud Clinton booster, published
it 10 days before the inauguration, while acknowledging it
couldn’t verify the contents.

The Post report provides possible answers to other

questions, too. Because Clinton’s team paid for the dossier,
it’s likely that she gave it to the FBI, where James Comey
planned to hire the former British agent who had compiled
it to keep digging dirt on Trump.

The finding also raises the possibility that the dossier is

And so the worm turns. Make that worms.
what led the Obama White House to snoop on members of
Trump’s team, and leak the “unmasked” names to the anti-
Just as key congressional panels open new probes into the Trump media in a bid to help Clinton.
still-smoking debris of last year’s election, the revelation
that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic
In short, we now have compelling evidence that the dossier
National Committee paid as much as $9 million for the
was the largest and dirtiest dirty trick of the 2016
discredited Russian dossier on Donald Trump flips the
campaign. And Clinton, who has played the victim card
collusion script on its head.
ever since her loss, was behind it the whole time.
Now it’s Democrats’ turn in the barrel.
Anybody surprised? Me neither.
.

30
 Manhattan US Attorneys Join Federal & State Probes Into
Possible Manafort Money-Laundering
By Tyler Durden
Oct 24, 2017 8:30 PM

In what some might call a desperate last minute distraction

from WaPo's real news about Clinton's lies, WSJ reports
that the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is pursuing an
investigation into possible money laundering by Paul
Manafort (the same as the state's probe). In case you are
confused, yes,

WSJ admits this is in collaboration with

the same federal money-laundering
probe by special counsel Robert Mueller
which has so far produced nothing.

So in an effort to clarify...

New York Attorney General Eric

Schneiderman’s office is undertaking the
state’s own money-laundering probe
concerning Mr. Manafort.
While The Wall Street Journal manages to repeat the Special Counsel Robert Mueller is
salacious headlines in its first two brief paragraphs, the rest communicating with Schneiderman and
of the story is padding, history, and filler about Mr. investigating possible federal money-
Kushner's various investigations (of which there is no new laundering by Mr. Manafort (acording to
news). two sources).

The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office is pursuing an Mr. Manafort has previously said he did
investigation into possible money laundering by Paul nothing wrong.
Manafort, said three people familiar with the matter, And now, according to three people familiar
adding to the federal and state probes concerning the with the matter, the Manhattan U.S.
former Trump campaign chairman. attorney’s office is pursuing an
investigation into possible money
The investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern laundering by Mr. Manafort.
District of New York is being conducted in collaboration All we can say is - that's a lot of probes and
with a probe by special counsel Robert Mueller into Mr. a lot of lawyers and will be a lot of
Manafort and possible money laundering, according to two embarassment if they are unable to get
of these people. anything to stick to Mr. Manafort.

A spokesman for Mr. Manafort declined to comment. Mr.

Manafort has previously said he did nothing wrong.

31
 Clinton Campaign, DNC Helped Pay
For Work On Dossier About Russia And Trump
The Dossier Has Become A Lightning Rod Amid The Intensifying
Investigations Into The Trump Campaign’s Possible
Connections To Russia.
By Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett, Rosalind S. Helderman The Washington Post
Originally Published October 24, 2017 At 5:50 Pm Updated October 24, 2017 At 6:22 Pm
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) helped fund research that
resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations
about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia and possible
coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin,
people familiar with the matter said.
Marc Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign
and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C.,
firm, to conduct the research. Fusion GPS hired dossier
author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence
officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence
community.
Elias and his law firm, Seattle-based Perkins Coie, retained
the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign
and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’
research into Trump was funded by a still unknown
Republican client during the GOP primary.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm,
continued to fund Fusion GPS’ research through the end of
October 2016, days before Election Day.
Fusion GPS gave Steele’s reports and other research
documents to Elias, the people familiar with the matter
said. It is unclear how or how much of that information
was shared with the campaign and DNC, and who in those
organizations was aware of the roles of Fusion GPS and
Steele.
The dossier has become a lightning rod amid the
investigations into the Trump campaign’s possible
connections to Russia.
Trump tweeted as recently as Saturday that the Justice
Department and FBI should “immediately release who
paid for it.”
Steele previously worked in Russia for British intelligence.
The dossier is a compilation of reports he prepared for
Fusion. The dossier alleged the Russian government
32
collected compromising information about Trump and the
Kremlin was engaged in an active effort to assist his
campaign for president.
U.S. intelligence agencies later released a public
assessment, which asserted that Russia intervened in the
2016 election to aid Trump. The FBI has been
investigating whether any Trump associates helped the
Russians.
Trump has adamantly denied the allegations and has
dismissed the FBI probe as a witch hunt.
Fusion GPS’ work researching Trump began during the
Republican presidential primaries when the GOP donor
paid for the firm to investigate.
When the Republican donor stopped paying for the
research, Elias, acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign
and the DNC, agreed to pay for the work to continue.
The Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie $5.6 million in
legal fees from June 2015 to December 2016, according to
campaign-finance records, and the DNC paid the firm $3.6
million in “legal and compliance consulting’’ since Nov.
2015 — though it’s impossible to tell how much of that
work was for other legal matters and how much of it
related to Fusion GPS.
After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue
gathering intelligence, but the bureau pulled out of the
arrangement after Steele was publicly identified.
The dossier was published by BuzzFeed News in January.
Fusion GPS has said it did not give BuzzFeed the
document. Officials have said the FBI has confirmed some
of the information in the dossier. Other details have yet to
be verified and may never be.
Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett, Rosalind S. Helderman
.
 Senate Judiciary Chair Calls
For Special Prosecutor Probe Of 'Uranium One' Deal
by Tyler Durden
Oct 25, 2017 10:52 AM

Hillary Clinton is back in the crosshairs

of Congressional investigators after two Earlier this month, Grassley’s committee became the first
House committees launched to launch a probe into the Uranium One deal.
investigations into the circumstances
surrounding the Obama-era Uranium
One deal more than a year after
suspicions of a quid-pro-quo were first
raised by Peter Schweizer in his
infamous “Clinton Cash” expose.

The Hill breathed new life into those allegations last week
when it reported on an FBI investigation into attempts by
Russian nuclear industry officials at the US-based
subsidiary of Rosatom (the Russian nuclear agency) to Last night, it was joined by two House
bribe and extort their way into control of Canada-based committees after House Intelligence
Uranium One - and by extension, the 20% of US uranium Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said
assets it controls. House Intel and the House Oversight
and Government Reform Committees
would be seeking to learn whether there
was in fact an official FBI investigation
into the Uranium One deal, and if so,
why Congress wasn’t informed.

And now that the Uranium One story has found its way
back into mainstream consciousness,

Chuck Grassley, the widely respected

head of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
is calling for the DOJ to appoint a
special prosecutor to investigate the
deal.
In addition, the chairmen of the House Judiciary and
Oversight committees yesterday announced a joint
The thinking is, presumably, if Deputy AG Rod
investigation into the FBI’s handling of a probe into
Rosenstein felt comfortable appointing a prosecutor to dig
Clinton’s use of a private email server after emails showed
into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump
earlier this month that former FBI Director James Comey
campaign, he should be equally comfortable appointing a
drafted a letter exonerating Clinton before the investigation
prosecutor to investigate these serious allegations from the
had been officially completed.
Obama era.
Looking ahead, we wonder if Grassley
"Whoever in DOJ is capable" of launching
will be joined by Dianne Feinstein, the
an investigation into Uranium One should
ranking Democrat on Grassley's
go ahead and do so, Grassley tweeted.
33
 committee who has previously improperly colluded with former AG
expressed support for an investigation Loretta Lynch) or perhaps some other
into Clinton’s campaign-era conduct Democrat.
(specifically whether the Clinton’s

34
 ABC Gives Just Seconds To Clinton
Funding Dossier, Spent Ten Minutes On Don Jr. Meeting
By Kristine Marsh
October 25, 2017 11:23 AM EDT
Wednesday morning, all three networks covered the
damning revelations that broke last night, revealing the
Clinton campaign and DNC paid for the controversial
Russian “dossier” released just days before Trump’s
inauguration. While CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today
Show gave full reports to the serious topic, ABC’s Good
Morning America only devoted a few seconds to the story,
as an end to another report.
NBC’s Hallie Jackson reported on Today this morning:
JACKSON: [H]illary Clinton out on her book tour, is
now a private citizen. But as a presidential candidate,
we're learning her campaign helped pay for research,
leading to a now-famous dossier, looking into Donald
Trump's potential ties to Russia. A source familiar with
the matter, tells NBC News, a lawyer working for the
Clinton camp and the Democratic National Committee,
hired the firm, Fusion GPS, for research services, that
began in April 2016 and concluded before the election
in early November. That research was turned into the
explosive document of unverified and sometimes
salacious claims about the president. It was one of the
big mysteries during the campaign and transition: Who
paid for the dossier, put together by a British ex-spy,
Christopher Steele?
NBC’s Jackson centered her report on the Clinton
campaign and DNC’s involvement in gathering the
opposition research, unlike CBS’s Jeff Pegues who spent
the majority of his report arguing for the Democrats,
saying this dossier still held damning information on the
president:
CBS’s JEFF PEGUES: Since January the allegations in
the dossier have gained credibility in the eyes of FBI
35
agents working the Russia investigation. CBS news
confirmed earlier this year that parts of it were being
used as a roadmap as agents unraveled alleged Trump
connections to Russia. But with new ties to the Clinton
campaign coming to light the President's supporters
are once again calling the Russian investigation
partisan
NBC also was the only network of the three to reveal that
the firm working to gather the information, Fusion GPS,
pleaded the fifth in court last week:
JACKSON: [R]epublicans have long insisted the real
Russia scandal involves who is behind that dossier, which
claimed Moscow was compiling compromising
information about then-candidate Trump. The president’s
press secretary tweeting overnight, “Clinton campaign paid
for the fake Russian dossier and lied about it and covered it
up.” Just last week, after Fusion GPS officials pleaded
the fifth on Capitol Hill, the president tweeted, “Justice
Department and/or FBI should immediately release who
paid for the information.”
However, NBC also gave time quoting both Clinton
campaign former spokesman Brian Fallon and Democrat
Rep. Adam Schiff, defending their actions. “Democrats
say it's not about who funded the dossier. It's the
allegations in it that need attention,” Jackson added.
While CBS spent 2 minutes and 27 seconds reporting
on the story, and NBC spent 3 minutes and 55 seconds
on it, ABC didn’t find the story especially newsworthy,
devoting just 31 seconds to the topic, at the end of
another report:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Meantime on another
front, We also learned yesterday that the DNC actually
paid for some of that research that went into that dossier
that's become so infamous after of course some
Republicans paid to fund it during the primaries against
Trump.
JON KARL: We learned through an intermediary the
Clinton campaign paid for the research that became the
dossier and the democratic party. What we don't know is
who the Republican was and to me that's one of the great
mysteries. It started with a Republican foe of Donald
Trump.
ROBIN ROBERTS: Have no idea.
KARL: Have no idea. We can guess. We have no idea.
That added up to just 31 seconds of coverage from the
network this morning. Yet when the shoe was on the other
foot, and it was revealed that President Trump’s son Don
Jr. had e-mailed and met with a Russian lawyer to dig up
dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign, ABC was
more than eager to report on it, spending 60% of its
newscast and over ten minutes on the topic the day it
broke.
The other two broadcast networks spent endless time
covering the Don Jr. meeting as well. A NewsBusters study
.
36
found that all three networks spent over an hour talking
about the Trump meeting, devoting 62 minutes and 18
seconds to the Don Jr. story.
Yet the media’s fascination with Russian collusion doesn’t
seem to apply when it comes to Democrats. In 2015, the
media all but ignored when the Clinton’s Russia-Uranium
scandal, after it first broke, (before the recent revelations to
that story.) The nets spent just 3 minutes and 1 second to
the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton working
with foreign agents. That’s 20x less coverage than the
Trump Jr. meeting.
Again, as more details broke about that Clinton-Uranium
scandal, the nets initially refused to report on it, waiting 8
days to cover the story before ABC broke it in just a 20-
second brief on Tuesday night’s ABC’s World News
Tonight broadcast.
These numbers prove the blatant double standard from the
media on how they report Trump vs. Clinton scandals,
particularly on working with foreign agents. The media
only seems to care about Russia’s involvement in the 2016
election if Trump is somehow to blame. But when an
actual collusion between Clinton and Russia is revealed, in
more than one instance, it’s brushed under the rug or
treated as just another story.
 A YEAR Of Clinton Lies About The 'Golden Showers'
Dossier Exposed As Hillary's Lawyer Is Under Fire
For Falsely Denying Paying For It
 It's Claimed That Hillary Clinton Campaign Lawyer Marc Elias And Other Democrats Falsely Denied
To Reporters Their Involvement In The 'Dirty Dossier'
 Two New York Times Journalists Say They Were Lied To At Every Turn
 It's Now Established That Clinton Lawyer Marc Elias Arranged For The Campaign And The
Democratic Party To Pay A Dirt-Digging Firm To Produce The Dossier
 'Folks Involved In Funding This Lied About It, And With Sanctimony, For A Year,' Times Reporter
Maggie Haberman Tweeted
By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.Com And Wires
Published: 11:36 EDT, 25 October 2017 | Updated: 11:52 EDT, 25 October 2017

A Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer who launched what

would become known as the anti-Trump 'dirty dossier'
denied involvement in the project for a year as reporters
pressed him for information.

Marc Elias brokered a deal between the Clinton camp, the

Democratic National Committee and opposition research
firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on the president while he
was running for office.

But a pair of New York Times reporters said Tuesday night

on Twitter that Elias and others involved had lied about
their ties to the arrangement.

'Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with Two New York Times journalists blew up on Twitter when
sanctimony, for a year,' Times reporter Maggie Haberman The Washington Post broke the story.
tweeted after The Washington Post linked the dossier to
Elias and his law firm Perkins Coie.

Kennth Vogel, another Times journalist, tweeted:

'When I tried to report this story, Clinton

campaign lawyer @marceelias pushed
back vigorously, saying "You (or your
sources) are wrong".'

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee

funneled money to Fusion GPS through Elias's law firm

The deal began in the spring of 2016, when Elias was

approached by Fusion GPS, and lasted until right before
Hillary Clinton's campaign lawyer Marc E. Elias hired opposition Election Day. When Fusion approached Elias, it had
research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016 to dig up dirt about Donald
Trump, but falsely denied involvement to reporters
37
already been doing research work on Trump for an and had amassed compromising information about the
unnamed client during the Republican primary. Republican.

But the dossier itself was funded entirely by Democrats,
using Elias as a middle-man.
After the DNC and the Clinton campaign started paying,
Fusion GPS hired former British spy Christopher Steele to
do the dirt-digging. His work later resulted in the dossier.
Trump has called the material 'phony stuff,' and on
Wednesday he portrayed himself as the aggrieved party.
Among its wild claims was that Russian officials have
videos of the president cavorting with prostitutes, filmed
during Trump's 2013 visit to a luxury Moscow hotel for
the Miss Universe contest
It also contains a highly unusual and unsubstantiated report
that the call girls performed a 'golden shower' routine that
involved them urinating on a hotel bed as a sign of disgust
for then-president Barack Obama.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed the document as false and

in recent days has questioned whether Democrats or the
FBI itself had helped fund it.

Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch (left) and partner Thomas

Catan (right) took the Fifth last week rather than talking to Congress

President Donald Trump has repeatedly denied the

dossier's claims, including the salacious allegation that he
hired prostitutes in Russia

The dossier, compiled by British spy Christopher Steele, contends

that the Russian government amassed compromising information
about Trump
Trump called himself a 'victim' of the infamous dossier
The president posted a quote on Twitter that he attributed that Democrats helped pay to produce
to Fox News:

"Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research

that led to the anti-Trump Fake News
Dossier. The victim here is the President".'

The FBI has worked to corroborate the document, and

special counsel Robert Mueller's team, which is
investigating potential coordination between Russia and
the Trump campaign, questioned Steele weeks ago.

The dossier circulated in Washington last year and was

turned over to the FBI for its review. It contends that
Russia was engaged in a long-standing effort to aid Trump

38
Trump also has challenged the findings of the FBI, NSA
and CIA that Russia waged a large-scale influence
campaign to interfere in the election.
The FBI and the CIA have said with high confidence that
the effort was aimed at hurting Clinton's candidacy and
helping Trump. The NSA found the same with "moderate"
confidence.
It's unclear what Fusion GPS had dug up by the time
Perkins Coie hired it in April 2016. According to a copy of
the dossier published by BuzzFeed last year, the earliest
report from Steele dates to June 2016.
It was not immediately known how much money Fusion
was paid or how many others in the Clinton campaign or
DNC were aware that the firm had been retained.
Clinton campaign officials did not immediately comment,
but in a statement, a DNC spokeswoman said the party
chairman, Tom Perez, was not part of the decision-making
and was unaware that Perkins Coie was working with
Fusion GPS.
Former Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said on
Twitter that he regretted not knowing about Steele's hiring
before the election, and that had he known,
'I would have volunteered to go to Europe
and try to help him.'
'I have no idea what Fusion or Steele were
paid but if even a shred of that dossier
ends up helping Mueller, it will prove
money well spent,' Fallon in another tweet.
THE TRUMP-RUSSIA TIMELINE
2016
June 20: The dossier is first dated June 20 and had
contained several unverifiable periodic reports made
over the summer, according to Mother Jones. It was
sent in dated sections from a former Western
39
intelligence officer to the FBI and alleged Russia had
enough to blackmail Trump.
It alleged that Trump had been cultivated by Russian
officials 'for at least five years.' It also claimed that the
Kremlin had compromising material related to 'sexually
perverted acts' Trump performed at a Moscow Ritz
Carlton where former President Barack Obama once
stayed.
Dossier also alleged that Trump's inner circle was accepting
a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin on Hillary
Clinton.
July 27: Trump asks Russian hackers to find Clinton's
30,000 emails during a press conference.
July 31: Kremlin weighing whether to release more
information about Clinton.
Late July: The FBI opens its investigation into Russia's
interference in the election, and the Trump campaign's
possible role in it.
August 27: Then-U.S. Sen. Harry Reid sent a letter to then-
FBI Director James Comey and called for a full
investigation and public disclosure. He wrote: 'The
evidence of a direct connection between the Russian
government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign
continues to mount and has led Michael Morrell, the
former Acting Central Intelligence Director, to call
Trump an 'unwitting agent' of Russia and the Kremlin.'
September 23: U.S. intelligence officials began investigating
links between Trump adviser Carter Page and the
Russian government, Yahoo News reported. Page had
extensive business links in Russia and is a former
Merrill Lynch investment banker in Moscow.
October 7: The Obama administration publicly accuses
Russia of 'directing the recent compromises of e-mails
from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S.
political organizations' to affect the US election.
October 30: Reid sent Comey another letter demanding that
Trump's possible ties to Russia be fully investigated
and he cited the existence of 'explosive information'
that the FBI has in its possession.
November 3, 2016: Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev flies
into Charlotte, North Carolina on a private plane.
Trump's plane lands on the tarmac not long after and
parks next to Rybolovlev, whose plane stays in
Charlotte for 22 hours afterward. Trump rallies in
nearby city Concord.
November 8: Trump wins the election to become the 45th
president of the United States.
November 10: President Barack Obama warns Trump
during a meeting at the White House that national
security advisor Michael Flynn, a former U.S. Army
lieutenant general and Defense Intelligence Agency
chief, is a problem.
November 18: During a security meeting in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Sen. John McCain hears about the documents
and dispatches a former US official to meet the source
of the documents and gather more information.
December 9: McCain meets Comey gives the FBI director
the documents, The Guardian reported.
December 13: This is the last date of the memos from the
dossier written by the British source.
December 29: The Obama administration issues new
sanctions on Russia in retaliation for Russia's hacking
of the Democratic National Committee in the summer
and other efforts to interfere with the U.S. election.
2017
January 10: Obama and Trump were both given a two-page
summary of the dossier, CNN reported. BuzzFeed
News then reported on the dossier and published it in
full about how it alleges Trump's deep ties with
Russia.
January 19: The New York Times reported that 'intercepted
communications' between Trump associates and
Russians are being investigated as part of the FBI's
inquiry into Russia's election meddling.
January 27: Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, holds a
meeting with Russian-American businessman Felix
Sater and Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Artemenko to
discuss a backchannel 'peace plan' for Russia and
Ukraine.
February 13: Flynn resigns as national security adviser after
reports emerge that he misled Vice President Mike
Pence.
March 2: Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses himself
from the investigation into whether the Trump campaign
communicated with Russia.
March 4: Without presenting evidence, Trump tweets
that Obama had Trump Tower's 'wires tapped' during
the presidential campaign.
40
March 15: Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, announced that the committee
had not found any evidence to support Trump's
wiretapping claim.
March 20: Comey said he has 'no evidence' to support
Trump's wiretapping claim. He confirmed that an
investigation into Russia's election-related meddling
includes an examination of contacts between Trump
associates and Russia during the campaign.
Late March: Flynn asks for immunity in exchange for
testifying to the House and intelligence committees
investigating Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.
April 1: Trump tweets: 'It is the same Fake News Media that
said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now
pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!'
April 3: Trump calls Putin to condemn a Saint Petersburg,
Russia terrorist attack.
April 6: Nunes steps aside from the Russia investigation,
because he himself is under investigation.
April 11: Page is now under investigation by the FBI who
obtained court permission to monitor his
communications. The U.S. believed he was acting as a
Russian agent.
April 27: The Pentagon inspector general is
investigating whether Flynn violated military rules by
accepting foreign payments from Russia and Turkey,
which is disclosed by a House committee.
May 8: Trump tweets ‘Russia-Trump collusion story is a
total hoax’.
May 9: The president fires Comey from his position at the
FBI.
May 10: Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the
White House.
May 15: The Washington Post reported that Trump shared
highly classified information about Islamic State with
the Russian diplomats during a meeting the previous
week.
May 17: Former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III is
appointed the special counsel to take over the Justice
Department’s Russia investigation.
Late May: Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is revealed to
be under investigation by the FBI. According to the
Post, he proposed a private back channel between the
 Kremlin and Trump’s transition team during a meeting
in December.
June 8: Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence
Committee and answers questions related to Russia
meddling into the U.S. election.
June 13: Sessions denies colluding with Russia during
Senate testimony.
June 14: The Washington Post reported that Trump is being
investigated for possible obstruction of justice by
Mueller.
.
41
September: Several news outlets, including POLITICO and
Buzzfeed, are suing under the Freedom of Information
Act to get records about how the federal government
tried to vet the claims in the dossier.
October 24: It's revealed that Hillary Clinton's campaign and
the Democratic National Committee helped bankroll
research that led to the 'golden showers' dossier on
Donald Trump. Clinton's campaign lawyer Marc Elias
hired research firm Fusion GPS back in April 2016 to
look into allegations of Trump's ties to Russia,
according to the Washington Post.
 Bias: 1,000 Minutes For Trump/Russia
'Collusion' Vs. 20 Seconds For Hillary/Russia Scandal
By Rich Noyes
October 25, 2017 11:27 AM EDT
Here’s one top takeaway from network news coverage in
2017: Sneaky Russian influence in American politics is a
huge story if it involves Republicans/Donald Trump, but a
non-story if it involves Democrats/Hillary Clinton.
MRC analysts have been tracking all evening news
coverage of the Trump administration since Inauguration
Day.
From Inauguration Day, January 20,
through last Friday, October 20, these
broadcasts have aired an astonishing
1,000 minutes of coverage discussing
Russia’s attempt to boost Trump in
2016, and speculation that Trump’s
campaign may have colluded with the
Russians in this project.
Last week, The Hill published new information about
Russian efforts to infiltrate the American uranium
industry, including $31.3 million in payments to the
Clinton Foundation, as well as a huge speaking fee
delivered to Bill Clinton personally, while Hillary Clinton
was Secretary of State. In eight days, the network evening
news coverage of this story amount to a mere 20 seconds
on ABC’s World News Tonight.
According to an October 22 story by The
Hill’s John Solomon and Alison Spann,
FBI agents “were surprised by the timing
and size of a $500,000 check that a
Kremlin-linked bank provided Bill Clinton
with for a single speech in the summer of
2010. The payday came just weeks after
Hillary Clinton helped arrange for American
executives to travel to Moscow to support
42
Putin’s efforts to build his own country’s
version of Silicon Valley, agents said.”
According to the same article:
“‘There is not one shred of doubt from the
evidence that we had that the Russians
had set their sights on Hillary Clinton’s
circle, because she was the quarterback of
the Obama-Russian reset strategy and the
assumed successor to Obama as
president,’ said a source familiar with the
FBI’s evidence at the time, speaking only
on condition of anonymity, because he was
not authorized to speak to the news
media.”
Imagine $500,000 in Russian money being paid for a
speech delivered by Donald Trump or a member of his
family. But Bill Clinton’s big payday has generated ZERO
network news coverage this week, and only a single
reference on ABC’s This Week back in 2015, when the
book Clinton Cash first disclosed the potential scandal.
In fact, from April 2015 through last night, the
Clinton/Uranium/Russia story has been granted only 3
minutes, 21 seconds of evening news coverage — less than
one-half of one percent of the coverage doled out just this
year to the conspiracy theories surrounding Trump and
Russia.
ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News
have been the most intensive, churning out 350 minutes
and 381 minutes of evening news coverage of the
Trump/Russia story, respectively, while the NBC Nightly
News aired a relatively restrained 269 minutes of coverage
since January 20. (Note: These statistics include weekend
broadcasts, when aired in the Washington D.C. area.)
Combined, the three evening newscasts
have aired a total of 5,015 minutes of
coverage of the Trump administration since
Inauguration Day, which means the
Russia story alone has comprised
almost exactly one-fifth of all Trump
news this year.
.
43
There’s no conclusive proof that the Clintons traded favors
in exchange for all of the cash going their way, but there’s
no proof that Trump and his campaign team did anything
wrong vis a vis Russia, either — yet the media have made
it their business to keep the cloud of suspicion over Trump
and his presidency.
Now that they have a chance to be equally zealous in
applying the same standard to a Democrat, it’s obvious
that much of the media’s interest in the Trump/Russia
story has less to do with Russia’s attempts to infiltrate our
government and politics, and more to with a partisan news
agenda.
 Byron York: After Trump
Dossier Revelation, FBI Is Next
By Byron York
Oct 25, 2017, 12:43 AM
Investigators looking into the so-called "Trump dossier"
were not surprised when news broke Tuesday night that
the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC, working
through the Democrats' law firm, Perkins Coie, financed
the "salacious and unverified" compilation of allegations
of Trump collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential
campaign. (The "salacious and unverified" description
comes from former FBI Director James Comey.)
There had been plenty of talk about the Democrats and
Perkins Coie, so much that investigators almost assumed
that was the case. But it wasn't until the Washington Post
broke the story that it was confirmed.
"I'm shocked," one lawmaker joked
Tuesday night. "Who could have ever
guessed?"
And why did the story break when it did? Credit the much-
maligned Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee. The California Republican has
been pursuing the dossier more aggressively than anyone
else, and it was his Oct. 4 subpoena for the bank records of
Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that handled the
dossier, that finally shook loose the information.
But knowing that the Clinton campaign, the DNC, and
Perkins Coie supported the dossier is not the end of the
story. The most important next step is the FBI.
Sometime in October 2016 — that is, at the height of the
presidential campaign — Christopher Steele, the foreign
agent hired by Fusion GPS to compile the Trump dossier,
approached the FBI with information he had gleaned
during the project. According to a February report in the
Washington Post, Steele
"reached an agreement with the FBI a few
weeks before the election for the bureau to
pay him to continue his work."
It was an astonishing turn: the nation's top federal law
enforcement agency agreeing to fund an ongoing
opposition research project being conducted by one of the
candidates in the midst of a presidential election.
44
"The idea that the FBI and associates of
the Clinton campaign would pay Mr. Steele
to investigate the Republican nominee for
president in the run-up to the election
raises further questions about the FBI's
independence from politics, as well as the
Obama administration's use of law
enforcement and intelligence agencies for
political ends," wrote Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-
Iowa.
In the end, according to reports, the FBI did not pay Steele.
But the dossier did not go away. Indeed, in January 2017,
Comey briefed President-elect Trump (and President
Obama) on the dossier's contents.
In recent months, Nunes has been trying to force the FBI
to reveal just what it did in the dossier matter. The intel
chairman issued a subpoena to the FBI on Aug. 24, and in
the time since, not a single document has been produced to
the committee. The FBI and the Justice Department have
spent most of that time talking about possibly complying
with this or that part of the subpoena. But so far —
nothing.
The same is true of Grassley's inquiries.
The new Clinton/DNC/Perkins Coie revelation will likely
increase pressure on the FBI to explain what it did, and did
not do, with the dossier. Certainly Nunes hopes that is the
case. When I asked Nunes Tuesday night what would
happen next with the FBI, he responded,
"Their best option at this point is to bring all
the documents tomorrow to the Capitol."
Of course, he won't be holding his breath.
Republican investigators had two big questions about the
dossier. One was who paid for it, and that now seems
answered. The other was: Did the FBI or other agencies
use any information from the dossier as a basis for warrant
requests before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court? In other words, did, say, the FBI use the dossier's
"salacious and unverified" information to make the case
that the bureau should be granted the authority to conduct
intercepts?
Nunes, as well as Grassley and Senate Judiciary
Committee colleague Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have been
pushing for months for the FBI to answer that question. So
far, they've gotten nothing.
When the Post story broke Tuesday night, some journalists
noted that Democrats involved in the story had been lying
about their role.
"When I tried to report this story, Clinton
campaign lawyer Marc Elias pushed back
vigorously, saying 'You (or your sources)
are wrong,'" tweeted the New York Times'
Ken Vogel. "Folks involved in funding this
.
45
lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a
year," added the Times' Maggie Haberman.
Yes, they did. But the importance of the Democrats'
involvement in the dossier is that it could be one step on
the road to a bigger story. What did the FBI do with the
dossier material? Did judges make surveillance decisions
in the Trump-Russia investigation based in whole or in
part on the dossier? To what degree is the "salacious and
unverified" dossier the source of what we think we know
about allegations of collusion between Russia and the
Trump campaign?
In the end, a House subpoena squeezed the information out
of key players in the who-funded-the-dossier side of the
story. But so far, the FBI has been much harder to crack.
 Journos Downplay
Trump Dossier Revelations [VIDEO]
Amber Athey - Media Reporter
11:39 AM 10/25/2017

Journalists are downplaying news that the DNC and

Clinton campaign were behind the funding of a salacious
dossier alleging Trump ties to Russia, which The
Washington Post revealed Tuesday.

According to WaPo, Marc E. Elias, a lawyer for the

Clinton campaign and DNC, and his law firm, Perkins
Coie, hired Fusion GPS last April to investigate Trump
with the help of Christopher Steele, a former British spy.
The Steele dossier was reportedly used by the FBI to form
part of its investigation into whether the Trump campaign
colluded with Russia. (RELATED: BOMBSHELL
REPORT: Clinton Campaign And DNC Funded
Trump Dossier)

An executive producer for MSNBC’s Velshi & Ruhle was

The most salacious details in the dossier remain
unconfirmed, and the partisan backing of the document
raises questions about its credibility. But, journalists are
now redirecting the conversation away from who paid for
its contents and spreading mistruths in the process.
desperate to pedal as far from the DNC and Clinton
funding as possible in a tweet she sent to the president. She
also incorrectly claimed the dossier was first funded by
Republicans, and pointed out that Donald Trump Jr. once
met with a Russian lawyer in the hopes of getting “dirt on
Clinton.”

Dan Gillmor, a journalism professor, tweeted that “GOP

started” the funding for the dossier, which is inaccurate.
An anonymous GOP donor paid Fusion GPS for standard
opposition research, but bowed out before Fusion ever
hired Steele to create the dossier alleging Trump ties to
Russia.

Brian Fallon, a CNN contributor and former Clinton

spokesman, also conflated the payment for opposition
research with the funding of the dossier. In further tweets,
Fallon insisted the contents of the dossier were the
important part of the story despite the fact that most of it
remains unconfirmed.

46
Jim Roberts, a former New York Times reporter, insisted
that the “real issue” is alleged Trump ties to Russia, which,
again, remain unconfirmed.
On MNSBC, Megan Murphy of Bloomberg insisted that
journalists should avoid worrying about who paid for the
dossier or even the dossier itself, and instead should focus
on whether or not the Trump campaign was colluding with
Russia. But it’s hard to separate alleged collusion from the
dossier, as the dossier is an increasingly central part of the
Mueller’s investigation.
“It’s kind of a dream Trump talking point
now,” she said. “It doesn’t change the fact
of the matter that what’s important here…
is what were the campaign’s connections to
Russia.”
CNN’s John Berman made sure to remind his viewers that
some parts of the dossier have corroborated the Russia
.
47
investigation, although he does not mention that the parts
of the dossier that are most damning to Trump have yet to
be confirmed.
“The intelligence community has
corroborated–whoever paid for it–has
corroborated a lot of the information that
has been in there to begin with,” Berman
asserted.
Adam Entous, who is a CNN contributor and broke the
story about DNC and Clinton funding, called the dossier
“standard practice.”
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow also made the false claim that
a GOP donor was funding Steele’s dossier project even
though Fusion did not contract with Steele until after that
donor stopped paying them. Maddow also pointed to the
fact that the salacious parts of the dossier have not been
“publicly disproven,” seemingly taking the burden of proof
off of the people making wild accusations.
 Trump Rips Clinton Link To Fusion GPS
Dossier As A 'Disgrace,' Says Russia '
Hoax Is Turned Around'
By Judson Berger, Brooke Singman, Fox News
October 25, 2017

collusion with his campaign have boomeranged and are

hurting Democrats.

“The whole Russia thing … this was the

Democrats coming up with an excuse for
losing the election,” Trump told reporters.
“They lost it and they lost it very badly. And
they didn’t know what to say, so they made
up the whole Russia hoax.”

Trump added:
President Trump, in a wide-ranging sparring session with
reporters Wednesday afternoon, blasted Hillary Clinton “Now it’s turning out that the hoax is turned
over new revelations her campaign helped fund a salacious around, and you look at what’s happened
anti-Trump dossier last year – calling the project a with Russia and the uranium deal and the
“disgrace” and claiming the tables have turned on fake dossier, and it’s all turned around.”
Democrats over the “Russia hoax.”

“They’re embarrassed by it, but I think it’s a

disgrace,” Trump told reporters, before
heading to Texas for a briefing on
Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts and a
Republican fundraiser. “It’s a very sad
commentary on politics in this country.” Trump was referring not only to the dossier but the Obama
administration’s 2010 approval of a Canadian mining
In the midst of a court case that threatened to reveal the company’s sale to a Russian firm that gave them partial
dossier’s funding, it emerged Tuesday night that political control of U.S. uranium reserves.
consulting firm Fusion GPS was retained last year by Marc
E. Elias, an attorney representing the Democratic National
Committee and the Clinton campaign. The firm then hired
former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to
write the dossier that contained unverified and lurid
allegations about Trump and his team’s ties to Moscow.

The Washington Post first reported on the connections,

which were confirmed by Fox News.

Trump, though, repeatedly said Wednesday that this

information only came out because the court case would Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends a signing of her
have revealed it. Amid a series of Russia-related new book 'What happened' at Barnes & Noble bookstore at Union
controversies that have Democrats – at least for now – on Square in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., September 12, 2017.
defense, Trump suggested the allegations of Russia REUTERS/Andrew Kelly - RC121E6CA5A0

48
The law firm that retained Fusion GPS reportedly was paid
millions in legal fees by the Clinton campaign and the
DNC.
Sources, however, told The Post that neither the Clinton
campaign nor the DNC specifically directed Steele’s work,
labeling the intelligence officer simply as a Fusion GPS
subcontractor.
The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, stressed
that the current leadership was not involved in the
arrangement.
“Tom Perez and the new leadership of the
DNC were not involved in any decision-
making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were
they aware that Perkins Coie was working
with the organization," DNC
Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa
said in a statement. "But let’s be clear,
there is a serious federal investigation into
the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and
the American public deserves to know what
happened.”
A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.,
who led the DNC at the time, told Fox News on
Wednesday that, “She did not have any knowledge of this
arrangement.”
A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., told Fox
News that the former DNC chair did not have "any knowledge of this
arrangement" with Fusion GPS, or funding the now-infamous
Trump dossier. (AP)
What exactly Hillary Clinton knew is unclear. But Clinton
campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement that,
“I personally wasn’t aware of this during the
campaign.” However, he said, “if I had
gotten handed it last fall, I would have had
no problem passing it along and urging
reporters to look into it.”
49
The Washington Post report noted that while Elias and his
law firm retained Fusion GPS in April 2016, the firm’s
research before that was funded by an “unknown
Republican client” during the GOP primary.
Asked Wednesday if he knows who that was, Trump
teased the media.
“I think I would know but I won’t say,” he
said. “I have one name in mind. … It will
probably be revealed.”
During his Q&A with reporters on the White House lawn,
the president pivoted to a range of other subjects, including
Republican unity as compared with Democratic unity.
“I’ll tell you what—honestly, the
Republicans are very, very well united,”
Trump said, while claiming there’s “hatred,
division and animosity” between Democrats
like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
The president covered immigration, tax reform and opioid
abuse.
Trump told reporters he would “love to do a DACA deal,”
but he needed something “very substantial” to complete
legislation helping so-called dreamers -- listing “the wall”
and the ability to “stop drugs from pouring in” to the U.S.
Trump again vowed that at some point, the administration
would declare a “national emergency” for the opioid
epidemic.
Trump jumped to tax reform, promising an “incredible”
plan.
“We’re going to bring back $4 trillion, I think
at least, from overseas, and that money is
going to be put back into our country,”
Trump said.
He also defended his phone conversations with Gold Star
families, amid controversy over one phone call with the
widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in Niger.
“It’s a rough time for these people. It’s a
tough time. It couldn’t be tougher. But I
have such respect for those families,”
Trump said.
Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., as well as the widow,
Myeshia Johnson, had criticized Trump’s tone during that
call.
 Hillary And DNC
Behind Fake Trump Dossier
By Stephen Lendman - Stephenlendman.Org
10-25-2017
Make no mistake. There’s plenty about Trump to criticize.
Doing it with fabricated accusations is unconscionable -
against him or anyone else.
Politics is dirty business, notably in America, especially
with one-sided media reporting, favoring one presidential
candidate over the other.
During last year’s campaign, US major media operated as
virtual press agents for Hillary, a shameful performance,
suppressing her sordid record, the huge danger she’d pose
as president, blasting Trump relentlessly, a daily
onslaught, vicious and malicious by any standard.
Then it was uncalled for. Now it is for legitimate reasons,
his deplorable policies, an issue I’ve covered in numerous
articles, many more to come as long as he’s president,
calling him out for unacceptable abuses of power.
The so-called Trump-Russia dossier was prepared by
former UK MI6 intelligence operative Christopher Steele.
It contains spurious accusations without evidence,
unverified rubbish alleging misconduct and collusion
between Trump, his campaign and Russia during the
presidential campaign - including phony accusations of
Russian US election interference.
Trump correctly called the dossier “fake news” and
“phony.” It was unjustifiable character assassination, along
with fabricating claims of Russian interference in
America’s electoral process. There was none!
In an earlier article, I asked who put Steele up to his dirty
work? Who ordered it? Who hired him?
Outgoing DNI head James Clapper denied involvement by
US intelligence agencies. He issued a statement saying:
“…I had the opportunity to speak with
President-elect Donald Trump to discuss
recent media reports about our briefing last
Friday.”
“I expressed my profound dismay at the
leaks that have been appearing in the
press, and we both agreed that they are
extremely corrosive and damaging to our
national security.”
50
“I emphasized that this (dossier) is not a
US intelligence community product, and
that I do not believe the leaks came from
within the IC.”
Steele didn’t confirm or deny producing the dossier. He
refused to testify before the Senate Intelligence
Committee.
On Tuesday, a surprising neocon/CIA-connected
Washington Post report headlined “Clinton Campaign,
DNC Paid For Research That Led To Russia Dossier,”
saying:
Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias hired
Washington-based Fusion GPS, a
commercial research and strategic
intelligence firm, to investigate Trump.
The company hired Steele to dig up dirt on him. WaPo’s
sources are unidentified. Fusion GPS was retained in
April. It continued its work through end of October, its
material sent to Elias.
An unidentified GOP donor initially funded the company’s
research into Trump’s background - while Republican
primaries were ongoing.
WaPo:
“When the Republican donor stopped
paying for the research, Elias, acting on
behalf of the Clinton campaign and the
DNC, agreed to pay for the work to
continue. The Democrats paid for research,
including by Fusion GPS…”
“The Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie
(Elias’ firm) $5.6 million in legal fees from
June 2015 to December 2016, according to
campaign finance records, and the DNC
paid the firm $3.6 million in “legal and
compliance consulting’’ since November
2015…”
It’s unclear how much of this was for digging up dirt on
Trump, likely a considerable amount.
It’s also unclear whether the Clinton campaign and DNC
were involved in directing Steele’s work. They denied it.

WaPo said the FBI agreed to pay Steele for information on
Trump and Russia, but
“pulled out of the arrangement after (he)
was publicly identified in news reports.”
Congressional Republicans unsuccessfully tried getting
Fusion GPS to identify names of undemocratic Dems
behind Steele’s dirty work. The firm claimed client
confidentiality, its legal right.
Last week, its officials refused to testify before the House
Intelligence Committee. Chairman Devin Nunes
.
51
subpoenaed its bank records, the company contesting the
order.
The dubious Trump dossier was a key part of the
deplorable Russiagate scandal - a sinister plot to
delegitimize Trump, including phony accusations of
Russian US election interference.
The Clinton campaign and DNC used it for this purpose -
fabricated rubbish to serve their interests, a way to assure
Hillary’s election as president, a failed plot.
He won. She lost. Recriminations continue. There’s plenty
about Trump to criticize without making stuff up.
 Dining In The Swamp
Posted On October 25, 2017
(Not where they went, but somehow the photo seems appropriate.)
1. Saturday. It was a lovely fall evening in DC, around mid
October. Mantiq and frequent Mantiq al-Tayr guest editor
Haifa Wehbe both had something to celebrate that evening
so the two sallied forth for an evening at a fancy DC
establishment with a few friends who sometimes rely on
their advice about things Middle Eastern – but more often
than not, don’t.
Btw, Mantiq and all of the tuyuur here at Mantiq al-Tayr
are thrilled that Lebanon somehow isn’t on Trump’s stupid
fucking banned list. We had previously advised Trump that
if he really wanted to use the list to protect the US he
should at least add Israel to it. Somehow that suggestion
got rejected. But we digress.
No sooner was the group seated than they all ordered
suitable refreshments. Casual observers would be forgiven
if they thought that this group kept consuming these as if
they had all just come out of a one hour steam bath. After a
few drinks and a fair amount of food, none of which was
Israeli hummus, the conversation turned serious.
Trump: Those assholes at CIA have been trying to
deep six my presidency since before the election. I
want to get back at them and really fuck them up. I
have fucking had it. (He then grabs Conway, but just for
a second.)
Bannon: Why don’t you have them release the J
(interrupted by Pompeo)
Pompeo: I have it under control. No worries.
52
Mattis: Let McMaster and me work on it, we have
some ideas.
McMaster: I agree. I’m thinking we should cut their
operations budget like 10% as a warning. If they get
out of line, we’ll arrange for some accidents in the field.
Trump: I like that.
Mantiq: I do too.
Haifa: How about 20%?
Bannon: Order the release of the JF (interrupted by
Miller)
Miller: Why not leak the torture report in full to our
friends at the Jerusalem Washington New York Times
Post?
Trump: No. Torture is not the problem and Americans
don’t care about torture, thanks in large part to our
friends at the Jerusalem Washington New York Times
Post.
Haifa: He has a point there.
Mattis: We could make it look like the CIA was behind
the Las Vegas shootings.
Pompeo: Shit, then why the hell did we make Campos
go underground and tell the Nishamura asshole that if
he spoke again we’d kill him? Of course even a Shas
party member could guess we did it, so I guess it
doesn’t really matter.
(Haifa’s reaction was to have the most expressive WTF
face Mantiq had ever seen.)
Conway: We should release the CIA papers on the
Bowling Green massacre.
(Haifa’s reaction was to have the most expressive WTF
face Mantiq had ever seen, again.)
Mattis: (Talking to himself: Just kill me now.)
 Bannon: Jesus Fucking Christ, just order the release of
the Ken (interrupted by McMaster)
McMaster: Let’s have the NSA release their
conversations about what their deep state fucks were
doing at Comet on Connecticut Ave.
Trump: Now you are talking.
Bannon: That’s bullshit and besides they normally eat
at Bucks anyway. Just fucking release the assassin
(interrupted by Conway).
Conway: Why don’t we make it look like the CIA is
behind Iran’s nuclear weapons program?
Haifa: But Iran does not have a nuclear weapons
program you stupid bitch.
(Note to Shas Party members, that’s one reason Haifa
and Mantiq had suggested Trump add Israel to the ban,
but we digress.)
Trump: Oh, shit. Never mind.
Bannon: Haifa is a good editor. . .
Haifa and Mantiq quickly got the check and paid the bill
for the whole party. Trump ordered a limo through Uber
and once they were all inside the two bid them farewell
and walked off into the cool night autumn air in the
direction of a good DC shisha bar.
When they arrived their good buddy (and also an
occasional Mantiq al-Tayr guest editor) Hasan was there.
Nothing like great shisha, great friends and discussing the
true meanings of iman and hubb.

Mattis: Has anyone here ever read “A Mosque in (The tuyuur here at Mantiq al-Tayr who composed the
Munich?” piece wish to thank occasional guest editor Mulaykah Al-
Alamaniyya for coming up with the title they used.)
(Mantiq and Haifa smile nervously at each other.)
2. Okay, it’s video time. Haifa makes us forget (for a
Miller: It’s too subtle and really beside the point. Look while) how utterly fucked up everything is. Thank you.
Mike, why don’t you take a job here in the White House
and let’s put my buddy Dick Spence in charge at CIA?
That should pretty much fuck them up completely.
We’ve got so much dirt from Comet on those a-holes
on the senate Intel committee that I think we can get
senate approval.

Trump: He was my first choice anyway.

Bannon: Everybody SHUT THE FUCK UP AND

LISTEN TO ME!!!! Release the Kennedy papers, the
Kennedy papers, they fucking killed Kennedy. What the
fuck is the matter with you people?

Pompeo: Steve, you ignorant slut. The papers prove

that Israel did it.

53
 British Involvement In
"Trump Dossier" Needs Further Investigation
October 26, 2017
We noted back in July that the only relevant "collusion
with the Russians" during the 2016 election cycle was the
Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton smear campaign
against Donald Trump:
Hillary Clinton campaign cut-out hires the
(former?) British intelligence agent Steele
to pay money to (former?) Russian
intelligence agents and high-level Kremlin
employees for dirt about Donald Trump.
They deliver some fairy tales. The resulting
dossier is peddled far and wide throughout
Washington DC with the intent of damaging
Trump.
There was never evidence that Steele indeed talked to any
Russian, or really had contact with his claimed sources. He
has been for years persona non grata in Moscow and could
not visit the country.
Yesterday, our assertion that Clinton campaign cut-outs
paid for the dossier, was finally confirmed: Clinton
campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier
Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign
and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to
conduct the research.
… proceed?) at the highest level of the British government:
After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher
Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the
FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to
those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Told ya so ...
Michael Sussmann, a lawyer from the same firm that hired
Fusion GPS on order of Democrats, hired the Crowdstrike
cyber-outlet to investigate the leak of DNC emails.
Crowdstrike and the DNC denied the FBI access to the
relevant servers but asserted that "Russian hacking" was
the source of the leak.
The "Trump dossier" was opposition research ordered up
and paid for by the Clinton/DNC mafia. Most of its content
was obviously fake or patched together from publicly
54
known facts. But it took up to now for U.S. media to point
that out. The fake dossier, paid for by the Democrats, was
used by the FBI under Obama to get FISA warrants to spy
on Republican party operatives.
We noted in January that the dossier was additionally used
by the British and American deep state to sabotage
Trump's plans for better relations with Russia (see original
for source quotes):
The "former" desk officer for Russia in the
British MI6 Christopher Steele was the one
who prepared the 35 pages of obviously
false claims about Russian connections
with and kompromat against Trump. There
are so many inconsistencies in these
pages that anyone knowledgeable about
the workings in Moscow could immediately
identify it as fake.
...
Steele spread the fakes throughout the press corps in
Washington DC but no media published them because
these were obviously false accusations.
Steele then decided to hand the papers to the FBI and to
talk to its agents hoping they would start an official
investigation. He cleared his move (or was ordered to
...
When Steele's first move with the FBI in
October did note deliver the hoped for
results an attempt to stove pipe them
through Senator John McCain was
launched. A "former" British ambassador to
Moscow arranged the hand over:
...
The MI6 is well known for launching fakes on behalf of
the British government.
Even the second, more official handover to the FBI still
did not result in the hoped for publication of the
allegations. But by that time Clinton was widely expect to
win the election anyway so no further steps were taken.
After Trump unexpectedly won the election a new effort
was launched to publish the smears. The Director of
National Intelligence decided (or was ordered to) "brief"
the President, the President elect and Congress on the
obviously dubious accusations.
It was this decision that made sure that the papers would
eventually be published. As the NYT noted:
...
Only after Clapper or others leaked to CNN
about the briefing of Obama, Trump and
Congress, did CNN publish about the 35
pages:
...
The attack was a deep state attempt to stage a coup against
Trump:
After the election the Democrats stopped
paying for new Steele reports. But by then
efforts to make the fake Steele reports
public and to thereby sabotage Trump
policies turned into high gear. McCain had
already been involved in distributing the
report and it was he or the Brits who who
paid for the last fake report Steele
delivered:
Let me remind you of the basic facts about the Dossier--It
consists of 13 separate reports. The first is dated 20 June
2016. That date is important because it shows that it took a
little more than two months [after the Democrats started
paying] for Fusion GPS to generate its first report on
Trump's alleged Russian activities. If Fusion GPS already
had something in the can then I would expect them to have
put something out in early May. Eleven more reports were
generated between 26 July and 19 October 2016.
That tracks with the letter from Perkins
Coie that the engagement by the Clinton
Campaign ended at the end of October.
But there is a big problem and
unanswered question--The Dossier
includes a final report that is dated 13
December 2016. Who paid for this?
Was it John McCain?
The purpose of the final fake report Steele added to the
dossier was to provide "evidence" that Trump was
involved in the "Russian hacking" of the DNC:
55
After Donald Trump was elected, Christopher Steele
prepared an additional memorandum (dated 13 December
2016) that made the following claims:
 Michael Cohen[, President Donald Trump's longtime
personal lawyer,] held a secret meeting in Prague,
Czechoslovakia in August 2016 with Kremlin
operatives.
 Cohen, allegedly accompanied by 3 colleagues (Not
Further Identified), met with Oleg SOLODUKHIM to
discuss on how deniable cash payments were to be
made to hackers who had worked in Europe under
Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign and
various contingencies for covering up these operations
and Moscow's secret liaison with the Trump team more
generally.
 In Prague, Cohen agreed (sic) contingency plans for
various scenarios to protect the operation, but in
particular what was to be done in the event that Hillary
Clinton won the Presidency.
 Sergei Ivanov's associate claimed that payments to
hackers had been made by both Trump's team and the
Kremlin.
...
Christopher Steele passed a copy of the
December memo to a senior UK
Government national security official
and to Fusion GPS (via encrypted email)
with the instruction to give a hard copy to
Senator McCain via David Kramer.
Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, denies to have been in
Prague. The meeting Steele "reported" did not happen.
The intent of this December Steele report was to further
the meme of "Russian hacking" by providing fake
evidence for alleged Trump involvement in it. But the
report is false. Trump/Cohen did not hire "Russian
hackers". Who's interest was it to plant this meme? Was
this a British attempt to divert attention from their own
hacking?
The Brits are knee deep involved in the Steele reports.
There is the hiring of a (former?) British MI-6 agent to
make up the dossier. Who came up with his name? The
dossier was first peddled to McCain by a (former?) British
ambassador. The British government green-lighted
pushing the report to the FBI. It was one of the customers
of the last Steele report.
The source said that Mr. Steele spoke to officials in
London to ask for permission to speak to the FBI, which
was duly granted, and that Downing Street was informed.
The last Steele report was not paid for by the DNC. It was
delivered to British government and to John McCain. The
purpose of this last report was to plant false evidence that
Trump paid for "Russian hacking". There is a strong were they cut-outs for U.S. intelligence circles, especially
cooperation between U.S. and British intelligence. for Obama's consigliere and CIA director John Brennan?

Why were the highest levels of the British government It his time for Congress to dig deeper into the undue
involved in the "private investigation" that resulted in the British influence in this whole affair.
Steele dossier. Did the Brits act on their own initiative or

56
 Lawyer Behind Russian Dossier
Tried To Undermine Bernie Sanders As Well As Trump
By Pam Martens And Russ Martens
October 25, 2017
Marc Elias, Law Partner at Perkins Coie
Last evening, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell
on the already discredited leadership of the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) under its former Chair, Debbie
Wasserman Schultz. The Post reported that Marc Elias, a
law partner at the politically connected law firm Perkins
Coie, retained the company, Fusion GPS, that compiled the
infamous Russian Dossier on Donald Trump. The Post said
he did so on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign and
the DNC. (The current leadership of the DNC has stated
that it had no knowledge of these actions.)
After the Washington Post story broke, New York Times
reporters Ken Vogel and Maggie Haberman Tweeted that
they had been lied to by those involved. Haberman
Tweeted:
“Folks involved in funding this lied about it,
and with sanctimony, for a year.” Vogel
Tweeted: “When I tried to report this story,
Clinton campaign lawyer @marceelias
pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or
your sources) are wrong.’”
Elias is also the lawyer defending the class action lawsuit
filed last year by Senator Bernie Sanders’ supporters
against Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. The lawsuit
alleges fraud, negligent misrepresentation, deceptive
conduct, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty, and
negligence. The amended complaint indicates that more
than 1,000 individuals have signed retainer agreements to
serve as class representatives.
Emails leaked by Wikileaks in July of 2016 show
Wasserman Schultz referring to Sanders’ campaign
manager, Jeff Weaver, as “an ass,” “particularly scummy”
57
and a “damn liar” as her staff conspired in emails to
characterize Sanders as an atheist and his campaign a
“mess.” (Sanders has stated that he is not an atheist.) As
these anti-Sanders emails were flying about, the DNC set
up a joint fundraising account with Hillary Clinton,
effectively functioning as if Clinton had no primary
challenger, despite the fact that Sanders’ rallies had
thousands of supporters while Clinton’s were
embarrassingly small in contrast.
Wasserman Schultz and key DNC officials were clearly
violating their own Charter. Article Five, Section 4 of the
DNC Charter mandates the following:
“The National Chairperson shall serve full
time and shall receive such compensation
as may be determined by agreement
between the Chairperson and the
Democratic National Committee. In the
conduct and management of the affairs and
procedures of the Democratic National
Committee, particularly as they apply to the
preparation and conduct of the Presidential
nomination process, the Chairperson shall
exercise impartiality and even handedness
as between the Presidential candidates
and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be
responsible for ensuring that the national
officers and staff of the Democratic
National Committee maintain impartiality
and even handedness during the
Democratic Party Presidential nominating
process.”
Multiple leaked emails also showed lawyers at Perkins
Coie engaging in strategy that appeared to benefit Clinton
over Sanders.
On July 25, 2016, under the headline “Here Are The
Latest, Most Damaging Things In The DNC’s Leaked
Emails,” Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake called out
an email from Marc Elias, writing:
“A Clinton lawyer gives DNC strategy
advice on Sanders — When the Sanders
campaign alleged that the Clinton
campaign was improperly using its joint
 fundraising committee with the DNC to
benefit itself, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc
Elias offered the DNC guidance on how to
respond. ‘My suggestion is that the DNC
put out a statement saying that the
accusations the Sanders campaign are not
true,’ Elias said May 3 in response to an
email about the issue sent by
communications director Luis Miranda to
other DNC stuff that copied Elias and
another lawyer at his firm, Perkins Coie.
“Elias continued:
‘The fact that CNN notes that you aren’t
getting between the two campaigns is the
problem. Here, Sanders is attacking the
DNC and its current practice, its past
practice with the POTUS and with Sec
Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back
directly on Trump over ‘rigged system’, the
DNC should push back DIRECTLY at
Sanders and say that what he is saying is
false and harmful [to] the Democratic
party.’ ”
According to the Perkins Coie’s website in 2016, Marc
Elias was “general counsel to Hillary for America,” the
main fundraising vehicle for Hillary Clinton’s political
campaign. Simultaneously, Elias served as one of a team
of lawyers from Perkins Coie that represented the DNC.
Exactly how that was impartial to the campaign of Senator
Bernie Sanders has yet to be explained.
.
58
Prior to the WikiLeaks emails being released, a hacker
going by the moniker “Guccifer 2.0” released a DNC
document dated May 26, 2015 – almost one month after
Senator Sanders had declared his candidacy. The memo
leaves little doubt that the DNC had pre-determined that
Hillary Rodham Clinton (“HRC”) was to be the
Democratic Presidential candidate, again in brazen
violation of its charter.
The memo states that
“Our goals in the coming months will be to
frame the Republican field and the eventual
nominee early and to provide a contrast
between the GOP field and HRC.” It further
suggests that the DNC use “specific hits to
muddy the waters around ethics,
transparency and campaign finance attacks
on HRC.” Another recommended strategy
will be to “utilize reporters” and create
stories in the media “with no fingerprints.”
The Sanders’ supporters’ lawsuit was dismissed by the
Federal District Court on September 19 of this year on
highly dubious technical grounds. The plaintiffs have filed
an appeal with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Marc Elias has already filed the paperwork to indicate that
he will serve as Lead Counsel for both the DNC and
Wasserman Schultz in the appeals process.
 "The Hoax Turned Around":
Trump Responds To News Hillary
Funded "Fake Dossier"
By Tyler Durden
Oct 25, 2017 6:49 PM

Responding to Tuesday's WaPo report that Hillary Clinton

was the mystery financial source behind the "Russia
Dossier", Trump blasted Hillary Clinton, calling the
project a “disgrace” and claiming the tables have turned on
Democrats over the “Russia hoax.”

"I understand they paid a tremendous

amount of money and Hillary Clinton
always denied it, the Democrats always
denied it, and now only because it's going
to come out in a court case they said "yes,
they did it" and they’re embarrassed by it,
but I think it’s a disgrace,” Trump told
reporters, before heading to Texas for a
briefing on Hurricane Harvey recovery
efforts and a Republican fundraiser. “It’s a
very sad commentary on politics in this
country.”

Trump repeatedly said Wednesday that this information

only came out because the court case would have revealed
it. Amid a series of Russia-related controversies that have
Democrats – at least for now – on defense, Trump
suggested the allegations of Russia collusion with his
campaign were a "hoax" and have boomeranged and are
hurting Democrats.
Trump added:
“Now it’s turning out that the hoax is turned
around, and you look at what’s happened
with Russia and the uranium deal and the
fake dossier, and it’s all turned around.”

“The whole Russia thing … this was the
Democrats coming up with an excuse
for losing the election,” Trump told
reporters. “They lost it and they lost it
very badly. And they didn’t know what
to say, so they made up the whole
Russia hoax.”
Trump was referring not only to the dossier but the Obama
administration’s 2010 approval of a Canadian mining
company’s sale to a Russian firm that gave them partial
control of U.S. uranium reserves.
“I think the uranium sale to Russia and the
way it was done so underhanded with
tremendous amounts of money being
passed, I think that's Watergate modern
age,” Trump said.

On Tuesday night, the Democratic National Committee

distanced itself and washed its hands of the whole affair,
stressing that the current leadership was not involved in
the arrangement.

“Tom Perez and the new leadership of the

DNC were not involved in any decision-
making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were
59
 they aware that Perkins Coie was working
with the organization," DNC
Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa
said in a statement. "But let’s be clear,
there is a serious federal investigation into
the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and
the American public deserves to know what
happened.”
A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.,
who led the DNC at the time, told Fox News on
Wednesday that,
“She did not have any knowledge of this
arrangement.”
What exactly Hillary Clinton knew is unclear. But Clinton
campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement that,
60
“I personally wasn’t aware of this during the
campaign.” However, he said, “if I had
gotten handed it last fall, I would have had
no problem passing it along and urging
reporters to look into it.”
The Washington Post also reported that while Elias and his
law firm retained Fusion GPS in April 2016, the firm’s
research before that was funded by an “unknown
Republican client” during the GOP primary. Asked
Wednesday if he knows who that was, Trump teased the
media.
“I think I would know but I won’t say,” he
said. “I have one name in mind. … It will
probably be revealed.”
 "The Hoax Turned Around":
Trump Responds To News Hillary
Funded "Fake Dossier"
Michael Krieger
Published: October 25, 2017
I know I must sound like a broken record by now, but Wall
Street owns the U.S. economy and until that’s dealt with,
the American public will continue to be preyed upon
voraciously and lawlessly by some of the most unethical
parasites the world has ever seen. Obama was a historical
disaster on this issue, coddling and protecting banker
oligarchs every step of the way. Trump’s no different.
The latest evidence that things are getting even worse
came last evening when the U.S. Senate voted to deliver
Wall Street another gift on a silver platter.
Rather than summarize what happened, let’s turn to two of
the best resources on such topics, journalist David Dayen
and finance focused website Wall Street on Parade.
First, here are a few excerpts from David’s latest article
published at The Intercept, After Day of Feuding, Jeff
Flake and Bob Corker Join Trump to Upend a Major
Consumer Protection:
With national attention focused Tuesday
morning on a mushrooming feud between
President Trump and Sen. Bob Corker, R-
Tenn., followed by a feud in the afternoon
between Trump and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-
Ariz., the Senate gift-wrapped the biggest
present Congress has so far bestowed
upon Wall Street in the Trump era.
With a razor-thin margin, the Senate
passed a resolution to nullify a signature
61
regulation from the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, which banned forced
arbitration provisions. Such clauses,
tucked into the fine print of contracts
that nobody reads, deny consumers the
ability to contest claims through a
class-action lawsuit, and can allow
banks and other financial institutions to
rip off their customers with virtual
impunity.
Both Sens. Corker and Flake, along with
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., joined in the
effort to give Trump a major win, even if it
will hurt many of his own voters. Consumer
advocates had hoped that moderate
Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and
Susan Collins of Maine would block the
GOP effort. They did not.
The vote was split 50-50, which required
Vice President Mike Pence to break the
tie.
How’s all that MAGA working out for you?
To secure his victory, Trump enlisted an
ex-Wells Fargo attorney, Acting
Comptroller of the Currency Keith Noreika,
and a former bank CEO, Treasury
Secretary Steve Mnuchin, to do the dirty
work. The Senate vote came a day after
Treasury entered the fray with its guns
blazing.
Reminder, Mnuchin was a Goldman Sachs partner.
The House passed its version of the
resolution within just a couple weeks of
CFPB finalizing the rule in July. But
continuing reports of petty consumer fraud
at Wells Fargo, and a data breach of over
140 million customer accounts at the credit
reporting bureau Equifax, made it difficult
for the Senate to proceed. Both Wells
Fargo and Equifax have attempted to use
arbitration clauses in their financial
 contracts to force victims out of class- political world was distracted by the health
action litigation. care debate, but that didn’t work. It took
shifting the framing of the rule from being
The scandals put a human face on the
about victims to being about trial lawyers
practice of companies forcing customer
for Senate Republicans to succeed.
disputes through a secret, non-judicial
process.
And consumers typically don’t fare well in
arbitration. An Economic Policy Institute
report showed that consumers only win
9 percent of arbitration cases, and
banks almost always win when they
issue counter-claims, with the
consumer paying $7,725 on average.
This is why corporations like the arbitration
process – it prevents those wronged from Supporters of the CFPB rule like Public
pursuing their legal rights and in practice Citizen’s Robert Weissman called the vote
alters the law by making small claims a choice “between corporate donors and
virtually unenforceable. In other words, constituents.” Amanda Werner, who gained
arbitration clauses are a license to steal. notoriety for dressing as the Monopoly Man
And it contributes to a fundamental during Senate hearings on Wells Fargo and
breakdown of the justice system, where Equifax, notes that lawmakers opposing
complaints can only be heard in a the arbitration rule received over $100
privatized setting. million in campaign contributions from
the financial industry during their
So in July, in a rare instance of government
careers. “These contributions help explain
using an outright ban instead of requiring
why lawmakers are willing to aid and abet
disclosure or some other half-measure,
big banks in ripping off their own
CFPB finished a rule preventing arbitration
constituents despite overwhelming
agreements in financial contracts from
bipartisan support for the rule,” Werner said
stopping consumers who band together
in a statement to The Intercept.
with other victims in a class-action lawsuit.
But Republicans managed to twist the The Chamber of Commerce and other
issue into one where corporations needed financial lobbyists had joined together to
to be protected from greedy trial lawyers. sue CFPB over the rule, but with the
Senate’s successful vote, that will no
First, Office of the Comptroller of the
longer be necessary. President Trump is
Currency head Keith Noreika, himself a
expected to sign the resolution. Not only
former defense lawyer for Wells Fargo who
would that nullify the arbitration rule, but
tried to push class-action suits into
CFPB would be unable to work on any
arbitration, argued the rule posed “safety
“substantially similar” regulation without
and soundness” concerns for banks and
express consent from Congress.
would raise the cost of credit. Then this
week, the Treasury Department, relying
heavily on a discredited claim that
plaintiff attorneys routinely shake down
corporations with meritless claims,
published a 17-page report attacking the
CFPB rule.

Yes, because clearly the big problem in American society

is corporations being shaken down. Have you looked at
corporate profit margins lately?

The attacks from Trump’s executive

agencies on a fellow regulator gave
Senators the cover they needed to side
with Wells Fargo and Equifax over their
customers. The Senate first tried to sneak
in a vote on the resolution when the
62

As usual, there’s more. For that, let’s turn to Wall Street on
Parade’s article, Mike Pence Secures the No Law Zone
Around Wall Street:
Wall Street is the only industry in
America that contractually bans both its
customers and its employees from
accessing the nation’s courts as a
condition of opening an account or
getting a job there. (That’s likely because
it’s also the only industry that has the
brazenness to let the top lawyers of the
largest Wall Street banks meet in secret
each year to plan their strategies for
keeping their no law zone in force.)
Instead of being able to go to court with a
claim of fraud (if you’re a customer), or a
claim for labor law violations, like failure to
pay overtime or sexual harassment (if
you’re an employee), Wall Street makes its
customers and employees sign an
agreement to take all such claims into an
industry-run or privately-run arbitration
system.
These private justice systems are not
cheaper and fairer as Wall Street’s shills
(like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce)
insist. Fees can run into tens of thousands
of dollars as opposed to a few hundred
dollars to file in court; and study after study
has found that arbitrators most often rule in
favor of the corporate interest over the
consumer.
What Wall Street and its army of lawyers
like most about these private justice
systems is that they are dark. Unlike a
public courtroom, the press and the public
are not allowed to attend the hearings.
There are no publicly available transcripts
of the hearings as there would be in court.
Arbitrators are instructed that they do not
have to follow legal precedent or case law
.
63
but can rule from their gut; they are not
required to write reasoned and detailed
decisions so that an appeal of their findings
can be made. In fact, it is next to
impossible to bring a court appeal of an
arbitration ruling because Wall Street’s
biggest law firms have spent decades
convincing the courts that these decisions
must be permanently binding.
Another fatal flaw in these private
justice systems is that there is no jury
selection from a large public pool of
random citizens but rather a repeat-
player pool of highly compensated
arbitrators.
Wall Street’s own industry-run arbitration
system also makes good use of the repeat
player advantage. On July 20, 2000 the
Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association
(PIABA) issued a press release accusing
the National Association of Securities
Dealers (NASD) of rigging its computerized
system of selecting arbitrators. The
statement read: “In direct and flagrant
violation of federal law, the NASD
systematically evaded the Securities and
Exchange Commission approved ‘Neutral
List Selection System’ arbitration rule
requiring arbitrators to be selected on a
rotating basis. Instead, the NASD secretly
programmed its computers to select some
arbitrators on a seniority basis – just what
the rule was designed to prevent.”
PIABA discovered the manipulation when a
team of its attorneys demanded a test of
the selection system at an NASD/PIABA
meeting in Chicago on June 27, 2000.
PIABA predicted that “this rule violation
tainted hundreds or even thousands of
compulsory securities arbitrations – many
still ongoing. In every such instance, the
substantive rights of public investors to a
neutral panel have been cynically violated.
Many public investors were thus twice
cheated: first, by an NASD member firm
that fraudulently conned them out of their
life’s savings, and second by the NASD
Arbitration Department’s rigged panels.”
I may not know much, but I know this won’t make
America great.
 Pressure Building On Mueller To RECUSE
Himself From Trump Probe After Uranium One Fallout
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 25, 2017
There is much to still sort out and questions to be
answered, but it seems clear Mueller is too compromised
to continue in his role.
(National Sentinel) Russia Hoax: New pressure is being
put on special counsel Robert Mueller to recuse himself
from his investigation of alleged “collusion” between
President Donald J. Trump and the Russian government
during last year’s election after it has been learned the FBI
and Justice Department had been politicized under the
Obama administration.
Mueller was director of the FBI when the bureau got wind
of racketeering and bribery among Russian operatives and
U.S. nuclear industry officials, as the Kremlin worked to
secure additional uranium for itself.
But, according to reporting by The Hill, the FBI failed to
pursue prosecution of the crimes and instead remained
silent as the Obama administration approved the sale of
Uranium One to Russia, and with it one-fifth of all strategy
U.S. uranium.
In addition, the FBI had uncovered evidence that Russians
and others with interests in the Uranium One sale were
funneling money in the form of kickbacks, gratuity and
donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton while the latter was
Barack Obama’s secretary of state and had a role in
approving the sale. In all, reports noted that $145 million
flowed into the Clinton Foundation.
.
64
As further noted by The Wall Street Journal:
For anyone who cares to look, the real
problem here is that the FBI itself is so
thoroughly implicated in the Russia
meddling story.
The agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it,
soft-pedaled an investigation highly
embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as well as the
Obama Russia reset policy. More recently,
if just one of two things is true—Russia
sponsored the Trump Dossier, or Russian
fake intelligence prompted Mr. Comey’s
email intervention—then Russian
operations, via their impact on the FBI,
influenced and continue to influence our
politics in a way far more consequential
than any Facebook ad, the preoccupation
of John McCain, who apparently cannot
behold a mountain if there’s a molehill
anywhere nearby.
Which means that Mr. Mueller has the
means, motive and opportunity to
obfuscate and distract from matters
embarrassing to the FBI, while pleasing a
large part of the political spectrum. He
need only confine his focus to the flimsy,
disingenuous but popular (with the media)
accusation that the shambolic Trump
campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
There is much to still sort out and questions to be
answered.
But just based on what has been reported
thus far — much of it leaked for what are
no doubt also political reasons — indicates
that Mueller should never have been
appointed to look into anything having to do
with Russia and potential ‘collusion.’
 Trump On Whether He's Uncivil:
'I Went To An Ivy League College...
I'm A Very Intelligent Person'
By Bridget Johnson
October 25, 2017
President Trump talks to reporters before boarding Marine One to
depart from the White House on Oct. 25, 2017. (Olivier Douliery/
Abaca Press/Sipa via AP Images)
WASHINGTON -- President Trump told reporters outside
the White House today that "the press makes me more
uncivil than I am" after Tuesday's comments from Sens.
Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that
Trump's incivility and other qualities were "debasing" the
office of the president.
"You know, people don't understand -- I
went to an Ivy League college, I was a nice
student, I did very well, I'm a very intelligent
person," Trump said. "The fact is, I think -- I
really believe -- I think the press creates a
different image of Donald Trump than the
real person."
Trump began his college career at Fordham University
before transferring two years later to the Wharton School
of the University of Pennsylvania, which is Ivy League.
He added that he thinks
"it's always OK, when somebody says
something about you that's false, I think it's
always OK to counterpunch or to fight
back."
Trump also elaborated on the counterterrorism mission in
Niger in which four U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush
earlier this month, stressing that
65
"my generals and my military, they have
decision-making ability."
"As far as the incident that we're talking
about, I've been seeing it just like you've
been seeing it. I've been getting reports,"
he said. "They have to meet the enemy and
they meet them tough, and that's what
happens."
Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Wash., Staff
Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio, and
Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Ga., were killed
in action.
Two days later, the body of another American who had
been listed as missing after the attack was located about a
mile from the attack site by Nigerien forces: Sgt. La David
T. Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Fla. Widow Myeshia
Johnson confirmed Rep. Frederica Wilson's (D-
Fla.) account of last week's condolence call regarding the
death of Sgt. La David Johnson in Niger.
"I heard him stumbling on trying to
remember my husband's name, and that's
what hurt me the most, because if my
husband is out here fighting for our country
and he risked his life for our country, why
can't you remember his name?"
Johnson told ABC in her first interview.
"That's what made me upset and cry even
more, because my husband was an
awesome soldier."
Trump said today that he was "extremely
nice to her" and "she sounds like a lovely
lady."
"I've never seen her. I've never met her, but
she sounds likes a lovely lady. But I was
extremely nice to her. I was extremely
courteous, as I was to everyone else. You
know, it's interesting, you folks have called
many people that I spoke to. Everybody
has said unbelievable, good thing about
me, but you never report that," he added.
 "I can only say this: I was really nice to her.
I respect her. I respect her family. I
certainly respect La David, who -- I, by the
way, called La David right from the
beginning. Just so you understand, they
put a chart in front -- 'La David.' It says, La
David Johnson," Trump continued. "So I
called right from the beginning. There's no
hesitation. One of the great memories of all
time. There was no hesitation. I think she's
a fantastic woman. I was extremely nice to
her, extremely respectful."
.
66
Trump was also asked if he supports a solution for the
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, covering
certain illegal immigrants brought to the country as
children, in the budget plan.
"We're looking at DACA. We have to get
something for it, but we are looking at
DACA," he replied. "And we'll see what
happens. I would love to do a DACA deal,
but we have to get something very
substantial for it, including the wall,
including security, including a strong
border. We have to be able to stop drugs
from pouring into our nation."
 The Dominoes Are Falling
As President Trump Starts Taking The Deep State Down -
'Virtual Bombs Are Exploding In Their Faces'
By Susan Duclos - All News PipeLine
October 25, 2017
We are witnessing the biggest take down of globalists and
the much talked about "Deep State" in history, all
happening as we watch one domino after another fall.
Sean Hannity is fond of saying and tweeting, "Tick Tock"
and "Boom" and perhaps that is the best analogy to date of
what we have been watching over the past month as virtual
bombs are exploding, one after another, in the faces of the
globalists in the entertainment business, then the liberal
biased media industry, then the political world, and now a
few just went off in the faces of the Clintons, the FBI,
traitorous John McCain, the DNC and the whole Deep
State apparatus.
ONE BY ONE THEY ARE ALL BEING
EXPOSED AND BROUGHT DOWN
ANP readers are already aware of the whole
"Harveywood" sex scandals that has rocked an industry
full of globalism supporters that for years have claimed
some type of moral superiority that gives them the right to
use their fame and celebrity status to attempt to control the
population, telling people who they should and shouldn't
vote for, what causes are just, what social justice activism
we should all be participating in, etc....
Readers are also aware that the next industry that was put
into the crosshairs was the liberal mainstream media with
the "sh*tty media men" list (which has already received a
few scalps,) so I am not going to go into detail on those,
but they are worth noting because if you take a step back
67
from the information overload that has been coming out
fast and furiously this past month, those two scandals
appear to have been just the beginning of a massive
globalist take down.
Next up...... the deep state and these explosions are even
bigger, as we see even the liberal mainstream media
cannot "spin" the news, nor protect those that they have
been protecting for decades.
I have seen many people wonder aloud in comment
sections across the internet, "why are there still Obama
holdovers in positions of power?" The short answer is
because a clean sweep would have thrown the baby out
with the bath water as the expression goes. In other words,
there are honest, hard working people in many of the
government agencies, and the bad had to be weeded out
from the good.
The longer answer would be that it is not just Obama
holdovers, but deep state members have been inserted into
positions of power for decades by multiple
administrations, and until the public elected someone from
the outside, there was nobody that cared to identify them,
build a case against them, and then start the process of
taking the trash out.
It appears the background work is done and their time is
up...... President Trump is finally ready to take them all
down.
In March 2017, President Trump gave us all a bit of
forewarning about what was happening and being
investigated behind the scenes, when he tweeted
"Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking
into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to
go to Russia, Russian speech...."
Last week, BAM! The Hill exposed that the FBI
uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama
administration approved controversial nuclear deal with
Moscow, as well as reporting that
 "Russian nuclear officials had routed
millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to
benefit former President Bill Clinton’s
charitable foundation during the time
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on
a government body that provided a
favorable decision to Moscow." (The Hill
article here and ANP's report here)
The Hill also highlighted some key players in that
investigation, aka part of the deep state, namely then-U.S.
Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now
serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general, and
then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the
deputy FBI director under Trump, former FBI Director
Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in the Russia
collusion investigation, and FBI Director James Comey.
Two days after that report, while the MSM was still
attempting to ignore, distract or spin what was revealed,
President Trump once again gave us a hint of the next
bomb that was going to drop, when he tweeted
"Workers of firm involved with the
discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th.
Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the
Dems (or all)?"
That apparently set off CNN Editor-at-large, Chris
Cillizza, who highlighted the president's tweet, then went
on to call it a "conspiracy theory with only the loosest ties
to the factual world," on October 19th, the same day.
But even by Trump standards, this morning's tweet is
somewhat remarkable. He is suggesting that a dossier
prepared by a former member of British intelligence
has not only been totally discredited (it hasn't -- more
on that in a minute) but that it might have been funded
by some combination of Russia, the Democratic Party
and, wait for it, the FBI!
Cillizza also wrote
"The bigger issue -- at least to me -- is that
Trump is suggesting that the dossier itself
was funded by some combination of a
foreign power, the opposition political party
and a federal law enforcement agency."
68
Then the condescending little p***k decided to offer his
version of "facts" before concluding "there is no plausible
scenario by which what Trump suggested this morning -- a
wide-scale conspiracy involving three separate actors
across federal agencies and continents -- actually
happened. That we can't (won't?) agree on that seemingly
obvious fact is troubling." (Archived version of that CNN
report in case Cillizza decides to try to change it)
I would refer Chris to the following points:
Point 1: On March 2, 2017, CNN writer Evan Perez
headlined a piece with "FBI reimbursed some expenses of
dossier author, which began with
"The FBI reimbursed some expenses of the former
British intelligence operative who produced a dossier
containing allegations of President Donald Trump's
ties to Russia, people familiar with the matter said."
Point 2: Jump forward to October 24, 2017, when
Washington Post (Archived link here), in a rare moment of
honesty, reported the following:
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic
National Committee helped fund research that
resulted in a now-famous dossier containing
allegations about President Trump’s connections to
Russia and possible coordination between his
campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the
matter said.
Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton
campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a
Washington firm, to conduct the research.
After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author
Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer
with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence
community, according to those people, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity.
Point 3: Via WSJ, in an article titled "The FBI’s Political
Meddling - Mueller is the wrong sleuth when his ex-
agency is so tangled up with Russia."
Democratic political opponents of Donald Trump
financed a British former spook who spread money
among contacts in Russia, who in turn over drinks
solicited stories from their supposedly “connected”
sources in Moscow. If these people were really
connected in any meaningful sense, then they made
sure the stories they spun were consistent with the
interests of the regime, if not actually scripted by the
regime.
The resulting Trump dossier then became a factor in
Obama administration decisions to launch an FBI
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump
 campaign, and after the election to trumpet suspicions globalists and the shadowy deep state members within the
of Trump collusion with Russia. government, are being publicly exposed, while the liberal
media are being forced to report on these scandals or risk
We know of a second, possibly even more proving that they are nothing more than the deep state
consequential way the FBI was effectively a vehicle propaganda arm.
for Russian meddling in U.S. politics. Authoritative
news reports say FBI chief James Comey’s Since Sean Hannity was the one that gave us the "tick
intervention in the Hillary Clinton email matter was tock" warning the night before The Hill report exposing
prompted by a Russian intelligence document that his Clinton/Obama's Russian collusion and bribery, it seems
colleagues suspected was a Russian plant. fitting that on Wednesday, October 25, 2017, at 3:20 pm
ET, he just informed us all that more is coming:
The point here is that once again President Trump
basically told us what the next bombshell was going to be,
letting the media mock and criticize him, knowing the
whole time who was behind the information in, and more
importantly, who helped fund the "Dossier" that former
FBI Director James Comey once called "salacious and
unverified."

When is the MSM going to learn that while the Trump

administration and those working to help him implement
his agenda are investigating, and exposing, members of the
deep state, he is also continues to feed the media enough
rope to hang themselves with, and even further erode any
credibility they may still have left with a dwindling
segment of the population?
Below is Hannity's opening monologue which gives a
good, brief run down of everything that has been breaking
over the last week, and beneath that for those that want
more in-depth detail, is the entire show.

Not only are the Clintons, the FBI, Mueller, Rosenstein,

McCabe, Comey and the DNC now involved in massive
scandals, but remember, other globalists, such as Senator
John McCain, is also involved as it was previously
reported he was the one that handed the "Dossier" to the
FBI, in order to meddle in the election.

Team Trump and certain members of congress that do not

appear to be corrupt, aren't finished yet, as Byron York
reports "Republican investigators had two big questions
about the dossier. One was who paid for it, and that now
seems answered. The other was: Did the FBI or other
agencies use any information from the dossier as a basis
for warrant requests before the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court? In other words, did, say, the FBI use
the dossier's "salacious and unverified" information to
make the case that the bureau should be granted the
authority to conduct intercepts?

Nunes, as well as Grassley and Senate Judiciary

Committee colleague Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have been
pushing for months for the FBI to answer that question. So
far, they've gotten nothing."

BOTTOM LINE

While no one knows if any of the congressional or DOJ

investigations into these matters, and others which are still
ongoing, will be able to yield actionable results by way of
prosecutions, stepping back from each individual story we
have seen over the last month and looking at them
collectively, we see that the time has come and one by one,

69
 Nets Downplay Clinton/DNC
Using Foreign Agents For Oppo. Research
By Nicholas Fondacaro
October 25, 2017 9:25 PM EDT
In bombshell report by The Washington Post Tuesday, it
came to light that both the Clinton campaign and the DNC
paid Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on then-
candidate Donald Trump. In their efforts, Fusion hired
former British spy Christopher Steele who in turn relied on
Russian agents to compile most of the salacious dirt on
Hillary’s opponent. Despite the fact that the Big Three
Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) once spent a combined
57 minutes on Donald Trump Jr. doing something similar,
they brushed over the new allegations Wednesday evening
as though they were of little consequence.
In all, the network evening newscasts spent six minutes
and 31 seconds of airtime covering Clinton’s and DNC’s
connection to the Trump dossier. ABC spent two minutes
22 seconds, CBS a solid two minutes, and NBC had two
minutes and nine seconds, all were a fairly average length
for standard news reports.
But when Don Jr. admitted to meeting with a Russian
lawyer in Trump Tower for opposition research, which he
never received, CBS spent 70 percent of its total airtime
(12 minutes 57 seconds) talking about it; ABC spent 10
minutes 31 seconds (60 percent); NBC had seven minutes
42 seconds (the only network to spend more time on other
news).
Not only did ABC and CBS spend less time talking about
Clinton and the DNC’s use of foreign agents, they actually
tried to further downplay it as either completely normal or
just an “aggressive tactic.”
Both relied on former Clinton campaign spokesperson
Brian Fallon for their marching orders.
“Former Clinton campaign
spokesperson Brian Fallon said the
Democrats did nothing wrong,” declared
ABC’s Brian Ross during World News
70
Tonight. He followed up with a clip of Fallon
on CNN making the campaign’s case for
their hiring of Fusion GPS. “I think it's
important to remember that opposition
research happens all the time in
campaigns,” Fallon said.
“In fact, it's standard practice in
campaigns for both parties,” Ross
added.
On CBS Evening News, correspondent Jeff Pegues was
very nonchalant when mentioning how
“Fusion hired Christopher Steele, a
former British spy who compiled a
dossier containing unsubstantiated
information, including President
Trump's alleged connections to the
Kremlin.”
And in an interview with Pegues, former Marco Rubio
campaign staffer turned CBS consultant Alex Conant
wasn’t too outraged when describing the norms of
campaign research in regards to this case.
“Every competent campaign does
research on their opponent. You want to
know your opponents' vulnerabilities. I
think hiring foreign spies is a very
aggressive tactic, and that's not normal,
but it is normal to do opposition
research,” he explained to Pegues.
No top of the networks downplaying the use of foreign
agents in campaign work, they also failed to mention a
Washington Times report calling attention to a legal
complaint filed against Clinton with the Federal Election
Commission citing violations to campaign finance laws.
“Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the
Democratic National Committee violated
 campaign finance law by failing to
disclose payments for a dossier on
Donald Trump,” The Times wrote.
“The complaint from the nonprofit
Campaign Legal Center said the
Democrats effectively hid the payments
from public scrutiny, contrary to the
requirements of federal law,” they added.
“By law, campaign and party
committees must disclose the reason
money is spent and its recipient.”
In addition, both Spanish-language networks, Univision
and Telemundo ignored all news related to Clinton and the
DNC's connection to foreign agents and the salacious
Trump dossier.
It’s clear that the Big Three Networks were back in
campaign mode as they scrambled to insulate their
candidate from the legal troubles she was facing. The
Clinton campaign and the DNC were caught doing the
thing they hammered the Trumps for, with a more
effective outcome, but their outrage in no way matched.
Transcripts below:
ABC
World News Tonight
October 25, 2017
6:35:29 -6:37:51 PM Eastern [2 minutes 22 seconds]
(...)
BRIAN ROSS: The President today said he was a victim.
TRUMP: I think it's a disgrace.
ROSS: Former Clinton campaign spokesperson Brian Fallon
said the Democrats did nothing wrong.
BRIAN FALLON: I think it's important to remember that
opposition research happens all the time in campaigns.
ROSS: In fact, it's standard practice in campaigns for both
parties.
.
71
REP. ERIC SWALWELL: I think it's important to know who
paid for this dossier. What is more important than anything
is whether the allegations in the dossier are true.
ROSS: And now one question is, which Republican first
started Fusion GPS down the road of digging up dirt on
Trump?
(...)
CBS Evening News
October 25, 2017
6:42:37 -6:44:37 PM Eastern [2 minutes]
(...)
JEFF PEGUES: The law firm that represented both the
Democratic National Committee and the Hillary for America
campaign has confirmed that it paid Fusion GPS in April of
2016 to perform a variety of research services. Until now
some top Clinton campaign officials have denied knowing
who was behind the effort to dig up dirt. Former campaign
spokesman Brian Fallon:
BRIAN FALLON: I'm sure a small group of folks were aware of
the decision the hire fusion in the spring of 2016. But it was kept
for reasons I understand to a very select group, given the
sensitive nature of who they hired.
PEGUES: Fusion hired Christopher Steele, a former British
spy who compiled a dossier containing unsubstantiated
information, including President Trump's alleged
connections to the Kremlin. Alex Conant, now a CBS News
consultant and worked for Marco Rubio's presidential
campaign.
ALEX CONANT: Every competent campaign does research on
their opponent. You want to know your opponents' vulnerabilities.
I think hiring foreign spies is a very aggressive tactic, and that's
not normal, but it is normal to do opposition research.
(...)
 Congress Is Powerless To Stop
Donald Trump From Attacking North Korea
Written By Darius Shahtahmasebi
October 25, 2017 At 2:14 Pm
(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — In April of this year, Donald
Trump launched a missile attack on a Syrian government
airfield in response to a chemical weapons attack in Khan
Sheikhoun. While members of the U.S. coalition in Iraq
and Syria were notified before the U.S. strike — as was
Syria’s staunchest backer, Russia — this was a direct
attack on a sovereign nation that took place without any
congressional approval or democratic debate in any way,
shape, or form.
As Newsweek explained:
“U.S. law states that the president needs
congressional authorization to conduct
military action against a foreign state, but
Trump has already circumvented this
process with impunity. In April, reports
emerged that Syrian warplanes had
conducted a chemical weapons attack on a
rebel-held town in northwestern Syria.
Despite denials of involvement by both the
Syrian and Russian governments, Trump
decided less than 72 hours later to launch
a salvo of Tomahawk cruise missiles from
Navy warships against a Syrian air force
base, without asking Congress’
permission.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s
investigation of the incident alleged that Donald Trump
took this action without even having the intelligence to
support it. Trump ordered the strike before any half-decent
intelligence could possibly have been gathered and
presented to him and his staff. Multiple high-profile
experts have cast doubt on the U.S. government’s claim
that the Syrian government conducted the chemical
72
weapons attack, including MIT professor Ted Postol, who
previously worked for the Pentagon.
One minor detail overlooked by the media is the fact that
Trump ordered the strike while he was dining with the
Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and was forced to notify
Jinping of his decision during dessert.
Why is this important? North Korea’s only real ally
is China. Trump has been berating North Korea for most of
this year yet has stayed relatively silent on his plans to
intervene further in the Middle East against the Syrian
government with only one exception — the April missile
strike and his administration’s subsequent calls for regime
change in the days surrounding the events. Since this
incident, Assad has barely received a passing mention
from Trump himself. (He has also incessantly lambasted
Syria and Russia’s common ally, Iran, but that is a topic
for a separate article).
So where is all of this headed? As Newsweek explained
further:
“The sudden strike [against Syria in April]
shocked the international community and
raised serious concerns about the
president’s ability to attack foreign
countries without legal oversight, many of
which have not been answered since.
Hours after the April attack on Syria, Trump
began threatening nuclear-armed North
Korea with similar action and has been
approaching the crisis with increasingly
militant rhetoric ever since.”
Sometimes, when an international legal principle doesn’t
exist in any formal legal document, an entity will seek to
create a precedent out of thin air, which they can then rely
on in future. By citing the Syrian strike that took place
without congressional approval — and had very little
resistance from American legislators or the international
community (with the exception of Russia and Iran) — the
U.S. might attempt to argue that the precedent for the U.S.
president to launch a preemptive strike against another
country already exists with regard to international law.
This is hardly a legal precedent worth citing, however,
when the U.S. is the only country allowed to do this with
impunity.
Indeed, that is what the U.S. has been doing throughout the
Middle East and beyond for decades. Because our
respective institutions, both domestic and international,
have allowed the invasion of Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan
to go virtually unchallenged, Donald Trump has very little
in his path that can stop him from launching a war against
North Korea.
But what is the result? According to Newsweek,
“Such a strike on North Korea could
have unprecedented deadly
consequences and not even Trump’s
generals could stop him from ordering it.”
The most disturbing element of this narrative is that none
of this was done by accident. As noted by journalist Glenn
Greenwald:
.
73
“What happened to Obama as a result of
involving the U.S in a war that Congress
had rejected? Absolutely nothing, because
Congress, due to political cowardice, wants
to abdicate war-making powers to the
President. As a country, we have decided
we want an all-powerful president – one
who can bomb, and spy, and detain, and
invade with virtually no limits. That’s the
machinery of the imperial presidency that
both parties have jointly built and have now
handed to President Trump.”
To make matters worse, if, indeed, the power to declare
war lies solely with the president and not America’s
democratic institutions (or the U.N., for that matter), it is
not even clear if the U.S. is already at war with North
Korea. If Congress wants the president to hold the power
to declare war, hasn’t Donald Trump already declared
war — or at least threatened it — against North
Korea multiple times in the last few months, alone? North
Korea certainly feels that way, and if pushed, it could be
the isolated nation that decides to strike first. When this
happens, all bets will be off the table.
 Former Podesta Group Executive
Says Firm Peddled Russian Oligarchs
All Over DC With Paul Manafort [VIDEO]
By Zeropointnow
Oct 25, 2017 5:44 AM
Tucker Carlson gave an explosive monologue last night
after a former executive of the Podesta Group
contacted the Fox host with "direct personal knowledge" of
a report that former FBI director Robert Mueller's Special
Counsel is investigating the Washington Lobbying firm
founded by John and Tony Podesta.
The former executive who has
been "extensively" interviewed by Mueller's
team, said the FBI probe is now focusing
on people in Washington who have
worked as de-facto operatives on behalf
of Russian government and business.
To that end, Carlson's source made several shocking
claims about Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group
peddling Russian influence throughout Washington D.C. -
focusing primarily on access to the Obama administration,
and heavily involved with the Clinton Foundation and the
Uranium One deal.
"They are more focused on facilitators
of Russian influence in this country
than they are on election collusion,"
Carlson's source told Fox.
To be clear, a former long-time executive of the Podesta
Group has told Robert Mueller's team the following (and
more):
Details:
74
 Lobbyist and temporary Trump campaign manager
Paul Manafort is at the center of the Russia probe -
however the scope of the investigation has broadened
to include his activities prior to the 2016 election.
 Manafort worked with the Podesta Group since at
least 2011 on behalf of Russian interests, and was
at the Podesta Group offices "all the time, at least once
a month," peddling Russian influence through a shell
group called the European Centre for a Modern
Ukraine (ECMU).
 Manafort brought a "parade" of Russian oligarchs to
congress for meetings with members and their
staffs, however, the Russia's "central effort" was the
Obama Administration.
 In 2013, John Podesta recommended that
Tony hire David Adams, Hillary Clinton's chief
adviser at the State Department, giving them a
"direct liaison" between the group's
Russian clients and Hillary Clinton's State
Department.
 In late 2013 or early 2014, Tony Podesta and a
representative for the Clinton Foundation met to
discuss how to help Uranium One - the Russian
owned company that controls 20 percent of American
Uranium Production - and whose board members gave
over $100 million to the Clinton Foundation.
 "Tony Podesta was basically part of the Clinton
Foundation."
 Believing she would win the 2016 election, Russia
considered the Podesta Group's connection to
Hillary highly valuable.
 Podesta Group is a nebulous organization with no
board oversight and all financial decisions made by
Tony Podesta. Carlson's source said payments and
kickbacks could be hard for investigators to trace,
describing it as a "highly secret treasure
trove." One employee's only official job was to manage
Tony Podesta's art collection, which could be used to
conceal financial transactions.
 fired from the position after less than three months on the
job - two months before the election. Was Manafort
pitched to Trump to leverage his vast DC connections,
only to be fired after the scope of his involvement with
Russia was revealed? Or was Manafort ejected when the
left began the Russian witch hunt?

As iBankCoin previously reported, the Podesta Group

was subpoenaed in late August along with four other
public relations firms who worked with former Trump
campaign manager Paul Manafort during a 2012-2014
lobbying effort for a pro-Ukraine think tank – the
European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU) – tied to
former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych fled from Ukraine to Russia after he was

unseated in a 2014 coup.

Two of the subpoenaed firms include

Paul Manafort’s Mercury, LLC and the
Podesta Group.

White House Access

Visitor logs reveal that Tony Podesta visited the White

House at least 114 times during the Obama administra-
tion, and was said to have had ‘special access‘ to the
administration through his brother, John Podesta,
while lobbying for various pro-Kremlin interests.

During a 2015 interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria,

former president Obama admitted that his administration
‘brokered a deal‘ for the 2014 coup in Ukraine – all while
John Podesta was a West Wing advisor and Tony Podesta
lobbied for an organization which opposed the coup.

Uranium One and Joule Unlimited

The Podesta group earned $180,000 (add up the years from

2011-2015)lobbying for Russian-owned mining
See the entire monologue below: company Uranium One during the same period that
the Clinton Foundation was receiving millions from
UrAsia / U1 interests.

Last week, two bombshell reports published by The

Hill revealed that the FBI –

headed by Robert Mueller at the time –

discovered that “Russian nuclear
officials had routed millions of dollars to
the U.S. designed to benefit former
President Bill Clinton’s charitable
foundation during the time Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton served on a
government body that provided a
While many aspects of Manafort's Russian ties are still
favorable decision to Moscow”
unclear, one has to wonder how he became Donald
Trump's campaign manager, and why he was suddenly
75
 – a deal which would grant the Kremlin
control over 20 percent of America’s
uranium supply, as detailed by author
Peter Schweitzer’s book Clinton Cash and
the New York Times in 2015.
So - after Russia took control of the
Uranium,
the Podesta Group received $180,000 to lobby for
Uranium One during the same period that the Clinton
.
76
Foundation was receiving millions from U1 interests, and
after Russia took majority ownership in the “20 percent”
deal (source – you have to add up the years).
And now, a former Podesta Group
executive tells the world that
the real Russian collusion story starts
with Paul Manafort and the Podesta
Group and ends with Hillary Clinton and
the Obama Administration.
 Ex-FBI Information In Uranium One Scandal
CLEARED By DOJ To Testify Before Congress
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 26, 2017
“We ought to know about [what he knows],
because transparency brings
accountability”
(National Sentinel) Corruption: A businessman-turned-
FBI informant who reportedly witnessed criminal activities
by Russian and U.S. operatives involved in the sale of a
Canadian uranium mining company with holdings in the
United States will now be permitted to tell Congress what
he knows about the deal, Fox News reported.
The witness had been placed under a gag order and
threatened with prosecution by the Obama Justice
Department after he attempted to tell lawmakers what he
knew about the Uranium One sale to a Russian state-
owned nuclear firm Rosatom. But the Trump Justice
Department has now lifted that order, freeing the still-
unidentified witness to speak to Congress about the
controversial deal.
Fox News reported further:
In a statement, the department said it had
authorized the informant to speak to the
leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
House Oversight Committee, and the
House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, in addition to select staffers.
The department said the informant could
provide “any information or documents he
has concerning alleged corruption or
bribery involving transactions in the
uranium market,” including Russian
company Rosatom, subsidiary Tenex,
Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation.
…
77
Uranium One refers to the name of a
Canada-based company with mines in the
U.S. that was bought by Rosatom, a
company backed by the Russian state. The
State Department, then led by Hillary
Clinton, was one of nine U.S. government
agencies that had to approve the deal back
in 2010.
All three congressional committees
launched investigations after The Hill
reported that the FBI had evidence that
Russian nuclear officials were involved in
fraudulent dealings – including extortion,
bribery and kickbacks – as far back as
2009 in a case involving Rosatom’s
subsidiary, Tenex. Congressional
Republicans have since questioned how
the Uranium One deal was approved the
following year by an inter-agency
committee, and sought to gain access to
the informant.
Reports have said that as the deal progressed, tens of
millions of dollars flowed to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s
foundation, as well as the former president himself in the
form of exhorbitant speaking fees.
Hillary Clinton was President Obama’s secretary of state at
the time of the sale, which gave Russia control over one-
fifth of all strategic U.S. uranium, which is a vital
component for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel for power
plants. She also sat on a governmental panel that approved
the sale.
The FBI, who was under the leadership of then-Director
Robert Muller — now a special counsel investigating
alleged “collusion” between the Trump campaign and
Russia — was aware of the criminal activity but failed to
notify lawmakers, reports said earlier this week.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department, under then-Attorney
General Eric Holder, also failed to notify Congress or the
governmental body charged with approving the sale.
Instead, the department continued its investigation for four
more years beginning in 2010, then quietly disposed of the
case.
The witness can reportedly document the criminal activity
he relayed to the FBI during his time as an undercover
informant. Republicans say they want to talk to him about
what the Obama administration knew regarding the
criminal activity and when officials knew it. They also
likely want to know why the Obama administration
approved the sale if officials knew that the Russian
government was behind it.
As for the witness being cleared to testify before Congress,
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck
Grassley praised the Trump administration’s decision.
.
78
“We ought to know about [what he knows],
because transparency brings
accountability,” he told Fox News‘ “Fox &
Friends” program Thursday morning.
Fox:
“The informant’s attorney, Victoria
Toensing, told Fox Business Network
Monday that her client can ‘tell what all the
Russians were talking about during the
time that all these bribery payments were
made.’ The informant earlier was prevented
from testifying by former attorneys general
Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, according to
Toensing, after having signed a non-
disclosure agreement.”
 Former DNI: Steele Dossier Not Fake,
Uncorroborated Parts 'Yet To Be Determined'
By Bridget Johnson
October 26, 2017
DC: Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on 'Russian Interfere
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
said Wednesday that "fake" is not "an accurate
characterization for the entirety" of the Steele dossier, and
"what has not been corroborated has yet to
be determined."
"When we did our Intelligence Committee
assessment, we were aware that the --
there had been research done and that
some Republican candidates as a matter of
fact had contracted through I think Fusion
GPS to obtain what it later became much
known as a dossier," Clapper told CNN.
"That work, as I understand, was handed
off later to the DNC and the Clinton
campaign. So I think this is something that
bears an audit trail by experts in finances
that can track the auditing for this, and to
see who was responsible for it."
"I think with respect to the dossier itself, the
key thing is doesn't matter who paid for it.
It's what the dossier said and the extent to
which it was -- it's corroborated or not. We
had some concerns about it from the
standpoint of its sourcing which we couldn't
corroborate," he added. "But at the same
time, some of the substantive content, not
all of it, but some of the substantive content
of the dossier, we were able to corroborate
in our Intelligence Community assessment
which from other sources in which we had
very high confidence to it."
79
The effort behind the dossier began as a "never Trump"
GOP-funded opposition research project during the
Republican primaries. The donor, PAC or campaign that
first retained Fusion GPS has not been revealed.
After Trump secured the presidential nomination, the
GOPs behind the Fusion GPS oppo effort dropped the
project. It was picked up by the DNC and the Clinton
campaign through law firm Perkins Coie. Fusion GPS
hired former MI6 officer Christopher Steele to gather
information surrounding Trump's Russia connections.
The resulting dossier was passed to Sen. John McCain (R-
Ariz.), who turned it over to former FBI Director James
Comey after Election Day. McCain denies passing the
dossier to BuzzFeed, which published it in early January.
Hillary Clinton reportedly learned about the dossier after it
was published online.
To this date, the intelligence community has not publicly
corroborated how much of the dossier is true. The
document was not included in the unclassified version of
the Jan. 6 IC assessment that found
"Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered
an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at
the US presidential election" and "Putin
and the Russian Government developed a
clear preference for President-elect
Trump."
Investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller met with
Steele over the summer.
Trump branded the dossier "fake" while speaking with
reporters Wednesday.
"I think it's very sad what they've done with
this fake dossier," he said. "It was made
up, and I understand they paid a
tremendous amount of money, and Hillary
Clinton always denied it."
House Intelligence Committee member Jackie Speier (D-
Calif.) told MSNBC on Wednesday that the 35-page
dossier is not the basis of her panel's investigation into
whether there was collusion between Russia and the
Trump campaign.
"It really is a separate and really not a very
specific area that we're looking at," she
said. "That's something that I would think
the Mueller operation through the special
counsel is looking at. But we really haven't
invested time or energy into it."
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-
N.C.) said earlier this month that his panel's inquiry into
Russia's campaign influence operation and possible
collusion "has expanded slightly" as they were still trying
to speak to Steele.
.
80
"The committee cannot really decide the
credibility of the dossier without
understanding things like who paid for it,
who are your sources and sub-sources,"
Burr explained. "We are investigating a
very expansive network of Russian
interference in U.S. elections. And though
we have been incredibly enlightened at our
ability to rebuild backwards the Steele
dossier up to a certain date, getting past
that point has been somewhat impossible...
I don't think we're going to find any
intelligence products that unlock that key."
"My hope is that Mr. Steele will make a
decision to meet with either or both so that
we can hear his side of it versus for us to
depict in our findings what his intent or
what his actions were," he added.
 FBI Informant In Uranium Scandal
Cleared To Testify, Nets Refuse To Report
By Geoffrey Dickens
October 26, 2017 1:18 PM EDT

FNC host Sean Hannity, on his Wednesday show, invited

on the informant’s attorney, Victoria Toensing, to discuss
the breaking news about her client:

HOST SEAN HANNITY: Victoria, let’s start with what we

were asking for last night has now come out. That, in fact,
the NDA, the non-disclosure.

VICTORIA TOENSING: Here it is! There’s the letter.

HANNITY: I love when my guests come with props. That’s

The undercover FBI informant who has detailed evidence
great. Tell us what you got there.
in the Clinton/Uranium/Russia scandal and who was
gagged by the Obama administration, is now allowed to
testify before Congress. TOENSING: Well, I have the letter that you read, the press
release that you tracked, actually the wording is the same in
my letter. It’s just to me and telling me to get in contact with
This crucial development in the case comes on the heels of
the FBI about the process.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley
calling for a special counsel to investigate the Uranium
One deal. HANNITY: Okay. So the process would be that the NDA will
be lifted and the informant and we were told he knew in
2009 and 2010 before the Uranium One deal was done that
But you wouldn’t know any of these facts if you got your
he had overwhelming evidence that he had emails, that he
news from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks. In
had documents, that he has tapes that would show the
fact, there’s only been less than two minutes of coverage
bribery, the racketeering, the corruption, the money
(ABC: 20 seconds, CBS: 99 seconds, NBC: 0 seconds)
laundering and extortion. Is that what we expect to hear?
devoted to the Clinton/Uranium/Russia scandal since The
Hill started breaking new developments on October 17.
TOENSING: Yes. And he can put a lot of meat on those
bones that Sara [Carter] and John [Solomon] have built for
Not only did the Big Three morning shows not cover
us. He can give context and he can tell about conversations,
Wednesday night’s announcement of the informant’s gag
the Russians had, about what they were doing with various
order being lifted, they haven’t even informed their
piles of money and the Uranium One.
viewers of the existence of the muffled informant that was
threatened by the Obama administration.
HANNITY: Where did the money come from, Victoria?

TOENSING: Russia. I’m not going to get into that yet. Let’s
wait until he tells us.

...

HANNITY: Victoria, your client is saying, just so we’re clear,

that the President was made aware in 2009 of all of the
bribery, all of the kickbacks, all of the extortion, all of the
money laundering and Vladimir Putin’s intention to corner
the American uranium market. Am I getting that right?

81
 TOENSING: You are. Well, the FBI told him that that was
true. Now, were they fibbing? I doubt it. They were being
very specific about ‘we’re giving it to the President in his
daily briefing.’ And that was prior to October 2010 when the
CFIUS decision was made.
HANNITY: And kickbacks to the Clintons and the Clinton
Foundation?
JARRETT: Somebody has got to go to jail over this, and not
just the one who’s been convicted and clammed up.

HANNITY: And [former FBI Director Robert] Mueller and HANNITY: Who are the top people that are in jeopardy?
[deputy attorney general Rod] Rosenstein? They knew
about it but they are now investigating Trump-Russia
JARRETT: Well I think Hillary Clinton, anybody at the DNC.
collusion? Isn’t there a little conflict there?
HANNITY: Eric Holder?
TOENSING: Yeah, yeah. It’s really bizarre.
JARRETT: James Comey in particular, because he may
HANNITY: I couldn’t write a novel this bizarre.
have abused his office and he could have done it for –

TOENSING: We deal in appearances of conflict. So, I mean,

HANNITY: Mueller? Mueller knew.
that should be enough right there.
JARRETT: No, covering it up to Congress is a breach of his
Later on in the October 26 show, Hannity brought on FNC’s
duty.
legal analyst Gregg Jarrett to examine how potentially
damaging the informant’s evidence could be for Clinton and
Obama administration figures: HANNITY: He should recuse himself.

HANNITY: Victoria can you tell us that. Did your client save JARRETT: He should recuse himself.
all of the evidence that he had acquired?
HANNITY: Same with Rosenstein.
TOENSING: He has a lot of evidence. I haven’t been able to
get to see it all. But I will do so, now. JARRETT: Absolutely. And Jeff Sessions needs to get off
his duff and appoint a special counsel to investigate –
HANNITY: Wow. Greg Jarrett, based on what we know,
assuming everything that they have been reporting is true, HANNITY: Immediately.
they have documents, emails, tapes, and that millions of
dollars and he knows and he was there. He was four years JARRETT: Hillary Clinton, Comey, Loretta Lynch.
inside this, and they knew in 2009. Are people going to jail
this time? Is this it? HANNITY: Everybody?

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST: I would JARRETT: Everybody.

suspect so.

82
 Leftist Rosie O’Donnell Is ‘Seriously Worried’
That She Will Be Able To Survive Trump’s Presidency
Mac Slavo
October 26th, 2017

When discussing how she felt when she saw her TV say
that Trump has beaten Hillary Clinton to become the 45th
president of the United States, O’Donnell said:

“…I was there and it happened, and I felt

Rosie O’Donnell said her “entire essence and beliefs” were
shaken to the core after Donald Trump was elected
president. In her first interview since his election, she also
said she was in shock that he won, and she is “seriously
worried” about her ability to survive his presidency.
The Trump-hater told W Magazine in an interview that
Trump’s election caused her to need to go through a lot of
therapy.
completely unprepared. I remember that
night before they were announcing who
had won, I saw the Trump children with
their children on TV, and they were on an
Instagram or something. They were taking
a video going, “Grandpa’s gonna be the
president!”
I literally felt such sorrow inside of me that these people
were so deluded. What were they doing with this child to
tell the baby their grandfather’s going to be president?
He’s not going to be president! Are you
out of your minds? Cut to… right? I was
completely unprepared.”

“I was in pure unadulterated [shock] as if I

had fallen through the ice on a lake; I was
underneath the water, and I couldn’t even
see the surface,” O’Donnell told the mag.
“It was a severe shock to my entire
essence and my beliefs in the order in
the world, and also the PTSD of having
been an abused kid in a family.” She
added, “I did a lot of therapy.”

O’Donnell also said she was in “pure panic mode” the

week following the election but is now just “devastated,
disappointed, disheartened, and depressed by the reality of
it.” The Hollywood liberal said,
“I seriously worry whether I personally
will be able to live through” Trump’s
presidency.
O’Donnell has not been quiet about her disdain for Trump.
During the election, she took to calling him “mentally
unstable,” among other things. But Trump has added some
fuel to the fire as well.
83
She went on to say:
“I haven’t done any interviews since he’s
been elected. Today’s the first day of doing
interviews. I haven’t been on television
doing interviews since he’s been elected,
so when I do the press for this show that
will be the first time, and it has taken me a
full year to integrate the reality of him being
a president in a way that I don’t come
across as either so full of rage that no one
can hear my words, or so sad that I can’t
articulate the level of pain. It’s taken a year
for me to get my equilibrium back, to come
back up to the surface, to really go, “Okay,
every Monday is the hope that this is the
last week”—and every Friday is a
devastation. There are people who tell me,
“Oh it’s going to be another year, another
two years,” and I seriously worry whether
I personally will be able to live through
.
84
[his presidency] and whether the nation
will be able to live through it and
survive. It’s a terrifying concept, on the
brink of nuclear war with a madman in
charge. And the ineptitude—the impotence
of people who should be able to stop him
claiming they can’t—is absolutely
infuriating.”
 The Coming Russia Bombshells
A Judge May Order Fusion GPS To Give House
Investigators Its Bank Records.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Oct. 26, 2017 7:06 P.M. ET
The confirmation this week that Hillary Clinton’s
campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid an
opposition-research firm for a “dossier” on Donald Trump
is bombshell news.
More bombshells are to come.
The Fusion GPS saga isn’t over.
The Clinton-DNC funding is but a first glimpse into the
shady election doings concealed within that oppo-research
firm’s walls. We now know where Fusion got some of its
cash, but the next question is how the firm used it.
With whom did it work beyond former
British spy Christopher Steele ? Whom
did it pay? Who else was paying it?
The answers are in Fusion’s bank
records. Fusion has doggedly refused to
divulge the names of its clients for months
now, despite extraordinary pressure. So
why did the firm suddenly insist that
middleman law firm Perkins Coie
release Fusion from confidentiality
agreements, and spill the beans on who
hired it?
Because there’s something Fusion cares about keeping
secret even more than the Clinton-DNC news - and that
something is in those bank records. The release of the
client names was a last-ditch effort to appease the House
Intelligence Committee, which issued subpoenas to
Fusion’s bank and was close to obtaining records until
Fusion filed suit last week. The release was also likely
aimed at currying favor with the court, given Fusion’s
85
otherwise weak legal case. The judge could rule as early as
Friday morning.
If the House wins, don’t be surprised if
those records include money connected
to Russians.
In the past Fusion has worked with Russians, including
lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who happened to show up
last year in Donald Trump Jr.’s office.
FBI bombshells are also yet to come.
The bureau has stonewalled congressional subpoenas for
documents related to the dossier, but that became harder
with the DNC-Clinton news. On Thursday Speaker Paul
Ryan announced the FBI had finally pledged to turn over
its dossier file next week.
Assuming the FBI is comprehensive in its
disclosure, expect to learn that the
dossier was indeed a major basis of
investigating the Trump team - despite
reading like “the National Enquirer,” as
Rep. Trey Gowdy aptly put it.
We may learn the FBI knew the dossier was a bought-and-
paid-for product of Candidate Clinton, but used it anyway.
Or that it didn’t know, which would be equally disturbing.
It might show the bureau was simply
had.
Don’t forget that it wasn’t until January the dossier became
public, and the media started unearthing details. And the
more ugly info that came out (Fusion, Democratic clients,
intelligence-for-hire) the more former Obama officials
seemed skeptical of it. In May, former Director of National
Intelligence Jim Clapper said his people could never
“corroborate” its “sourcing.”
In June, Mr. Comey derided it as “salacious
and unverified.”
Yet none of this jibes with reports that the FBI debated
paying Mr. Steele to continue his work. Or that Mr. Comey
was so convinced by the dossier that he pushed to have it
included in the intelligence community’s January report on
Russian meddling.
Imagine if it turns out the FBI was duped
by a politically contracted document
that might have been filled up by the
Kremlin.
There’s plenty yet to come with regard to the DNC and the
Clinton campaign.
Every senior Democrat is disclaiming
knowledge of the dossier deal, leaving
Perkins Coie holding the bag.
But while it is not unusual for law firms to hire opposition-
research outfits for political clients, it is highly unusual for
a law firm to pay bills without a client’s approval.
Somewhere, Perkins Coie has documents showing who
signed off on those bills, and they aren’t protected by
attorney-client privilege.
Those names will matter, since
someone at the DNC and at the Clinton
campaign will need to explain how they
somehow both forgot to list Fusion as a
vendor in their campaign-finance filings.
.
86
Some Justice Department lawyer is
presumably already looking into whether
this was a willful evasion, which can carry
criminal penalties. It’s one thing to forget to
list that local hot-dog supplier for the
campaign picnic. It’s a little fishier when
two entities both fail to list the firm that
supplied them the most explosive hit job in
a generation.
And there are still bombshells with
regard to unmasking of Americans in
surveilled communications.
If the Steele dossier reports (which appear to date back to
June 2016) were making their way into the hands of senior
DNC and Clinton political operatives, you can bet they
were making their way to the Obama White House. This
may explain why Obama political appointees began
monitoring the Trump campaign and abusing unmasking.
They were looking for a “gotcha,” something to disqualify
a Trump presidency. Of course, they were doing so on the
basis of “salacious and unverified” accusations made by
anonymous Russians, but never mind.
No, this probe of the Democratic Party’s
Russian dalliance has a long, long way to
go. And, let us hope, with revelations too
big for even the media to ignore.
 Donald Trump Points To Hillary
Clinton ‘Collusion’ With Russia
By Charlie Spiering
27 Oct 2017

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

October 27, 2017

Trump appears to be following the narrative that points to

Clinton’s collusion with Russian agents — after her
campaign helped fund the infamous Russia dossier from
Fusion GPS that relied on intelligence from senior Russian
officials.

“If purchasing misinformation from Kremlin

officials as a means to manipulate media
coverage and sway public opinion is not
colluding with the Russians to rig an
election, nothing is,” Breitbart News writer
John Nolte explained in an article today.
President Donald Trump asserted it was
clear that Hillary Clinton had colluded Former Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka spoke about the
with the Russians to interfere with the narrative turn in an interview Friday on Fox and Friends.
2016 presidential election.
“What’s happened right now the whole
“It is now commonly agreed, after many
thing has boomeranged back onto Hillary
months of COSTLY looking, that there was
and the DNC,” Gorka said. “This has to be
NO collusion between Russia and Trump,”
a great feeling for him. Because the
he wrote on Twitter. “Was collusion with
collusion, the Uranium One, the dodgy
HC!”
dossier, it all goes back to the Democrats.”
It is now commonly agreed, after many
months of COSTLY looking, that there was
NO collusion between Russia and Trump.
Was collusion with HC!
.

87
 Top Secret? Clinton Lawyer Kept
Dossier Of Trump-Russia Allegations Quiet
© Afp 2017/ Kirill Kudryavtsev - Us
10:06 28.10.2017(Updated 10:33 28.10.2017)

newspaper's anonymous sources said the two organizations

shared the cost, but they would not provide a specific
dollar sum.

More details have emerged about the activities of Hillary

Clinton's lawyer Marc Elias, who used campaign funds to
obtain the so-called Russian dossier during the 2016 US
presidential election campaign.

The Washington Post quoted a Democratic National

Committee (DNC) spokesperson as saying that Marc Elias,
a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC,

"kept the information about the Russian

dossier project closely held as he advised
the campaign on its strategy."

Earlier, the Washington Post claimed that it was Clinton

and the DNC that funded the dossier which contains the
allegations about US President Donald Trump's ties
to Russia and Moscow's interference in the campaign.

The Washington Post reports that Fusion GPS prepared the

dossier during the Republican primaries for the
Washington Free Beacon, "a conservative publication that
receives financing from billionaire GOP donor Paul
Singer." The Beacon's role was only revealed on Friday
by the New York Times.

When it became clear that Trump would win the

nomination in spite of establishment opposition, its
Republican backers lost interest in exposing it.
The 35-page "Russian dossier" claims that Russia has been
According to the Washington Post, the new donors were "cultivating, supporting and assisting" Donald Trump
the Clinton campaign and the DNC, something that was for at least five years, with the goal to "encourage splits
endorsed by Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie. The and divisions" in the West.
.
88
 WSJ To Special Counsel Robert Mueller: ‘Resign’
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 27, 2017
“He could best serve the country by
resigning to prevent further political turmoil
over that conflict of interest”
(National Sentinel) Compromised Investigator: The
editorial board of The Wall Street Journal has called on
special counsel Robert Mueller to resign from his
investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016
election because he lacks the “critical distance” to analyze
recent revelations about the FBI’s role in the story.
“It is no slur against Mr. Mueller’s integrity
to say that he lacks the critical distance to
conduct a credible probe of the bureau he
ran for a dozen years,” the Journal’s
editorial board wrote. “He could best serve
the country by resigning to prevent further
political turmoil over that conflict of
interest.”
The editorial concerned revelations this week that suggest
the FBI, under his directorship, had uncovered evidence in
2009 of Russian bribery and money laundering in the
United States ahead of a decision in 2010 by the Obama
White House to give approval of the partial sale of
Canadian firm Uranium One to Rosatom, a Russian energy
firm with ties to the Kremlin.
The deal gave Moscow control over 20 percent of U.S.
strategic uranium. At the time of the sale, Hillary Clinton
— who had a role in approving it — was Obama’s
secretary of state. Other reports noted that millions of
dollars flowed to her and her husband Bill Clinton’s
foundation, as well as the former president directly, from
Russian and Canadian interests tied to the sale.
Breitbart News reported:
89
Government Accountability Institute (GAI)
President and Breitbart News Senior
Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer broke the
Uranium One scandal in his book Clinton
Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why
Foreign Governments and Businesses
Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. He
reported that Clinton’s State Department,
along with other federal agencies,
approved the transfer of 20 percent of all
U.S. uranium to Russia and that nine
foreign investors in the deal gave $145
million to the Clinton Foundation.
The controversy re-emerged last week after The Hill
reported that the FBI uncovered “substantial evidence that
Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery,
kickbacks, extortion and money laundering” to expand
Russia’s nuclear footprint in the U.S. as early as 2009.
However, neither the FBI under Mueller nor the Justice
Department told Congress — or the American people —
about Russian operatives’ racketeering charges.
“The FBI also reportedly found evidence
that Russian officials routed ‘millions of
dollars’ to the U.S. to be funneled into the
Clinton Foundation — at a time when
Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of
state and served on the government body
that approved the deal,” Breitbart noted.
And yet, Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein — an Obama appointee — to
investigate alleged collusion between President Donald J.
Trump’s campaign and Russia.
WSJ editors are now that because of recent revelations, the
FBI’s role in hiding what it knew about Russian operatives
involved in the Uranium One deal should be investigated,
but obviously, Mueller can’t do it because he was likely
involved. He ran the FBI from 2001-2013.
Also at issue is the infamous Trump dossier, which the FBI
may have used to justify obtaining a FISA warrant to put
members of Trump’s campaign — and perhaps the
president himself — under surveillance by a political rival
at the height of a presidential campaign.
“The more troubling question is whether the
FBI played a role, even if inadvertently, in
assisting a Russian disinformation
campaign. We know the agency possessed
the dossier in 2016, and according to
media reports it debated paying [dossier
created Christopher Steele] to continue his
work in the run-up to the election. This
occurred while former FBI Director James
.
90
Comey was ramping up his probe into
supposed ties between the Trump
campaign and Russians,” the WSJ noted.
“All of this also raises questions about
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation. The Fusion news means the
FBI’s role in Russia’s election interference
must now be investigated—even as the FBI
and Justice insist that Mr. Mueller’s probe
prevents them from cooperating with
Congressional investigators,” the paper
said.
 Even Obama's CIA Director Thinks
Clinton's Dossier Payments Need To Be Investigated
By Tyler Durden
Oct 27, 2017 8:35 PM

Over the past couple of days, various senior members of

Hillary's team have all come forward to deny any Per the Daily Caller:
knowledge that her campaign funds were used to pay for
the now-infamous "Trump Dossier." Just yesterday, "Well, it’s obviously something that the
Clinton's former spokesman, Brian Fallon, appeared on intelligence committee is going to have
CNN to imply that Hillary likely had no idea and John to look at,” Panetta said.
Podesta, Hillary's campaign Chair, apparently testified to
“You know, knowing presidential
congressional Russia investigators, presumably under oath,
campaigns, they’re big operations and
that he too was not aware of the controversial payments.
somehow the left hand may not know what
Per CNN:
the right hand is doing. And that could be
the case here, but I really do think that
"Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman the committee is going to have to get
John Podesta and former Democratic into this, determine just exactly what
National Committee chairwoman Debbie happened. Who knew what and when.”
Wasserman Schultz both privately
denied to congressional Russia
investigators that they had any
knowledge about an arrangement to pay
for opposition research on President
Donald Trump, three sources familiar with
the matter told CNN.
"The interviews happened before this
week's disclosure that the Clinton
campaign and DNC paid for the
research. Senate investigators may seek
to further question the two top Democrats
and dig deeper on the origins of the so- Meanwhile, and to our great shock no less, it was Wolf
called Trump dossier, one of the sources Blitzer who notes that Marc Elias, the Pekins Coie attorney
briefed on the matter said." and Hillary Clinton general counsel who sent the money to
Fusion GPS, was sitting right next to John Podesta when
he allegedly denied to congressional investigators that the
Of course, it would seem highly unlikely that literally
Hillary campaign had any part in funding the dossier...
millions of dollars could be spent by a political campaign
on "opposition research" without a single senior
representative of said campaign approving such which begs the question of whether
expenditures. Moreover, if that did happen then it raises a Elias had a legal obligation to correct
whole other set of questions about what financial controls the record in that instance.
the Hillary campaign had in place, if any, and what else
her political donations may have been used to purchase Adding further mystery to the “who knew what and when”
that went completely "unnoticed" by anyone who matters. question was the revelation on Thursday that Podesta
testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this
Alas, it seems as though at least one month that he was not aware of who paid for the dossier.
person with ties to the Clintons, Obama's
former CIA Director Leon Panetta, is not But Podesta happened to be sitting next
buying the narrative. In speaking with to Marc Elias, the Perkins Coie lawyer
CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Panetta admitted that a who orchestrated the deal to pay
Congressional intelligence committee opposition research firm Fusion GPS to
needs to investigate "who knew what conduct the investigation that led to the
when." dossier. Elias was general counsel for the
91
 Clinton campaign and DNC. He is also
Podesta’s attorney.
In his interview with Panetta, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer
wondered why Elias did not inform Podesta during the
Senate interview that he was involved in the dossier.
think it does raise an issue that the
committee is going to have to look at
and determine just exactly what knew
what,” he added.
So what say you?

“It certainly makes the situation very Will someone from the Hillary team have to
awkward,” Panetta responded. answer for this scandal or is it just more
"extreme carelessness" that will be
“If you’re testifying and saying you
promptly dismissed?
have no knowledge and the attorney
sitting next to you is one of those that
knew what, what was involved here, I
.

92
 Dossier Proves There WAS Russian
Collusion In Last Year’s Election — By Clinton
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 27, 2017
“As reasonable, intelligent people have
understood for some time, the ‘Dodgy
Dossier’ was nothing more than a political
stunt designed to undermine the Trump
campaign”
(National Sentinel) House of Cards:
The creation of the now-infamous “Trump
dossier” containing information fed to a
former British spy by Russian operatives
and the fact that Hillary Clinton’s campaign
helped pay for it means that indeed
there was “Russian collusion” in last year’s
election.
But it didn’t involve the campaign of GOP nominee
Donald J. Trump, as Americans have been told now
for more than a year, the Washington Times noted Friday.
The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National
Committee hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to
create the dossier. The firm then contracted with former
MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who assembled the dossier.
“The irony: Virtually all of Mr. Steele’s
sources are Russian, meaning Democrats
have been indirectly colluding with Moscow
disinformation to bash the Trump team for
purportedly doing the same thing,” the
Times noted.
The dossier began making its rounds in Washington, D.C.,
and NYC political and media circles in June 2016, but
none of its core collusion charges against Trump have been
proven. What’s more, there hasn’t been any confirmation
by public pronouncement or congressional leak from either
of Congress’ two intelligence committees or from special
counsel Robert Mueller validating those charges.
“That did not stop the Clinton campaign
from attacking Mr. Trump,” the Times
wrote. “Neither has it stopped
93
congressional Democrats, especially
members of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, from reading
the dossier’s sensational charges into the
Congressional Record and on the network
news. Based on the dossier, they publicly
accused people of felonies while knowing
the document remained unverified.”
“It also did not matter that the Democrats’
targets — Carter Page, Paul Manafort,
Michael Cohen and the president, to name
a few — all called the dossier fiction,” the
Times reported.
Or that veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward
called the document “garbage” or that former CIA acting
Director Michael Morell said that the gossip contained in
the dossier came from paid Kremlin figures who would say
anything for a dollar.
Or that three people accused of crimes in the dossier have
filed libel lawsuits.
“As reasonable, intelligent people have
understood for some time, the ‘Dodgy
Dossier’ was nothing more than a political
stunt designed to undermine the Trump
campaign and damage the ‘deplorable’
members of the Trump movement who
supported it,” Mr. Page, who has filed a
lawsuit, told The Washington Times.
The news site Buzzfeed, without substantiating anything in
the dossier, published it in full. That site is also now being
sued.
“If voters knew the truth in early November
2016, which they began to more fully
understand this week regarding the actual
interference in last year’s election,
President Trump’s victory would have
unquestionably exceeded 400 [votes] in the
Electoral College,” said Mr. Page.
Nevertheless, Democrats and many in “the Left-wing
press” continue to vouch for the dossier, “some to this
day,” the Times noted.
 Yes, The Russian Dossier Story
Is A VERY Big Deal And Here’s Why
By: JD Heyes
Friday, October 27, 2017
As expected, there has been the formation of a partisan
divide in Washington, D.C. after reports published this
week revealed that two-time failed Democratic presidential
contender Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National
Committee paid for the infamous “Trump dossier,” which
alleged big-time collusion between the president’s
campaign team and the Russian government.
For a year now Americans have heard the lie that Trump
“colluded” with Moscow to “steal the election” from
Clinton, and the dossier — none of which has been
substantiated — is proof that the current occupant of the
Oval Office cheated with a foreign government to deny
Clinton her rightful place as leader of the free world.
The Democratic Left is pooh-poohing the fact that Clinton
and the DNC paid for the dossier because, heck, it was just
“opposition research” created by an oppo research firm,
Fusion GPS. And you know, political campaigns do this
sort of thing all the time.
Only, this particular piece of ‘opposition research’ was in
reality much more than that, making its financing, creation
and resultant use during the last election cycle and beyond
a very big deal.
First, some political housekeeping. It should be
acknowledged widely that once again President Donald J.
Trump and not his detractors was right when he claimed
early on that the dossier was-
A) a fabrication; and
94
B) a Clinton campaign/DNC dirty trick,
giving him yet another victory over Deep
State forces seeking to topple him at the
earliest convenience.
Still, neither the president nor any American concerned
about the future of our republic should waste any time
taking a victory lap. This bogus document was not only
used as the basis of launching political attacks against the
president.
It was also used as the basis of national
security investigations against the
president and his campaign team, some of
whose lives have now been permanently
ruined, like distant campaign official Carter
Page and Trump’s first national security
advisor, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn.
What’s more, the dossier and its use by the FBI and the
CIA, who relied on it to launch their probes, opens up
many uncomfortable but necessary questions related to the
politicization of U.S. intelligence and security entities
under President Obama. (Related: Congress looking into
whether Obama DoJ used bogus ‘Trump dossier’ to
obtain secret surveillance warrants.)
Some analysts say there aren’t any questions about why a
firm like Fusion would hire someone like ex-British spy
Christopher Steele, the dossier’s author; the point of such
firms is to perform opposition research and feed it to
friendly media outlets. Accuracy isn’t first and foremost on
the list of requirements; information has to just seem
credible enough to be repeated by credulous people.
However, when it comes to the accuracy of information
used by the nation’s federal law enforcement and
intelligence apparatuses as justification for a FISA
warrant, shouldn’t it be paramount — especially when
we’re talking about opposition research pertaining to the
president-elect of the U.S.?
Apparently not or, at least, not as far as Obama and
Democrats were concerned, whose “win at any cost”
strategy has just cost the FBI and the CIA what was left of
their credibility. And that is dangerous because we rely on
the men and women of these organizations to be fair, to be
accurate, and to be right when it comes to the prosecution
of their duties.
And again, let’s never forget that the dossier is bogus. It
was circulated widely, though below the radar, among
journalists all last summer as the campaign heated up, but
because nobody could verify any of its contents, nobody
ran with it. That all changed when Buzzfeed decided in
January to publish it in full. And even though the site ran it
with the caveat that none of it was substantiated, rest
assured the decision to publish was made in order to put
.
95
certain details into the minds of Trump opponents in
government (and out) that hey, parts of it sound true and
sound like Trump so…they could be true.
Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are not
supposed to operate off of “would be, could be”
information. Solid facts and solid leads are the order of the
day.
Or they used to be.
 Trump Slams 'Unhinged' Billionaire
Steyer After Impeachment Ad
By Brooke Singman, Fox News
October 27, 2017

The one-minute ad calls Trump “mentally unstable [and]

armed with nuclear weapons.” It accuses the president of
obstructing justice in his firing of former FBI Director
James Comey, violating the Constitution, taking money
from foreign governments and threatening to shut down
press organizations.

“Like you, I’m a citizen who knows it’s up to

us to do something,” Steyer said in the ad,
sending viewers to the website
NeedToImpeach.com.
President Trump, at left, is slamming liberal billionaire Tom Steyer,
at right, for his multi-million dollar ad campaign calling for Trump's
impeachment. (AP) An aide to Steyer told Forbes that the television ad buy
would be accompanied by a multi-million dollar digital
President Trump slammed liberal billionaire Tom Steyer advertising campaign.
on Friday as “wacky” and “totally unhinged,” after he
launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign calling for According to OpenSecrets.org, Steyer donated to Hillary
Trump’s impeachment. Clinton; Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who has
repeatedly called for Trump’s impeachment; and
“Wacky & totally unhinged Tom Steyer, Democratic candidates for Senate.
who has been fighting me and my Make
America Great Again agenda from Congressional Democrats like Reps. Brad Sherman of
beginning, never wins elections!” Trump California, Al Green of Texas and Waters also have called
tweeted early Friday. for the president’s impeachment.

Steyer and his super PAC, back in 2014, reportedly sought

to raise $100 million to elect allies in the climate change
fight – though they fell short of that goal, Steyer later
denied setting it and Republicans went on to gain control
of the Senate and pick up seats in the House and local
races.

Steyer, a staunch environmentalist and Trump critic,

launched a $10 million national campaign ad calling for
the president’s impeachment last week.
.

96
 FBI To FINALLY Turn Over
‘Trump Dossier’ Documents To Congress
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 27, 2017
“They have informed us that they will
comply with our document requests and
they will provide the documents that
Congress has been asking for by next
week”
(National Sentinel) Conspiracy: Congress — which is
charged with overseeing and funding federal agencies —
will finally get documents from the FBI it has been
requesting for months pertaining to the infamous “Trump
dossier.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the bureau will be
turning the documents over to the House Intelligence
Committee sometime next week.
“The FBI got in touch with us yesterday
afternoon. They have informed us that they
will comply with our document requests
and they will provide the documents that
Congress has been asking for by next
week,” Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill.
He added that Congress expected
“the FBI to honor that commitment.”
The dossier, which was produced by opposition research
firm Fusion GPS, funded by the DNC and Hillary Clinton
campaign, and assembled by former British spy
Christopher Steele, has been a major contentious point
between Democrats who say the salacious information
contained in it is real and Republicans who say it isn’t.
Thus far the GOP has been right, as little in the dossier is
verifiable even after more than a year.
97
The Washington Post revealed Tuesday that Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic
National Convention had financed the research, though
Clinton’s campaign and the former Democratic
presidential nominee herself had previously denied any
involvement.
More concerns were raised after Obama-era officials said
the FBI relied on the dossier as their basis to conduct a
national security investigation into Team Trump and their
alleged improper ties to Russia.
Reportedly the FBI used the dossier to petition for and
receive a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
warrant to put former Trump campaign advisor Carter
Page under surveillance.
Also, as President Donald Trump has correctly alleged in
the past, his offices at Trump Tower in New York City
were also under surveillance. Longtime Trump friend
Chris Ruddy, founder of Newsmax Media, said in March
that eventually Trump would be “proven right” over
claims that the Obama administration spied on him and his
campaign.
If reports that the FBI and perhaps even the CIA relied on
the bogus dossier to obtain the FISA warrants, that will
serious questions about the politicization by the Obama
administration of those agencies.
The Post’s report also detailed how the FBI continued to
pay Steele after Trump was elected. However, they
stopped paying him when his identity became public
knowledge.
Sources close to Clinton said she was unaware of the
dossier’s existence or creation. However, she was
reportedly upset the documents were not shared with the
public until the final days of the presidential election,
according to The Hill.
 Bombshell: Hillary Clinton And The DNC
Colluded With Russia In An Attempt To STEAL The
Election From Donald Trump
Alex Thomas
October 27th, 2017
Fresh off the heels of a shocking report, published by the
Washington Post, that confirmed that the infamous “Russia
dossier” was actually funded by both the Clinton campaign
and Democratic National Committee, an even more
startling revelation has emerged – The Clinton-DNC
machine colluded with the Russians to fabricate and spread
serious disinformation about Donald Trump in a failed
attempt at swaying the election in the favor of Hillary
Clinton.
That’s right, in a literal reverse of what the entire
mainstream media has fed the American people for over a
year, we now have evidence that, either wittingly or
unwittingly, the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid for
what amounted to disinformation that came directly from
“Russian sources”.
Obviously this may seem truly unbelievable to some, but
the facts speak for themselves and there is no denying that
Democrats paid a shady opposition research company to
try and dig up dirt on Donald Trump who then
subsequently hired former British spy Christopher Steele.
Steele then openly used Russian sources for most of the
serious allegations in the “Russia dossier”.
Clinton Lawyer Hires Fusion GPS For Disinformation
According to The Washington Post report, which was later
confirmed by Politico, Clinton and DNC lawyer Marc
Elias hired the “opposition research” (see disinformation)
company Fusion GPS who then outsourced the work to
former British spy Christopher Steele who eventually went
on to release the “Russian dossier” which was chalked full
98
of disinformation, including lurid sexual allegations
against Donald Trump.
The fact that the Clinton campaign would hire Fusion GPS
in the first place paints a clear picture of a campaign
willing to pay for any dirt on then candidate Donald
Trump whether it was true or not. This becomes even more
clear when you consider the history of Fusion GPS itself.
As Breitbart reported,
“Fusion GPS is not some usual-usual
oppo-research firm. Among other things,
the company has been accused of being a
“Democrat-aligned misinformation firm”
aligned with Russia. While refusing to
cooperate with congressional
investigations, including taking the fifth,
Fusion GPS has also been accused of
advocating for “the interests of corrupt
Russian and Venezuelan officials while
hiding its foreign work from federal
authorities.”
The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway also noted the serious
allegations against the company:
At a July hearing, Senate Judiciary
members were told Fusion GPS
helped advocate the interests of corrupt
Russian and Venezuelan officials while
hiding its foreign work from federal
authorities.
Fusion GPS has been accused of illegally
working as an undisclosed foreign agent
and is currently refusing to comply with
federal subpoenas for information on its
foreign clients.
Fusion GPS also has deep connections to the mainstream
media, including the fact that it was literally founded by a
team of former mainstream media reporters who have deep
connections to those currently in the profession.
Again Hemingway notes:
The principals at Fusion GPS are well-
connected to mainstream media reporters.
They are former journalists themselves,
and know how to package stories and
provide information to push narratives.
They are, in fact, close friends with some of
the top reporters who have covered the
Russia-Trump collusion story.
Fusion GPS has placed stories with friendly
reporters while fighting congressional
investigators’ attempts to find out the
group’s sources of funding. Fusion GPS
leaders have taken the Fifth and fought
subpoenas for information about the
group’s involvement with Russia.
Their close friendships with key reporters
on these stories have paid huge dividends
for the firm, although these friendships and
cooperative relationships have not served
the public well.
Former Spy Used “Russian Sources” For Infamous
Trump Dossier
This is where the story turns from shocking to downright
unbelievable, especially when you consider the year long
mainstream media disinformation narrative that claims that
the Russians helped Donald Trump win the election.
The spook working for Fusion GPS, (which was hired by
the Clinton campaign) Christopher Steele, openly bragged
about his sources being within the Russian government
itself.
Buried deep in a report by Vanity Fair that spends
thousands of words trying to pretend that the dossier could
be legitimate, is this nugget that paints a picture of direct
or indirect collusion between the Clinton team and Russia.
How good were these sources? Consider
what Steele would write in the memos he
filed with Simpson: Source A—to use the
careful nomenclature of his dossier—was
“a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure.”
Source B was “a former top level
intelligence officer still active in the
Kremlin.” And both of these insiders, after
“speaking to a trusted compatriot,” would
claim that the Kremlin had spent years
getting its hooks into Donald Trump.
Source E was “an ethnic Russian” and
“close associate of Republican US
presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
99
After “gathering” the information, Steele was then directed
by Fusion GPS to “brief” the media about the Russian
government fueled allegations against Trump.
As The Daily Caller noted in July:
In one, dated May 18, Steele says that he
was instructed by Fusion GPS to meet with
reporters at various outlets in order to
publicize some of the allegations made in
the dossier.
It has been widely known that Fusion GPS
and Steele were in contact with reporters to
discuss the dossier. It has been reported
that rumors of the dossier were floating
around in Washington, D.C. political and
journalist circles for months prior to
BuzzFeed’s decision to publish it on Jan.
10.
[…]
In the response, Steele’s lawyers state that
the former spook briefed several reporters
at the end of September at the instruction
of Fusion GPS, which was working on
behalf of a Democratic ally of Hillary
Clinton’s.
The outlets were The New York Times, The
Washington Post, Yahoo! News, The New
Yorker and CNN.
Steele met once more — and again at
Fusion GPS’s instruction — with The
Times, The Post, and Yahoo! News. Fusion
GPS took part in all of those meetings,
Steele’s lawyers say.
“In each of those cases the briefing was
conducted verbally in person,” the
document reads.
In October, Fusion GPS instructed Steele
to brief a journalist from Mother Jones. The
interview, which was conducted through
Skype, was likely with reporter David Corn.
It doesn’t get any clearer than this. Fusion GPS was paid
by Democrats to dig up dirt, that dirt was then supplied by
the Russians, and subsequently became a major part of the
narrative surrounding Donald Trump and Russia.
“What you clearly have here is the Clinton
campaign openly COLLUDING with a
foreign country, with the Russians, to
fabricate scurrilous lies about Trump, which
were then fed to a willing media as a
means to affect their news coverage, and
by extension, sway the election,” Breitbart’s
John Nolte wrote.
Fusion GPS “Was Acting On Behalf Of Russia”
Amazingly, testimony and evidence already exists that
Fusion GPS has in the past worked directly for Russia and
may have been doing so with the Trump disinformation
dossier.
At a Senate Judiciary Hearing in late July, Hermitage
Capital Management chief William Browder testified that
the company was acting on behalf of Russia after co-
founder Glenn Simpson was hired by a person connected
to lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya to lobby for the repeal of
the Magnitsky Act.
The following exchange between Browder and Senator
Lindsey Graham is shocking to say the least.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: This whole
story reads like some kind of novel that
nobody would buy, it’s got to be fiction, but
unfortunately maybe it’s true. Let’s just
break down sort of why you’re here. You
believe that Fusion GPS should of
registered under FARA, because they were
acting on the behalf of the Russians?
WILLIAM BROWDER: That’s correct.
SEN. GRAHAM: So, I just want to absorb
that for a moment. The group that did the
.
100
dossier on President Trump hired this
British spy, wound up getting it to the FBI.
You believe they were working for the
Russians?
BROWDER: And in the Spring and
Summer of 2016 they were receiving
money indirectly from a senior Russian
government official.
SEN. GRAHAM: Okay. So, these are the
people that were trying to undermine
Donald Trump by showing the nefarious
ties to Russia. Is that what you’re saying?
BROWDER: Well, what I’m saying with
100% certainty is that they were working to
undermine the Magnitsky act and the
timing of that.
SEN. GRAHAM: But, the Fusion GPS
products apparently as they hired a guy to
look into Trump?
BROWDER: Yes.
SEN. GRAHAM: Right
BROWDER: Correct.
When you put all the evidence together, keeping in mind
that this is only what has been released so far, you can see
a clear picture of, at the very least, indirect collusion
between the highest levels of the Democratic Party and
unknown figures within the Russian government. The
scheme was then directly propped up and spread by the
mainstream media.
As Nolte so aptly notes,
“If purchasing misinformation from
Kremlin official as a means to
manipulate media coverage and sway
public opinion is not colluding with the
Russians to rig an election, nothing is.”
 Frustrated Trump Urges State
To Release Remaining Clinton Emails
By Tyler Durden
Oct 27, 2017 6:53 PM
More than nine months after the DOJ and a handful of
Congressional committees launched probes into Russia's
efforts to influence the election,
President Donald Trump is finally
pushing back by aiding Congressional
Republicans' efforts to investigate the
Clinton's Russia ties, which are as
extensive than Trump's, if not more so.
Earlier this week, he reportedly ordered the Department of
Justice to lift a gag order on an FBI informant, freeing him
to testify before Congressional probes into the Obama-era
Uranium One deal. And just minutes ago, CNN reported
that the president has made it clear to the State Department
that he wants to accelerate the release of any remaining
Hillary Clinton emails in its possession as soon as
possible.
The order comes as calls for the DOJ to appoint a special
prosecutor to investigate the deal are growing following
the revelation that the FBI had investigated possible
corruption related to Russia's push to buy up uranium in
North America, but neglected to inform Congress.
That probe led to the arrest of a Russian
who was head of the US-based
subsidiary of Rosatom, a nuclear energy
company backed by the Russian state.
Three Congressional committees have
launched investigations into the deal.
The central question is whether Hillary Clinton and her
husband entered into a quid pro quo whereby she voted in
2010 to approve the sale of 20% of US uranium supplies to
Russia - and in returned received hundreds of millions of
dollars for the Clinton foundation from entities with ties to
101
the Russian government. Her husband also received a
$500,000 speaking fee from a bank with ties to the Russian
government.
The FBI's decision to release documents pertaining to the
infamous "Trump dossier" also appears to be part of this
wave of transparency.
The sources described the President's
interest in the release of the emails - and
the testimony of the FBI informant - as
rooted in a commitment to "transparency,"
with one source adding that "the law
requires cooperation with Congress and
the courts."
The White House actually started pressuring State to speed
up the process earlier this year. So far, the department
turned over to Judicial Watch, a government watchdog
group, 1,617 pages of documents, including 97 email
exchanges not previously disclosed, after being hit with a
series of FOIA lawsuits, according to the Washington
Examiner.
It's unclear how many more emails
remain to be released.
Trump has reportedly expressed
frustration with government agencies
that have been slow in responding to
requests for information that he
believes should be public, especially
given congressional and court-ordered
requests for the information.
One source also said this effort is not about any individual
or any particular item of evidence. However, both the
lifting of the gag order and the effort on the emails involve
one political figure who happens to be the President's
favorite target: Hillary Clinton.
And there's still a chance that more emails might be
discovered.
The State Department still has 40,000
pages of records - which may include
emails sent by Clinton as secretary of
state - that it needs to review for
 potential release. These documents
were discovered by the FBI and handed
over to the State Department over the
summer as a result of its investigation
of former Congressman and recently
minted felon Anthony Weiner.
102
The State Department has already processed 32,000 pages
of the records from Weiner's computers, according to
Judicial Watch.
Of course, while Trump might boast about being
transparent, his decision to kowtow to the CIA and delay
the released of thousands of pages of files related to the
JFK assassination would suggest otherwise. However, we
wonder, what will Trump ask for next?
 Obama CIA Director: Intel Committee
Needs To Look At Clinton, DNC Dossier
“The Committee Is Going To Have To Look At And
Determine Just Exactly Who Knew What”
Infowars.Com
October 27, 2017

Blitzer responded by inquiring how Clinton campaign

The Senate Intelligence Committee
needs to investigate the Clinton
campaign and the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) over its funding of the
infamous anti-Trump dossier, former
CIA Director Leon Panetta said
Thursday.
During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, the Obama-
era CIA chief examined the possible reasons as to why the
Clinton camp and DNC were allegedly unaware of
payments made to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the
controversial dossier.
attorney Marc Elias, who is accused of making the
payment to Fusion GPS, could have failed to tell Clinton
campaign chair John Podesta – who denied knowledge of
the funding, according to CNN.
Panetta, describing the inconsistencies as “awkward,”
again called on the committee to find out “just exactly who
knew what.”
“Well, it certainly makes the situation very
awkward,” Panetta said. “If you’re testifying
and saying you have no knowledge, and
the attorney sitting next to you is one of
those that knew what was involved here, I
think it does raise an issue that the
committee is going to have to look at and
determine just exactly who knew what.”
CNN also reported this week that former DNC
chairwoman Debbie Wassermann Schultz likewise denied
knowledge of funding for the dossier.
Trump last Thursday questioned on Twitter who
financially backed the dossier, suggesting “Russia, the
FBI or the Dems (or all)?” could be responsible.

“Well, it’s obviously something that the

Intelligence Committee is going to have to
look at,” Panetta said. “You know, knowing
presidential campaigns, they’re big
operations and somehow the left hand may
not know what the right hand is doing. And
that could be the case here.”
“I really do think that the committee is going
to have to get into this, determine just
exactly what happened. Who knew what
and when?”
.
103
 Report Reveals CNN’s Close
Ties To Trump-Smearing Firm Fusion GPS
By Kristina Wong
28 Oct 2017
As more details emerge about the
murky swamp that funded Fusion GPS’s
work on the salacious Trump dossier, a
new report reveals CNN’s own ties to
the smear-for-hire firm.
CNN’s justice correspondent Evan Perez, who has
reported extensively on the Russia investigation and the
Trump dossier, is close personal friends with Fusion
GPS’s founders, according to a report by the Daily Caller.
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and Perez both
worked at the Wall Street Journal together and regularly
co-authored national security stories.
Thomas Catan, another Fusion co-founder, also worked as
a reporter for the Journal at the same time as Perez and
Simpson. A third co-founder, Peter Fritsch, was Perez and
Simpson’s senior national security editor.
Simpson and Fritsch left the Journal in 2011 to launch
Fusion, and Perez went to CNN in 2013. Another Journal
reporter, Neil King, joined Fusion in December 2016.
The Daily Caller discovered Facebook postings that
showed the closeness of Perez to Fusion GPS’s founders.
One photo posted by Perez shows King and another man at
a bar near the Washington Nationals stadium in August
2016.
104
Another photo from September 2015 shows Perez, King,
and Fritsch together.
The same year Fritsch co-founded Fusion, Perez posted
photos from a fishing trip he took with Fritsch.
“At no point in Perez’s reporting did he
disclose his close ties to the Fusion GPS
operatives,” the Daily Caller reports.
Interestingly, it was Perez who reported that the dossier
was used by the FBI to get a surveillance warrant on
Trump campaign associates.
The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board seemingly
rebuked its own former reporters in a piece earlier this
month that accused the Beltway media of being complicit
in a coverup with Fusion GPS:
“Americans don’t need a Justice
Department coverup abetted by Glenn
Simpson’s media buddies.”
The Daily Caller report also notes that Simpson’s wife,
Mary Jacoby, bragged about his role in the dossier, saying,
“some people still don’t realize what
Glenn’s role was in exposing Putin’s control
of Donald Trump.”
The report also points out CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s
coverage of the dossier has been “relatively soft.”
For example, on Wednesday,
Tapper asserted that “some of the details
[of the dossier] have been proven
accurate.” In the past, he has pointed out
that at least one key claim in the dossier
was false — that Trump’s lawyer Michael
Cohen went to Prague last August to meet
with Kremlin operatives.
CNN also incorrectly reported that former FBI Director
James Comey had never told Trump he was not under
investigation — whereas Comey himself admitted to doing
so during testimony.
Later, two CNN reporters and an editor were fired and
forced to retract a report after it was challenged by
Breitbart News.
Fusion GPS is coming under mounting scrutiny, after it
was revealed last week that Hillary Clinton’s campaign
and the Democratic National Committee hired Fusion GPS
to look into ties between Trump and Russia in April.
After that, Fusion GPS hired ex-British spy Christopher
Steele, who produced the dossier filled with salacious
claims that have been unverified to date. His sources for
the dossier reportedly included Russian government
sources, raising the possibility that the dossier was part of
a Russian disinformation campaign.
A report on Friday by the Washington Examiner said Paul
Singer, a funder of the Washington Free Beacon and Sen.
Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, initially hired
Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump, but
abandoned the effort after the GOP primary election.
Fusion GPS also has a reputation of smearing Americans
for corrupt overseas clients.
The founder of the Human Rights Foundation, Thor
Halvorssen, called Fusion GPS “highly paid smear
experts” in written testimony to the Senate Judiciary
Committee. He said the company went after him after he
criticized a corrupt Venezuelan company that Fusion GPS
worked for, the Daily Caller notes.
.
105
A former Human Rights Foundation associate, Alek Boyd,
said Fusion GPS falsely accused him of being a pedophile,
sexual deviant, and drug addict.
“Fusion is basically a pen-for-hire shop,
whose owners are prepared to concoct
completely spurious stories that are fed to
media contacts developed over years of
legitimate work in reputable outlets,” Boyd
told the outlet.
Perhaps it was the testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Committee of Bill Browder, who championed sanctions
against Russia for corruption, that carried the most weight.
Browder revealed during testimony how Russian lawyer
Natalia Veselnitskaya had hired Fusion GPS through
Baker Hostetler, to conduct a smear campaign against him
and his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky after they exposed
Russian corruption.
“Veselnitskaya, through Baker Hostetler,
hired Glenn Simpson of the firm Fusion
GPS to conduct a smear campaign against
me and Sergei Magnitsky in advance of
congressional hearings on the Global
Magnitsky Act,” Browder said in a written
statement.
“He contacted a number of major
newspapers and other publications to
spread false information that Sergei
Magnitsky was not murdered, was not a
whistle-blower, and was instead a criminal.
They also spread false information that my
presentations to lawmakers around the
world were untrue,” he told senators.
 Honeypot: Was The Trump
Camp's Meeting With Russian Lawyer All
A Clinton Set-Up?
By Tyler O'Neil
October 28, 2017
U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton waves as she
arrives at the airport in White Plains, New York, U.S. October 11,
2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson - RTSRSH4
This week's bombshell — that the DNC and the Hillary
Clinton campaign financed former British spy Christopher
Steele's salacious dossier allegedly connecting Donald
Trump and Russia — may suggest something even more
devious. The dossier was compiled by the notorious firm
Fusion GPS, which also worked for Russian lawyer
Natalia Veselnitskaya, the very woman who met with
Donald Trump Jr. in a meeting deemed pivotal to the case
for Trump-Russia "collusion."
The Fusion GPS connection raises a supremely interesting
question: Did the Clinton campaign actually orchestrate
the meeting between Trump campaign officials and
Veselnitskaya? Is the entire Trump-Russia collusion
narrative the result of a Clinton set-up?
After PJ Media's Liz Sheld suggested the idea to this
reporter, it seemed increasingly plausible. Not only does
the timeline work out, but Clinton attacked Trump as
Putin's puppet and Clinton's connections to Russia had
been powerfully reported in 2015. What better way to
distract from Clinton's ties to Russia than proving
"collusion" on Trump's part?
When Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr. and Paul
Manafort on June 9, 2016, she pressed them on the
adoption issue, part of the Russian efforts to undermine the
Magnitsky Act. The act — signed by President Barack
Obama in December 2012 — imposed sanctions on
individuals and entities responsible for the death of
106
Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who unearthed massive
fraud within the Russian government and was imprisoned,
tortured, and killed for it in 2009. Hermitage Capital
Management CEO Bill Browder testified that the sanctions
"personally" affect Russian President Vladimir Putin's
wealth.
Putin retaliated by banning the adoption of Russian
orphans by American families. Previously, Russia had
allowed Americans to adopt sick Russian children, and
they adopted kids suffering with HIV, Down Syndrome,
and other ailments. Due to this retaliation for the
Magnitsky Act, Browder testified, these sick children now
languish in Russian orphanages and many will die before
their 18th birthdays.
As it turns out, Veselnitskaya hired Fusion GPS to lobby
the U.S. government on this very issue, one extremely
pivotal to Putin's monetary interests.
In July, Browder testified that
"Veselnitskaya, through Baker Hostetler,
hired Glenn Simpson of the firm Fusion
GPS to conduct a smear campaign against
me and Sergei Magnitsky in advance of
congressional hearings on the Global
Magnitsky Act."
This alleged smear campaign took place in 2014, two years
before the presidential election. Through this business,
Veselnitskaya made friends with Fusion GPS.
In April 2016, two months before Veselnitskaya's meeting
with Trump campaign officials, the law firm Perkins Coie,
as part of its representation of the Clinton campaign and
the DNC, hired Fusion GPS for research into Trump, The
Washington Post revealed this past week. In a letter to
Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie general counsel Matthew
Gehringer noted that his law firm revealed its role in hiring
Fusion GPS in order to help keep Fusion GPS's list of
clients confidential. What is the opposition research firm
trying to hide?
In March 2016, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie to
see if it its clients would be interested in paying the firm
"to continue research regarding then-
presidential candidate Donald Trump."
Through Perkins Coie, the DNC and the Clinton campaign
paid Fusion GPS to perform research that led to the
infamous dossier written by former British spy Christopher
Steele.
On Friday, it was revealed that the Washington Free
Beacon was the original source paying Fusion GPS to
investigate Trump. The conservative news outlet insisted
that none of the research it paid for was included in the
infamous Steele dossier, however. The Post reported that
Fusion GPS hired Steele after the Democratic funding
began, supporting the Free Beacon's version of events.
To recap: Veselnitskaya hired Fusion GPS to undermine
Magnitsky's reputation in 2014. The Clinton campaign and
the DNC hired Fusion GPS to compile the Trump dossier
in April 2016. Two months later, Donald Trump Jr.
received an email inviting him to meet with Veselnitskaya
ostensibly to gather opposition research on Clinton — but
at the meeting Veselnitskaya tried to push the Trump
campaign to oppose the Magnitsky Act.
Then, as the DNC and the Clinton campaign pinned the
DNC hack to Russia and Trump cited emails leaked by
WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton began attacking Trump as
"Putin's puppet." At the third presidential debate, Clinton
argued that Putin supported Trump because he "would
rather have a puppet as president of the United States."
Clinton never brought up the Trump campaign's meeting
with Veselniskaya during the election, but she certainly
suggested Trump was in bed with the Russians.
It is plausible that the Clinton campaign and the DNC,
working through Fusion GPS, suggested to Veselnitskaya
that she should meet with the Trump campaign. This
would have given the Democrats a clear link between
Trump and the Russians, and it would have given
Veselnitskaya an opportunity to further her work on Putin's
behalf, with one of the two leading presidential campaigns.
Furthermore, Fusion GPS's role as an intermediary would
have given both plausible deniability.
According to a recent FEC complaint, the Clinton
campaign and the DNC obfuscated their hiring of Fusion
GPS by listing payments to the law firm Perkins Coie as
being for "legal services." This violated the law, as the
money really went to opposition research. The decision to
work through Perkins Coie — and to mislead the FEC
about the nature of services — suggests the Clinton
campaign and the DNC were hiding something.
107
Clinton also would have had an incentive to try and
manufacture connections between Trump and Russia.
Throughout 2015 and into early 2016, Trump was the
Republican frontrunner, and he had praised Putin many
times, suggesting he would "get along well" with the
Russian president. The Russia angle made sense for
Clinton to develop, and it would have been a perfect way
to distract from her own troubling Russia connections.
If Clinton wanted to convince Americans that Trump is
Putin's real puppet, her campaign would need more
evidence than a few positive comments. After all, Trump
was not the candidate who helped approve a 2010 deal
giving Russian company Rosatom 20 percent of U.S.
uranium — right at the time when that very Russian
company was under FBI investigation. The FBI kept the
investigation secret, just when it would have been most
important.
In 2015, Peter Schweitzer had published the blistering
story in The New York Times uncovering Clinton's
connections to and benefits from the 2010 Uranium One
purchase. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had
been paid $500,000 for a speech — at a Russian bank
promoting Uranium One stock.
According to an anonymous witness threatened by the
Obama administration, the FBI investigation into Rosatom
also uncovered documents and an eyewitness account
rather inconvenient for the Clintons. This evidence
corroborated earlier reports that Russian officials had
routed millions of dollars into the U.S. to benefit the
Clinton Foundation just as Hillary Clinton served on the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States,
which endorsed the Uranium One deal. This past
Wednesday night, the Department of Justice finally
authorized the informant to disclose his information and
documents.
At the same time as the FBI kept its Rosatom investigation
secret, the agency acted fast to bust a Russian spy ring
because it got too close to Hillary Clinton.
All that makes sense, but why try to manufacture
connections between Russia and the Trump campaign —
when Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort had
worked for Ukraine's Party of Regions, a group backed by
Putin?
This past week, Special Counsel Robert Mueller
announced that his investigation into Manafort had
extended to cover Tony Podesta — a Clinton campaign
bundler who co-founded the Podesta Group with his
brother, Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta. Both
Manafort and Podesta may have violated the Foreign
Agents Registration Act (FARA), an allegation PJ Media
reported last April. Emphasizing Manafort might have
revealed Podesta and his connections to Clinton.
If Clinton secretly orchestrated the meeting between
Veselnitskaya and the Trump campaign, why did that news
not come up in the campaign?
First, the meeting only lasted about 20 minutes, according
to Donald Trump Jr. If the Clinton campaign orchestrated
the meeting — hoping for either proof of Trump-Russia
collusion or to start a long-term relationship between
Veselnitskaya and the Trump campaign to use as a weapon
later — they would have been disappointed to hear the
meeting went nowhere.
Expecting to triumph on November 8, Hillary Clinton
might have decided not to release the news of this event,
deeming it unnecessary for her victory.
108
Even so, there is no evidence that the Clinton campaign
did actually orchestrate the Veselnitskaya meeting.
Questions like this make it very important for the list of
Fusion GPS clients to become public. If Fusion GPS was
still working for Veselnitskaya, or was in contact with her
in the lead-up to the meeting with Trump Jr., that might
suggest the entire Trump-Russia "collusion" narrative was
created by Democrats or the Clinton campaign.
It is already ironic enough that Robert Mueller, the man
leading the investigation into Trump-Russia connections,
is the same man who led the FBI when it covered up the
investigation into Rosatom right when it was convenient
for Hillary Clinton. Unless some very damning evidence
finally comes out against Trump, this investigation seems
likely to get worse and worse for Clinton and the
Democrats.
 Senate Demands Twitter
Disclose Wikileaks Direct Messages
Published Time: 27 Oct, 2017 20:19 Edited Time: 28 Oct, 2017

whether the individual or entity violated any

Twitter policy."

Feinstein also listed 14 other categories of information in

her request to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in the letter dated
October 27.

The ranking Democrat on the US Senate Judiciary

Committee is seeking information

© Dado Ruvic / Reuters “not routinely shared with Congress,” the

letter read.
The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary committee has
asked Twitter for documents that include the direct- Her dispatch also assumes it to be a fact that Russia
messaging history of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian interfered in the 2016 presidential election, rather than an
Assange, days after the probe into “Russian meddling” in allegation.
the 2016 elections fractured along party lines.
“We made the decision to go and carry it
out ourselves,”

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) told Mother Jones

Tuesday, referring to the committee's Democrats pursuing
the Russia probe. She added that the Republicans

“can go ahead and do whatever it is they

wanted to do.”

Feinstein wrote to the Twitter CEO asking for documents

related to
"all ads and organic content posted by
Russia-connected users and targeted to
any part of the United States, regardless of
109
The letter demands all documents forwarded by Twitter to
other congressional committees concerning
“Russia-linked accounts, misinformation
networks, or malicious ‘bots’” that
 spread “misinformation” during the 2016
presidential election campaign.
Feinstein also wants Twitter to show how it identified the
Russian-linked accounts for which it had previously
produced ads or posts.
She is also calling for the release of all
content from direct messages and data
showing the sender, receiver, as well as
date and time of each message for the
following accounts: @wikileaks,
@WLTaskForce, @GUCCIFER_2,
@JulianAssange_, @JulianAssange, and
@granmarga.
Feinstein is further seeking advertisements funded, or
placed by RT, and anyone associated with the Internet
Research Agency, or Teka as it was known at the time of
the election.
The senator’s list includes documents sufficient to identify
how and when Twitter became aware of, addressed, or
responded to voter suppression tweets. Furthermore, the
lawmaker wants IP addresses, the number of shares and
the number of interactions per ad and tweet to be turned
over.
A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee is
scheduled to hear from Facebook, Google and Twitter
executives Tuesday regarding alleged Russian meddling in
the 2016 election.
Communications are also being sought in relation to the
Tennessee Republican Party, which complained that the
@TEN_GOP account deliberately portrayed itself as the
official party. That account was subsequently taken down
by Twitter.
The subcommittee on crime and terrorism will host a
hearing on “ways to combat and reduce the amount of
Russian propaganda and extremist content online,” and
witnesses will include Facebook General Counsel Colin
Stretch, Twitter acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and
Richard Salgado, Google's director of law enforcement and
information security, Reuters reported Friday.
Feinstein sent five letters in all Friday, including to White
House counsel Donald McGahn; President Donald
.
110
Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen; Facebook and
privately-held data company Cambridge Analytica.
In Feinstein's letter to McGahn, the lawmaker specifically
asked for documents regarding Trump's discussions with
former FBI Director James Comey, along with the
president's son-in-law Jared Kushner's foreign contacts,
and records in relation to a June 2016 meeting at Trump
Tower. The president's son, Donald Trump JR, attended
the meeting in question with Russian lawyer Natalia
Veselnitskaya.
In a separate letter to Trump's personal lawyer, Feinstein
asked Cohen to testify before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, while requesting records related to his own
contacts with Russians, along with documents regarding
the hacked emails from the Democratic National
Committee and Hillary Clinton's Campaign Chairman John
Podesta.
The California lawmaker also sought information from
Facebook, relating to Russian connected ads that ran on
the platform.
Feinstein's fifth letter was sent to Cambridge Analytica. In
the correspondence, she requests any communications
made with Russian officials, and documents related to
efforts to acquire the hacked emails from Clinton, Podesta
and the DNC.
Earlier this month, Twitter handed over to the Senate
Judiciary Committee roughly 3,000 ads purchased by
alleged Russian election influencers before election day.
However, Facebook did not provide any organic content
posted by the 470 accounts with alleged ties to Russia.
 Senator Feinstein Demands
Twitter Hand Over Wikileaks DMs
By Tyler Durden
Oct 27, 2017 5:20 PM

Shortly after representatives from Twitter, Google and

Facebook agreed to testify before a Senate Judiciary
subcommittee on Tuesday - and just days before the chief
counsel from each firm is set to testify before a joint
meeting of the House and Senate Intelligence committees
–

Wikileaks tweeted that a formal request

had been sent from Senator Dianne
Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the
Judiciary committee, for DMs from
several Twitter accounts associated
with Wikileaks,

along with other sensitive account information about

advertisements paid for by Russia Today and accounts
suspected of being bots programmed by Russian agents.

While the request isn’t a subpoena - and thus Twitter isn’t

legally compelled to comply - we imagine Jack Dorsey
wouldn't hesitate to accommodate Congressional
Democrats who are insistently trying to prove that Russian
President Vladimir Putin orchestrated a destabilizing
propaganda campaign that somehow swayed the election
in Trump’s favor, while Republicans are pivoting to an
investigation into the Clinton’s ties with Russian
businessmen and a possible quid-pro-quo involving the
Obama-era Uranium One deal.
The ranking member of the US Senate Judiciary
Committee is seeking information "not routinely shared
with Congress," the letter read. It also asks Twitter to
reveal how it identified the Russian-linked accounts for
which it had previously produced ads or posts.
The letter calls for the release of all
content from direct messages and data
showing the sender, receiver, date and
time of each message, for the following
accounts: @wikileaks, @WLTaskForce,
@GUCCIFER_2, @JulianAssange_,
@JulianAssange, and @granmarga.
As Wikileaks points out, one of those accounts,
@granmarga, is the account of the wife of Wikileak’s late
chief counsel.

Dianne Feinstein

111
As the Duran concludes,
Twitter is learning the hard way that
when you give the US Congress an inch,
they will take a yard.
Soon, the US Deep State will be able to request DM’s
from any individual or organization at any time.
This is just the beginning of America’s
descent into surveillance hell…and the
end of Twitter as a reliable and trusted
communication platform.
112
Why in God’s name would anyone invest their time and
money into building a twitter presence, only to have it
handed to Congress or the Deep State at anytime?
Whether Feinstein makes similar requests from Facebook
and Google remains to be seen, though time to receive the
documents before the hearings is quickly running out.
Now it's up to Jack Dorsey:
Will he continue to acquiesce to
lawmakers' demands? Or will he be
forced to draw the line here?
Read the whole document below:
113
114
115
 The Wheels Are Coming Off The Trump Opposition
And This Is Good News For Russia. "Hillary Clinton Is Going To Jail.
I Repeat, HILLARY CLINTON IS GOING TO JAIL."
Chateau Heartiste
Sat, Oct 28, 2017
Three scumbags
If you’ve been keeping abreast of the news these past two
weeks, you might have noticed the anti-Trump enemies
have become discombobulated and put on the defensive by
recent exposure of their criminal misdeeds.
What was “a reckless and treasonous Trump
Administration suffering daily leaks and subterfuge by
establishment loyalists” narrative has turned into a “by
Zeus’ beard, the Trump Train is rolling and the
lamentations of the shitlibs and their (expletive
deleted) Queen Clinton are heard over hill and
dale!” battering ram of truth.
Too funny that the Podesta-cooked Russia-Trump
collusion scandal has completely boomeranged and
threatens to take down the Clintons and their scummy
surrogates for good. You think I’m exaggerating out of a
misplaced love for Herr Furor. Nope. Check the latest
bombshells:
PAY FOR PLAY, INFLUENCE PEDDLING,
STRAIGHT UP BRIBERY. Foreign investors shoveled
$145 million into the Clinton Foundation while
the(expletive deleted) was heading the State Department,
to ensure the(expletive deleted) and Gay Mulatto would
OK a deal that transferred 20% of America’s uranium
stores to a Russian energy company. IOW, the(expletive
deleted) colluded with Russia. Bill Clinton, meanwhile,
got a cool half mil for a canned speech he delivered in
Moscow the same time the Russian energy company
Rosatom inked its deal for a stake in Uranium One.
116
President Trump (may God guard his
path) recently inquired about the Seth Rich
murder mystery. (He knows, fam)
The(expletive deleted) campaign and the
DNC (and now it’s been revealed, the
Bushes and McCain) paid hefty sums to
Fusion GPS to research manufacture the
hillary fanfiction known as the Piss Hooker
Dossier, with the intent to undermine the
incoming Trump Administration (this is
called treason).
Quads over at MPC writes,
In short: Tucker was contacted by a
lobbyist from the Podesta Group. Lobbyist
claims that the Russians, using a Ukrainian
shell company, funneled money to the
Podesta Group for the explicit purpose of
influencing the Clintons. Paul Manafort was
the go-between. Tucker is satisfied that his
Lobbyist isn’t lying and has been verifying
the details, so far all successfully. I.e.,
Tucker is reporting that Hillary colluded
with the Russians and Manafort was in on
it. Tucker promises more to come.
Surely it’s no surprise to any here that Hillary was a
corrupt hag selling State to the highest bidder. But this
news, on the heels of the Uranium One and Dossier stories,
has great implications. Hillary allowed Uranium to be sold
to Russia after they donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Hillary funded Kremlin-compiled pissgate allegations
which were then investigated by Obama’s Justice
Department. That same Justice Department was headed by
Loretta Lynch, who colluded with Bill Clinton on the
tarmac to squelch investigations into Clinton’s crimes.
This is no longer 4chan anon LARP conspiracy theories
but verified news in the public record. What do we make
of this?
This isn’t a White Pill, kind readers. This is a bucket of
White paint dropped on your head from a booby-trapped
door in Trump Tower. You’re swimming in White.
Who needs Challahwood when you have this kind of
quality entertainment beamed into your eyeballs and
earhalls every day IN TRUMPERICA?

First this calls into question Manafort’s role in the Trump We are blessed to be alive at a time when our mortal
Campaign. Is it a coincidence that Trump hired Manafort enemies are closer than they have ever been to the
when Manafort had funneled money from the Russians to breaking wheel.
the Clintons? It’s hard to believe that Trump would work
with Manafort to defeat Hillary without hearing Update: CNN checks in with their CONSISTENTLY hot
Manafort’s dirt on Hillary. Alternatively: if Manafort take!
colluded with the Clintons, and Manafort was the FBI’s
justification for tapping the Trump campaign, did the
Clintons collude with the FBI to wiretap Trump?

Second, what to make of Mueller? It came out yesterday

that Mueller was investigating Tony Podesta. Manafort is
one of the only other people we all know Mueller was
investigating. Without going full /pol/lack conspiritard, is
it possible that Mueller really is investigating Democratic
corruption? Remember, Mueller was interviewed by
Trump the day before he took up the special council. At
the very least: if Manafort was working with the Clintons,
doesn’t this shed new light on Mueller’s investigation?

This is all starting to sound too opaque, like a police cork-
and-pinhead bulletin board. I wouldn’t worry too much
about the details which, if true, imply much more dramatic
conspiracies to be. The takeaway is that this isn’t in the
realm of internet myth and rumor. This is real, verifiable.
Senate investigations are starting and more is on the way.
Is it possible that Clinton will really see the inside of a
jail?
Bonus Shiv (it’s all related once you identify the anti-
White source malignancy): PA on why Whites shouldn’t
race-mix. The cruelest and truest of shivs: the cold heart
gazes upon one’s own children and remains unmoved
when it sees nothing of oneself in them.

Hillary Clinton is going to jail.

I repeat, HILLARY CLINTON IS

GOING TO JAIL.

Basically the whole Russia-Trump Collusion Narrative is a

massive case at its root of psychological projection and
deliberate misdirection by the Clintons and their depraved
surrogates in the Deep State and the Gaystream Media.
They smeared an incoming President with the very same
crimes and treasonous actions that they themselves had
committed. The best defense is a slanderous offense to
(expletive deleted)lib, Inc.

117
 Brace Yourself: “Dirty Cop” Robert Mueller Attempting
Desperate Indictment To Distract From Uranium One
Scandal And Hillary Clinton Treason
By Mike Adams
Sunday, October 29, 2017
We interrupt our usual editorial coverage to give you a
heads up on what’s coming this week from the lying
mainstream media, which has proven again and again that
it has no morals, no ethics, no dedication to facts and no
real journalism whatsoever.
Brace yourself for a barrage of fake news from the
mainstream media that will be catapulted into your
consciousness starting tomorrow. According to multiple
news reports, the corrupt special counsel Robert Mueller
has filed criminal charges stemming from his tainted
investigation into people affiliated with the Trump
administration. But this is all a deliberate distraction from
the exploding Uranium One and Fusion GPS scandals,
both of which are ensnaring not just Hillary Clinton but
also James Comey and even Robert Mueller himself, who
was head of the FBI when Clinton rubber stamped the
selling of U.S. uranium supplies to Russia.
Over the last few days, for example, the US DOJ has
granted approval for an FBI informant with detailed
knowledge of the Clinton / Comey criminality to testify
before the U.S. Senate. That testimony will be on the
record in a few weeks, and it will result in criminal
indictments against Obama era officials and Clinton
cohorts who have been running a massive collusion cartel
for at least the last eight years.
Now, it’s an all-out political war because Mueller, Comey,
Hillary Clinton, Lynch and even Eric Holder know they
are all going to be indicted for corruption and treason
if they can’t destroy Trump and get him impeached.
118
Sean Hannity is spearheading much of the media coverage
on all this, and he deserves some kind of Congressional
Medal of Honor for taking so much enemy fire during all
this… he’s practically a “war hero” at this point, at least as
far as journalists can be war heroes.
The Gateway Pundit is also blazing a trail of amazing
investigative journalism on all this, so much so that The
Gateway Pundit has now become my No. 1 source for
news on breaking scandals out of Washington D.C. We are
sourcing their stories in many of the articles published at
Clinton.news and Trump.news as well.
TGP has the very best coverage on the corruption and
collusion of Robert Mueller, James Comey, Hillary
Clinton and the whole gang of political mafia bosses.
Here’s a recent TGP story that details the astonishing
criminality of these operatives and how they collude and
conspire to destroy their political enemies:
Crooked Cop Mueller Leaks
Investigation Info to CNN Continuing
His Long History of Corrupt and
Criminal Actions
Originally published by The Gateway Pundit. Reprinted
without permission, but with the right intentions.
Robert Mueller continued with his now
widely reported corrupt and criminal
activities last night by leaking
information sealed by the courts to
CNN. This is just another corrupt and
criminal act in Mueller’s corrupt and
criminal career.
Last night we found out from information leaked to CNN
that the Mueller investigation has filed charges in the
ongoing superfluous investigation into President Trump
and the far out possibility that he colluded with Russia in
the 2016 election. CNN reported that:
 A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on
Friday approved the first charges in the
investigation led by special counsel Robert
Mueller, according to sources briefed on
the matter. The charges are still sealed
under orders from a federal judge.
In typical bad cop form, former FBI Head
and current Special Counsel Mueller
proved again that he is as dirty as it
gets.
Mueller’s career is littered with
numerous investigations of major
scandals and likely crimes that Mueller
did not meaningfully investigate as FBI
Director resulting in no arrests and no
consequences. All of these resulted in
the Clintons and/or Obama
Administration getting away with
criminal activities:
IRS Targeting (2010-2013):
the IRS intentionally selected and then
delayed or denied tax-exempt 501(c)(3)
applications from conservative groups to
prevent them from participating in the 2012
election, followed by IRS agent Lois
Lerner invoking her Fifth Amendment
privilege against self-incrimination. (No
charges have been filed of any wrong
doing by any government officials in this
case.)
Fast and Furious (2010):
this ATF program, which seems to have
served no rational purpose, allowed over
2,000 guns to be purchased illegally inside
the United States and then “walked” into
Mexico for use by criminals, one of which
was later used in the 2010 murder of
Border Agent Brian Terry by the member of
a Mexican cartel
Associated Press Spying (2012):
the Department of Justice illegally seized
the communications of AP reporters made
during April and May 2012, allowing the
DOJ to unmask journalists’ confidential
sources
Clinton Foundation Pay-for-Play (2009-2013):
during the period in which Hillary Clinton
held the office of Secretary of State, the
119
Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton
received millions of dollars in paid speaking
fees and a million dollar “gift”from countries
involved in matters with the State
Department, many of which had ties to
terrorism and human rights abuses; some
of these funds were apparently diverted
from charitable causes to personal
expenses, such as Chelsea Clinton’s 2010
wedding.
Russian Uranium Deal (2009-2013):
Hillary Clinton’s State Department
approved a deal allowing a Russian
company to control 20% of the uranium
mining production capacity inside the
United States, which was followed
by millions of dollars in donations to the
Clinton Foundation from people associated
with the transaction. This past week
information was reported that prior to the
Obama administration approving the very
controversial deal in 2010 giving Russia
20% of America’s Uranium through the
approved sale of Uranium One, the FBI
had evidence that Russian nuclear industry
officials were involved in bribery, kickbacks,
extortion and money laundering in order to
benefit Vladimir Putin, says a report by The
Hill.
Mueller was the head of the FBI at this
time! He was even hand picked by
Hillary Clinton to hand over uranium to
Russia on an airport tarmac at this time.
Clinton Private Email Server (2009-2013):
during her entire tenure as Secretary of
State, Hillary Clinton dodged Freedom of
Information Act requirements by using a
private email server to conduct official
government business, as well as sent and
received classified information that was
Top Secret over an unsecured system—an
“extremely reckless” (and obviously illegal)
act.”
Mueller by not upholding the law in
these cases above created a two-tiered
system of law in the US – Laws for the
political elite and laws for everyone
else.
Mueller’s acceptance of the lead role in the investigation
into Russia is another obvious example of his corrupt and
criminal tendencies.
 Based on numerous accounts he has
obvious conflicts of interest and even
liberal publications like the USA
Today have called for Mueller to step
down as special prosecutor because of
his conflicts of interest with the
investigation he is carrying on. Now we
know he took over the investigation in
spite of his criminal activities in
covering up the FBI investigation into
Uranium One. A person of integrity
would easily have seen his conflicts of
interest and would recuse himself.
There are now speculations that Mueller was hired by
Rosenstein to cover up their illegal actions related to
Uranium One. It’s also suspected that Mueller is spending
like a drunken sailor on the investigation. Also, it is now
clear that the dossier used as evidence to spy on Trump
and create the special investigation was promoted by the
Clintons and is totally based on lies from a company
(Fusion) known for slanderous reporting.
The entire team Mueller has hired to assist in the
Russia investigation is former Obama and Clinton
related attornies. Special Counsel Robert
Mueller’s attorneys are a Who’s Who of Liberal Activism.
Here is a summary of the Mueller team:
 Robert Mueller – Special Counsel Team leader. —
Best friend to fired leaker James Comey a key
witness in the case and cohort at the FBI in
assisting Mueller with many of the cases noted
above.
 Rush Atkinson, an attorney on detail from the Criminal
Division’s Fraud Section at the Department of Justice
— Donated $200 to Clinton in 2016
 Peter Carr – DOJ spokesman under Barack Obama.
 Andrew Goldstein, a public corruption prosecutor on
detail from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern
District of New York
— Worked under Trump-basher Preet Bharara in
the liberal New York southern district.
 Adam Jed, an appellate attorney on detail from DOJ’s
Civil Division. — Defended Obamacare at the DOJ.
 Lisa Page, an attorney on detail from the FBI’s Office
of the General Counsel and a former trial attorney with
the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang
Section – Investigated Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry
Firtash, a one-time business partner of former
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, at the
DOJ.
 Elizabeth Prelogar, an appellate attorney on detail
from the Office of the Solicitor General. -Fluent in
.
120
Russian; former law clerk to Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
 James Quarles, a former partner at WilmerHale and a
former assistant special prosecutor for the Watergate
Special Prosecution Force. –Former assistant special
prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution
Force.
 Jeannie Rhee, a former partner at WilmerHale who
has served in the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ and
as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of
Columbia. — Rhee is a Clinton Foundation
Lawyer and former Deputy Assistant Attorney
General in the Office of Legal Counsel under
Barack Obama.
 Brandon Van Grack, an attorney on detail from the
Justice Department’s National Security Division.
— Led a grand jury inquiry in Northern Virginia
scrutinizing former Trump associate Michael
Flynn’s foreign lobbying.
 Andrew Weissmann, who is on detail from the
Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and who has served
as general counsel at the FBI and as an assistant U.S.
attorney for the Eastern District of New York. —
Weissmann donated $2,300 to the Obama Victory
Fund in 2008, $2,000 to the DNC in 2006 and at
least $2,300 to the Clinton campaign in 2007.
 Aaron Zebley, a former partner at WilmerHale who
has previously served with Mueller at the FBI and has
served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern
District of Virginia. — Worked with Robert Mueller at
the WilmerHale firm.
 Aaron Zelinsky, an attorney on detail from the U.S.
Attorney’s Office in the District of Maryland. —
Worked under Assistant AG Rod Rosenstein in
Maryland.
 Zainab Ahmad, a top national security prosecutor on
detail from U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District
of New York.
 Michael Dreeben, an appellate attorney on detail from
the Office of the Solicitor General, described by former
colleagues as one of the brightest criminal law experts
of the past two generations.
It is very clear that Mueller is a very dishonest, bad and
morally corrupt cop and he should not only recuse himself
from the Russia investigation, he should be under
investigation himself for all of the above items. It appears
he leaked information to CNN to curtail the focus on his
corrupt actions and inactions.
God please bring this country justice!
Lock up Corrupt and Criminal Mueller
and the rest of the Deep State!
 Stelter Decries Right Wing
‘Campaign Of Confusion’ With Hillary-Russia
By Nicholas Fondacaro
October 29, 2017 5:11 PM EDT

In describing how Fox News’ “campaign of confusion

works,” Stelter distorted the facts and omitted key details
which allowed him to construct a false narrative.

“First, The Hill newspaper revived a

relatively old story about Russian
efforts to gain influence in the American
uranium industry during the Obama
administration,” he said,

making it seem as though they were just revisiting an old

story. But in fact, there were new details never heard
Over the past two weeks, Hillary Clinton and the before, even after the first time the story broke.
Democrats had been under increased legal scrutiny
following the revelations that the FBI had been monitoring
Russian spies trying to influence the Uranium One deal,
and that Clinton’s campaign and the Democrats had paid a
firm to use foreign agents for opposition research. But
according to CNN’s Brian Stelter, there really wasn’t any
news there and it was all a part of a Fox News conspiracy
to leave people confused about the facts.

“Defending President Trump can be

hard to do, so some of his allies in the
media don't even bother trying,” he
mocked as he began his rant. “Instead,
they change the subject. This is a
According to an FBI informant to The Hill, the Bureau had
campaign of confusion. It is one of the
been tracking Russia spies who were moving into positions
most important things happening in to influence the sale of Uranium One. That included spies
American politics today.”
moving around Clinton and donations to the Clinton
Foundation. But according to Stelter’s spin,
Stelter ridiculously claimed that
“Fox became fixated on this story and
“if you watched the opinion shows on the messaging was clear, the Russian
Fox News this week, you might have investigations were recast as a scandal
thought Hillary Clinton was president, for Clinton and the Dems.”
not Trump, Clinton.”
“Now, Fox got help from Republicans on
Capitol Hill who announced fresh
He cut to a clip of former Trump campaign manager Cory
investigations into the uranium issue,”
Lewandowski on Fox News where he misspoke and
accidentally said “the Clinton administration.” Stelter
pounced and asserted that it was a sign that the cable Stelter huffed, completely omitting their concern of why
network was trying to twist the facts, as though Fox News the FBI didn’t share their investigation with Congress or
viewers would somehow believe Trump wasn’t President the other parties that had to approve of the uranium sale.
for the last nine months.
“But in right-wing media, this uranium
story blotted out the sun,” Stelter
exclaimed at one point. But despite all his
121
 accusations of Fox News weaving a web of
lies and untruths, he admitted that “there
may be something newsworthy here. I'll
leave that to the experts.”
Then why is he hosting a journalism show?
On the story of the Clinton campaign and
the DNC using foreign agents to compile
opposition research, Stelter claimed Fox
News “combined the uranium story with
the bogus idea that the Dems cooked up
a Trump-Russia dossier full of lies.
When you know, some parts of the
dossier have been confirmed.”
His criticism completely ignored how Clinton and the
Dems paid a firm (Fusion GPS) to use a British spy to
work with Russian agents to piece together a dubious and
salacious dossier. He and the rest of the liberal media
talked about parts of the dossier being confirmed as though
the only options for the information was either confirm or
not confirmed yet. There was very little discussion of what
it got wrong, like Trump lawyer Michael Cohen being in
Prague to meet Russians when he was still in the U.S.
BRIAN STELTER: Defending President Trump can be hard to do,
so some of his allies in the media don't even bother trying.
Instead, they change the subject. This is a campaign of
confusion. It is one of the most important things happening in
American politics today. I mean, if you watched the opinion
shows on Fox News this week, you might have thought Hillary
Clinton was president, not Trump, Clinton.
Here is how the campaign of confusion works: First, The Hill
newspaper revived a relatively old story about Russian efforts to
gain influence in the American uranium industry during the
Obama administration. Fox became fixated on this story and the
messaging was clear, the Russian investigations were recast as
a scandal for Clinton and the Dems.
(…)
STELTER: The Clinton administration he [Cory Lewandowski]
said. Finally, Fox has found the real Russia scandal. That's how
it's portrayed. Uranium, uranium, uranium. Now, Fox got help
from Republicans on Capitol Hill who announced fresh
investigations into the uranium issue. And then President Trump
picked up on it. But Clinton is overall a convenient boogie man.

But perhaps Stelter was the one running the campaign of

confusion. When he brought on guest Bruce Bartlett,
Bartlett lamented:

“What I found interesting in your

introduction here is how a completely
made-up story, something that's totally
out of whole cloth forces its way onto a
place like CNN, simply because the
right-wing propaganda channel, which
is Fox, made it a story.” He also claimed Look, there may be something newsworthy here. I'll leave that to
Fox News was just a “propaganda the experts.
channel” that produced stories that were
“complete nonsense, completely
But in right-wing media, this uranium story blotted out the sun!
baseless.”
And it fit a pattern we've seen before. Trump's media allies
downplay, deflect and deny stories that are trouble for the White
But none of the news stories surrounding Clinton and the House. Instead, they tell viewers and readers to hate Hillary
DNC were false and they certainly weren’t a “completely Clinton.
made-up story,” as Bartlett contended. Those things
actually happened and were actually investigated by the
(…)
FBI. Clearly, the real campaign of confusion was the one
to cover for Clinton and the left and pretend there weren’t
any controversies to be seen. STELTER: No subtlety there. Pero combined the uranium story
with the bogus idea that the Dems cooked up a Trump-Russia
dossier full of lies. When you know, some parts of the dossier
Transcript below:
have been confirmed. But here's the question for you: Are you
confused yet?
CNN
Reliable Sources
That's the campaign. It's really a campaign of confusion. Just
October 29, 2017
constantly staying the other side is worse, the other side is doing
11:16:49 AM Eastern
it. And President Trump is leaning into this in a big way. This

122
morning, here's a tweet storm he shared in the past little while.
He said:
“I've never seen such Republican anger and unity as I have
concerning the lack of investigation on” – here we go, here's the
list – “Clinton made fake dossier, now $12 million?” Then it
continues, “The uranium to Russia deal, the 32,000 plus deleted
e-mails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead, they look at
the phony Trump/Russia collusion which doesn't exist. The Dems
are using this terrible and bad for our country witch hunt for evil
politics. But the Rs” -- the Republicans – “are fighting back like
never before. There's so much guilty by Democrats and by
Clinton and now the facts are pouring out.” The last two words
are important there. “Do something!” says the President of the
United States.
.
123
(…)
BRUCE BARTLETT: What I found interesting in your introduction
here is how a completely made-up story, something that's totally
out of whole cloth forces its way onto a place like CNN, simply
because the right wing propaganda channel, which is Fox, made
it a story. And they talked about it so much, you felt you couldn't
ignore it even though it's complete nonsense, completely
baseless, you had to report that it's something that is being
discussed among the Trump supporters and thereby lend
inadvertently credibility to this nonsensical story.
(…)
 Trump: Claims About Clinton Camp
Spending Millions On 'Fake Dossier' Has GOP
'United & Angry'
By Joseph Weber | Fox New
October 29, 2017

In the series of tweets Sunday, the president again

attempted to make the larger case that Washington and the
rest of the country is consumed by the Justice
Department’s special counsel probe into whether Trump
associates colluded with Russia during the White House
race, amid similar issues related to Democrats and others.

President Trump on Sunday said the lack of investigation

into the Clinton campaign spending a reported $12 million
on a dossier crafted during the 2016 presidential race to
smear him has sparked unprecedented “anger and unity”
among fellow Republicans.

“Never seen such Republican ANGER &

UNITY as I have concerning the lack of
investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier
(now $12,000,000?),” Trump said first in a
series of tweets.

The president tweeted after South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey

Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight committee, told
“Fox News Sunday” that he's concerns about Hillary
Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign purportedly paying a
law firm at least $10 million for the dossier, which was to
be used as Trump opposition research.
“I’m interested in that … laundering money
through a law firm,” Gowdy said.
“The Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000
plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so
much more. Instead they look at phony
Trump/Russia,” Trump tweeted following
news reports earlier this weekend that
special counsel Robert Mueller now has
federal grand jury charges in the Russia
investigation that could be made public as
early as Monday.

124
Congressional investigators are in fact looking into new
details about an Obama-era Uranium deal with connections
to Russia and perhaps Clinton when she was secretary of
State. The FBI investigated her use of private email servers
and deleted emails when she ran the State Department.
However, then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump
recently fired, concluded the server-email investigation
without recommending criminal charges.
125
“The Dems are using this terrible (and bad
for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics,
but the R's ... are now fighting back like
never before. There is so much GUILT by
Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are
pouring out. DO SOMETHING!,” Trump
also tweeted Sunday.
 Disgusting Behavior: ABC Panel
Shouts Down Truth Of Dossier Collusion
By Nicholas Fondacaro
October 29, 2017 2:12 PM EDT
Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade walked into a
lion’s den during his book tour on Sunday when he
appeared ABC’s This Week as a part of a panel that was
stacked against him. A fairly large segment of their
roundtable discussion was about the infamous Trump
dossier that was put together by a British spy, Russian
agents, and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the
Democratic National Committee. Everything got
extremely heated when the liberal panel began to shout
Kilmeade down and ludicrously claim there was no
connection between Clinton/Democrats and the Russians
via the dossier.
When Clinton lackey George Stephanopoulos first brought
up the dossier for this panel to discuss, he called on
Clinton campaign staffer Karen Finney to set up their
talking points.
“Yeah, but again, that dossier, came
from an American company that we—
that originally been funded by
Republicans as you have mentioned
earlier,” she argued. “I think what’s
important though is less who funded it
and [more] what was in the dossier.”
Then it was Kilmeade’s turn to speak, he began by briefly
talking about what we could expect from the Robert
Mueller indictment on Monday and then shifted to laying
out the facts of the dossier.
“Then we find out that somebody else
picks up the investigation, makes it
international. It has a Russian element.
There was no Russian element to the
Free Beacon-financed opposition
126
research,” he explained, while pointing out
the ridiculousness of John Podesta,
Clinton’s campaign chair, claiming he didn’t
notice $6-9 million dollars leaving the
campaign’s bank account.
ABC’s pretend Republican, Matthew Dowd took exception
with Kilmeade telling the truth and raising questions about
the Clinton campaign’s honesty.
“I have to say. I have to say, we need to
give up the David Copperfield or Harry
Houdini award for misdirection in this
thing. This reminds me of the uranium
deal,” he spat. “There is no similarity
between what Robert Mueller’s
investigation in collusion and what the
Russians wanted to do and a dossier
paid for in part by the Democrats in
order of events.”
When Kilmeade tried to refute Dowd’s ridiculousness, the
fake Republican exclaimed:
“There is no Russian relationship
between the dossier and the
Democrats!”
And from there the panel discussion cascaded into an all-
out shouting match with each panelist taking shots at
Kilmeade directly while trying to distort the truth.
“This is the real test as to whether or not
Republicans will actually put patriotism
above partisanship. Will conservative
 media folks actually speak truth or want
to defend Trump at any and all costs,”
lambasted ABC commentator Roland
Martin, clearly targeting Kilmeade for
working at Fox News.
The lone Republican responded by accurately pointing out
how Martin’s version of “patriotism” was only measured
by a person’s condemnation of the President, all while
Martin was trying to yell over him.
Kinney again chimed in with the Democratic Party’s
historical revisionism and claimed that for over a year and
a half everyone knew that the Dems were funding the
dossier, when in fact it was only speculation. As Kilmeade
was pointing out how her assertions were false because the
Party and the campaign had denied it the whole time,
Dowd began to yell at him:
“Two shows in Vegas! Two shows in
Vegas! Misdirection!”
And the circus continued.
Amongst the shouting and crosstalk, Dowd and Finney
could be heard saying
“The truth is important Brian!” and
“Brian, there are actual facts,”
respectively.
Finney tried to defend Fusion GPS, the company behind
the dossier, for covering up the documents’ financiers by
saying
“GPS is an American company. GPS is
an American company.” But the fact of
the matter was:
They hired a British spy who talked with
Russian agents.
“I just love this filibustering spin. It’s
pretty cute Brian,” Martin mocked.
Stephanopoulos either had enough of the screaming or
needed to get to a commercial, because he finally stepping
in to settle them down after several minutes. And in doing
so, he asserted that
“we know that nothing in the dossier
came out during the campaign. So it had
no effect on the campaign.”
But if the standard was that nothing came out during the
election, then why did the liberal media blow up when
Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer for
opposition research, which he never received? The answer
127
was it was a blatant double standard set up for the benefit
of Clinton and the Democrats.
The behavior of Stephanopoulos and the rest of the panel
was pathetic. The veteran Clinton lackey let his liberal
guests get away with rewriting history and directly
insulting their fellow panelists. And their denial of the
facts was highly disturbing and unsettling, which
completely brought into question ABC’s commitment to
the truth.
Transcript below:
ABC
This Week
October 29, 2017
9:24:20 AM Eastern
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But earlier in the week, Karen
Finney, you did see a lot of these questions in tweets from the
President saying collusion now between the Clintons and the
Russians. And also, we did learn that the Clintons' lawyer, Mark
Elias did fund this Fusion GPS dossier.
KAREN FINNEY: Yeah, but again, that dossier, came from an
American company that we—that originally been funded by
Republicans as you have mentioned earlier. I think what’s
important though is less who funded it and [more] what was
in the dossier.
(…)
BRIAN KILMEADE: To the GPS situation. We found out it's not a
candidate. We found out it was Paul Singer and his Free Beacon.
We found out he was looking at two candidates in particular. And
he stopped the investigation as soon as Donald Trump locked up
the nomination. As soon as he did that, he goes: “Okay, let's see
what happens,” from the Republican perspective. Then we find
out that somebody else picks up the investigation, makes it
international. It has a Russian element. There was no
Russian element to the Free Beacon-financed opposition
research. That’s a major difference. And then we're
supposed to believe that John Podesta had no idea that $6
million to $9 million is flying out of the campaign? He said
he didn’t know. And his lawyer: When he said he didn’t know,
Mark Elias says: “Oh, yeah, I actually approved that.” So you had
the lawyer sitting next to a client who’s pretending he doesn't
know that’s unbelievable.
MATTHEW DOWD: As Karen knows and Roland knows, I’ve
been highly critical of Hillary Clinton for a long period of time in all
the manifestations that have been—
ROLAND MARTIN: I think all of us know that, not just ne and
Karen.
[Laughter]
DOWD: I have to say. I have to say, we need to give up the KILMEADE: So what is patriotic about saying somebody is
David Copperfield or Harry Houdini award for misdirection in wrong?
this thing. This reminds me of the uranium deal, whole story,
that's been debunked along the way--all along the way. This is a MARTIN: This is a guy who will knowingly lie and not admit the
whole other story. There is no similarity between what Robert truth. So whether he says it, is relevant to me.
Mueller’s investigation in collusion and what the Russians
wanted to do and a dossier paid for in part by the Democrats (…)
in order of events.
[Crosstalk]
[Crosstalk]
FINNEY: It’s been known for a year that Democrats had been
KILMEADE: But Matt, why would you think that? The FBI paying for it.
indictments could have been handed out—
KILMEADE: No it wasn’t. It was denied by John Podesta.
[Crosstalk]
FINNEY He didn’t know.
DOWD: There is no Russian relationship between the
dossier and the Democrats. KILMEADE: It was denied by the DNC chairman. [Dowd to shout
him down] Let me. No. No. No.
MARTIN: Here is what is laughable. We literally watch a
campaign, of folks chant lock her up, that we can’t have a [Crosstalk]
President under investigation, and we're here right now. This is
the real test as to whether or not Republicans will actually
DOWD: Two shows in Vegas. Two shows in Vegas.
put patriotism above partisanship. Will conservative media
Misdirection.
folks actually speak truth or want to defend Trump at any
and all costs. I it love how people are complaining about
players taking a knee and the flag and excusing what excuse [Laughter]
what Russia Has done.
[Crosstalk]
[Crosstalk]
KILMEADE: Sorry if you’re frustrated.
KILMEADE: Why do you think that patriotism has something to
do with admitting Trump’s wrong? He doesn’t think he’s wrong. DOWD: I’m not frustrated. The truth is important Brian!

MARTIN: Brian! KINNEY: Brian, there are actual facts.

KILMEADE: They don’t think he’s wrong. KILMEADE: So, let me finish and I’ll tell you the facts. Tuesday,
Wednesday, we get the revelations because GPS did not want to
MARTIN: Brian! hand over their records about who financed their international
probe into Trump Tower—excuse me into Russia. And then
Tuesday, Wednesday, it turns out $3.6 million from the
KILMEADE: There’s no evidence that he is wrong.
Democrats. And $6 million from Hillary Clinton's campaign which
he never admitted to before.
MARTIN: Brian!
[Crosstalk]
128
KINNEY: GPS is an American company. GPS is an American STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m stopping this. Wait. There are two
company. facts. Two facts about the dossier that we know. We know
that it had nothing to do with the intelligence community's
MARTIN: I just love this filibustering spin. It’s pretty cute findings that Russia interfered with the election. Absolutely
Brian nothing to do with that. And number two, we know that
nothing in the dossier came out during the campaign. So it
had no effect on the campaign.
[Crosstalk]

(…)
.

129
 Details Of "Suspicious"
Manafort Wire Transfers Leaked From FBI Probe
By Tyler Durden
Oct 29, 2017 2:30 PM
As speculation mounts that Paul Manafort might be the
target of the sealed indictments reportedly approved by
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury, Buzzfeed is
reporting new details of Mueller’s probe into Manafort,
seemingly a hint that he will in fact be one of, if not the
only, target taken into custody tomorrow.
The FBI's investigation of Donald
Trump's former campaign manager,
Paul Manafort, includes a keen focus on
a series of suspicious wire transfers in
which offshore companies linked to
Manafort moved more than $3 million all
over the globe between 2012 and
2013.Much of the money came into the
United States.
These transactions — which have not been previously
reported — drew the attention of federal law enforcement
officials as far back as 2012, when they began to examine
wire transfers to determine if Manafort hid money from tax
authorities or helped the Ukrainian regime close to Russian
President Vladimir Putin launder some of the millions it
plundered through corrupt dealings.
The new revelations come as special counsel Robert
Mueller’s investigation is tightening, with reports that an
indictment may already have been issued.
It is not known if Manafort has been
indicted, or if he ever will be. Manafort
has been the subject of multiple law
enforcement and congressional
inquiries. A spokesperson for Manafort
would not comment for this story about
the investigation or any of the specific
transactions, but Manafort has
previously denied wrongdoing.
Manafort took charge of Trump’s campaign in May 2016
and was forced to resign just three months later, amid
intense media scrutiny of his ties to the notoriously corrupt
former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was
supported by the Kremlin.
130
A political operative for decades, the 68-
year-old Manafort has worked for
Republicans such as Presidents Ronald
Reagan and George H. W. Bush, as well
as for foreign leaders such as former
Philippines President Ferdinand
Marcos.
To be sure, the subject or subjects of the indictment have
not been revealed – and leaking any more details from the
grand jury room would only serve to further erode
Mueller’s credibility.
And it’s important to Manafort is only one of a handful of
Trump associates to face scrutiny in the probe – that group
also includes President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner
and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. But
the probe into Manafort has been subject to an unusual
number of leaks, including reports that his home had been
raided by the FBI over the summer, and that Mueller had
been looking into his tax records in search of a ‘check the
box’ violation.
Adding to this, Roger Stone reportedly testified that
Mueller’s team had informed Manafort that he should
expect to be indicted.
As Buzzfeed pointed out, Manafort is reportedly also being
investigated for money laundering by federal prosecutors
in New York City, but there have been no formal charges
from that probe. The FBI searched his home during a pre-
dawn raid this summer, reportedly as part of Mueller’s
probe. Manafort has consistently maintained his
innocence.
Mueller is reportedly examining at least 13 wire transfers
that occurred between 2012 and 2013. The transfers were
flagged by Treasury officials as suspicious, which
triggered an FBI investigation that – tellingly – never led
to charges. It’s unknown how that investigation was
resolved.
Now, BuzzFeed News has learned that
investigators have been scrutinizing at
least 13 wire transfers between 2012
and 2013. The transfers were first
flagged by American financial
institutions, which are required by law
to tell an office within the Treasury
Department about any transactions they
deem suspicious.
Such “suspicious activity reports” do not prove
wrongdoing. Federal law requires financial institutions to
file reports on cash transactions that exceed $10,000 in a
single day, even if those transactions seem otherwise
legitimate. Banks are also required to file the reports
whenever they suspect money laundering or other financial
crimes.
Bank officers flagged unusual behavior among five
offshore companies that authorities say are associated with
Manafort: Global Endeavour Inc., Lucicle Consultants
Ltd., and three others that appear to have no current
contact information.
Law enforcement sources say the companies sent funds in
round-dollar amounts without explanation of what the
money was to be used for.
The countries where these transactions
originated — notably Cyprus and the
Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the
Grenadines — are notorious for money
laundering. Federal law enforcement
officials said they saw evidence of
“layering,” the process by which the
origin of money is obscured behind
many layers of companies.
Much of the money ended up in the US, sent to American
home improvement contractors, a hedge fund, and even a
car dealership.
Manafort’s suspicious financial transactions were first
flagged by Treasury officials as far back as 2012 and
forwarded to the FBI’s International Corruption Unit and
the Department of Justice for further investigation in 2013
and 2014, a former Treasury official who worked on the
matter told BuzzFeed News.
The extent of Manafort’s suspicious
transactions was so vast, said this
131
former official, that law enforcement
agents drafted a series of “intelligence
reports” about Manafort’s financial
dealings. Two law enforcement officials
who worked on the case say that they
found red flags in his banking records
going back as far as 2004, and that the
transactions in question totaled many
millions of dollars.
Buzzfeed later implies that Manafort
helped Viktor Yanukovich –
who is suspected to be the ultimate source of the payments,
which were presumably made in exchange for Manafort’s
consulting work – loot Ukraine’s public Treasury.
BuzzFeed News has learned specific details about 13 of the
wire transfers, all of which took place between 2012 and
2013. At least four of the transfers originated with
Manafort’s company Global Endeavour, a political
consulting firm based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Global Endeavour was hired by Yanukovych to consult
and lobby on his behalf. Ousted after the 2014 Euromaidan
Revolution, Yanukovych lives in exile in Russia and is
accused of treason by Ukrainian authorities; the country’s
general prosecutor said Yanukovych’s embezzlement of
state funds was so egregious it resembled a “mafia
structure.”
Wire transfers flagged as suspicious
show that during the waning months of
Yanukovych’s presidency, Global
Endeavour sent more than $750,000 out
of Ukraine. None of these transactions
have been previously reported.
In November and December of 2013, for example, the
company transferred almost $53,000 to Konstantin
Kilimnik, a Kiev-based political operator. It’s not known
what the money was for. A federal law enforcement
official described Kilimnik as a linguist trained by the
Russian army and about whom the US has gathered
intelligence. He reportedly attended a military school some
experts believe to be a training ground for Russian spies.
Kilimnik worked with Manafort for more than a decade,
and the Washington Post reported that Manafort emailed
his old partner in 2016 to offer “private briefings” to a
Russian billionaire close to President Vladimir Putin.
Kilimnik declined to comment when reached Saturday by
BuzzFeed News.
In September 2013, Global Endeavour transferred
$500,000 that would ultimately end up back in Manafort’s
control. First it went to a hedge fund in Florida, Aegis
Holdings LLC, that is controlled by Marc Baldinger, a
broker who in 2014 was suspended for 18 months for
engaging in deals his financial institution didn’t know
about. Baldinger’s brother, Bruce, is a real estate attorney
who has worked with Manafort for about a decade.
While the wire transfers Buzzfeed reported
on mostly involved Manafort’s Global
Endeavor lobbying company, the FBI is
also reportedly examining suspicious
wire transfers involving other
companies.
In addition to transactions involving Global Endeavour,
there were wire transfers, never before reported, flagged as
suspicious involving other companies. There were three by
the Cyprus-based Lucicle Consultants — which has
“strong ties” to Manafort, according to federal law
.
132
enforcement sources — in March and April 2012. The
company transferred a total of about $2.5 million, some of
it directly to accounts controlled by Manafort. No contact
information for Lucicle or any of its officers could be
found.
Given that leaking Manafort as the
target would be too damaging, is this
leak Mueller’s way of taunting the
former Trump campaign executive
before indictments are handed down?
Or are these just more trivial details about Manafort
receiving payment for his lobbying work?
What do you think?
 'Goper'?? On CNN, Charlie Sykes
Says Any Clinton Scandal's 'Completely Irrelevant'
By Tim Graham
October 29, 2017 6:04 PM EDT
On Friday, Jake Tapper promoted his Sunday State of the
Union panel on Twitter like this:
“we have two Dems and two GOPers.”
One of the alleged Republicans was Charles Sykes, author
of the book How The Right Lost Its Mind. So I tweeted
back:
“Rhetorically, that's one Republican and
three Democrats.”
Sykes objected that he was an
“unTrumpified conservative."
So take a look at what Sykes actually said on Sunday's
Tapper panel. He sounded exactly like what a Democrat
would have said in his place. Only Trump scandals matter.
Other scandals, he said, were
“completely irrelevant.”
Sykes leaped to cry “distraction” on the Clinton scandal
from the first question.
TAPPER: Let's start with you, Charlie
Sykes, the author of a brand-new book
called How The Right Lost Its
Mind. Congratulations on the new book.
There has been a big effort by the White
House this week to try to change the
subject from Mueller and try to refocus
133
attention on the Clintons. What do you
think?
SYKES: Well, you know, this is the -- we've
seen this before. You know, deflection,
distraction, you know, turn it around into
something else.
You know,
Donald Trump is still, obviously,
obsessed with playing the Clinton card,
running against Hillary Clinton.
But I do think, you know, we're going to see a change
tomorrow. It's going to move from the -- if, in fact, these
charges do come down, we're going to see this move from
the realm of politics and tweeting and speculation to the
law and facts.
So I think you're going to see an extraordinary day
tomorrow. And I think it's really a maximum peril, when
you think about it. Because as you point out, as you've
been pointing out all morning, I think that you saw Trump,
the Trump White House and the Trump media really
prepping the battlefield to discredit this investigation, and
possibly even laying groundwork to fire Bob Mueller.
And that is going to be a real test for
Republicans, who claim to believe in the
rule of law.
Then Sykes insisted that even if the Clinton scandal were
actually scandal, it was completely irrelevant. Everyone
pretends there are absolutely NO new developments in the
new reporting on the Uranium One dealings and the Fusion
GPS funding.
SYKES: But you can believe two things.
You can believe this was a very, very
disturbing deal, that we ought to look into.
NINA TURNER, DEMOCRAT: We should.
SYKES: And also think that it's completely
irrelevant to what's going on right now.
That you can be disturbed by that, but also
recognize that there's really no new
developments in that story. And why would
 this have, you know, become a big story
the week before the first indictments would
come down?
TURNER: Right.
SYKES: So, again, you know, you don't
have to say there's nothing here. But you
can also say, this has ab -- this is a
complete distraction from this real story
of the Russian interference in the
election.
TURNER: Right. Right.
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, DEMOCRAT: In
fact, this was raised during the election.
And it was investigated.
SYKES: It was.
GRANHOLM: And fact checkers have said,
there is nothing to Hillary Clinton -- Hillary
Clinton did not even sit on the committee.
TURNER: No, she didn't.
If anyone took the surnames off that transcript, it would
sound like Democratic Sunday Breakfast. Sykes claims the
real issue is collusion with the Russians on the election,
and yet asserting the Democrats paid for Russian
testimony in their dossier isn't discussed. Tapper didn't
bring it up.
Tapper then acknowledged he had three panelists who all
sounded alike: ”Okay, with three of you saying this is a
distraction, let's turn to what we are expecting tomorrow,
which we are expecting if not an arrest, somebody to go
willingly into federal custody.”
Later, Sykes lit into former senator Rick Santorum, the one
panelist who doesn’t want Trump tarred and feathered,
insulting him as having no character. Note Santorum is
trying to talk about conservative policy proposals like tax
reform, and "conservative" Sykes attacks him for daring to
talk about that, like Trump needs to be impeached instead
of helped:
RICK SANTORUM: The bottom line is that
Donald Trump is going to -- is going to
weather through this and things are going
.
134
to turn around if he can pass the tax bill. It's
going to turn around if we can pass the
health care bill come the first of next year
and all of these other issues about Donald
Trump and his tweeting and Donald Trump
and his -- you know, character are going to
fall by the wayside once the issue -- once
the issue shows that --
SYKES: Character? Wow. I'm old enough
to remember when Rick Santorum cared
about character.
SANTORUM: I didn't say --
SYKES: You said character matters.
SANTORUM: Character does matter. I'm
not --
SYKES: I don't understand --
SANTORUM: I'm not suggesting that it
doesn't matter. I'm suggesting what's going
to happen if he succeeds.
SYKES (trying to talk over Santorum): I
understand why conservatives support his
agenda on tax cuts, and a variety -- what I
don't understand is how conservative
Republicans feel the need to rationalize,
defend and enable the possible hacking of
our election by Russians.
TAPPER: That's the end of that. Thanks
one and all for being here.
Sykes mocked me on Friday for calling him rhetorically
liberal on Twitter:
“This is a fascinating new formulation.
Conservative criticism of Trump may not be
‘liberal’ per se, but it is ‘Rhetorically liberal.’
Orwell would smile.”
Obviously, one can be conservative and very critical of
Donald Trump. But when you call yourself conservative
and dismiss every scandal that isn’t about Donald Trump
as “irrelevant,” you don’t sound like integrity and
character is your first priority. On the Democrat scandal-
denying substance, you can't figure out where Jennifer
Granholm ends and Charlie Sykes begins. '
 'Trump Dossier' Firm Will Turn Over
Banking Records To House Intel Committee
By Tyler Durden
Oct 29, 2017 1:31 PM
Earlier this week, Speaker Paul Ryan offhandedly revealed
that the FBI had agreed to hand over documents related to
the infamous Trump dossier to the House Intelligence
Committee, marking a victory for Chairman Devin Nunes,
who had been pushing the DOJ to release the documents
for month. And last night, Fox News reported another
victory for Nunes in his push to determine how the dossier
– which was funded by the DNC and Clinton campaign
and contains allegations that have been widely debunked –
factored into the bureau’s decision to open an investigation
into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russia.
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson
After the owners of Fusion GPS – the opposition research
firm hired by a lawyer for the Clinton campaign to
scrutinize Trump’s foreign business dealings – refused to
answer questions two weeks ago during a Congressional
hearing, the company has reportedly agreed to turn over its
bank records to Nunes after initially trying to block it.
The House Intelligence Committee said
Saturday it has struck a deal to gain
access to bank records from Fusion
GPS, the firm behind the salacious anti-
Trump dossier.
The company had recently attempted to block the
committee’s subpoena for its banking records.
“The parties have reached an agreement
related to the House Intelligence
Committee's subpoena for Fusion GPS's
135
bank records that will secure the
Committee's access to the records
necessary for its investigation,” the
intelligence committee said in a statement
released Saturday.
As Fox pointed out, Nunes has been trying for months to
investigate the dossier, which claimed the Russian
government had compromising material with which it
could blackmail Trump. The dossier was turned over to the
FBI during the summer of 2016 and was also widely
circulated among Washington journalists before it was
published by CNN and Buzzfeed early this year.
Last week, it emerged that Fusion GPS had been retained
last year by Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the
DNC and the Clinton campaign, to conduct opposition
research on Trump. The firm contracted British spy
Christopher Steele, who assembled the dossier.
On Friday evening, it was revealed that the opposition
research project was initially backed by the conservative
Washington Free Beacon website.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-
Calif., had issued a subpoena on Oct. 4 for Fusion GPS’
TD Bank records.
Fusion’s lawyers responded by issuing
a "temporary restraining order and
preliminary injunction" to block the
release of those records, arguing the
release would them “their rights to free
speech and expressive association as
guaranteed by the First Amendment to
the Constitution."
While it’s now public knowledge that the Democrats
funded the dossier, details like how much they paid for the
document and how much they knew about Steele’s work or
the quality of his claims remain a mystery. However, the
firm’s banking records could shed some light on these
matters.
In other words…
136
Congress Could Accidentally Unleash Trump’s War Powers
Democrats Are Pushing A Bill That’s Supposed To Rein In The War On
Terror After 16 Long Years. There’s A Strong Chance It Could
Have The Exact Opposite Effect.
Andrew Desiderio - Spencer Ackerman
10.29.17 9:00 PM ET
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast
Sixteen years after voting for a war on terrorism that
turned the world into a global battlefield, the Senate is
taking a tentative step at reconsidering the law that
authorized that conflict, the 2001 Authorization to Use
Military Force. Yet the leading replacement for the AUMF
might, in the guise of reasserting congressional power over
the war, be even more of a blank check.
Late on Monday afternoon, the secretaries of State and
Defense, Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis, are scheduled to
tell the Senate’s foreign relations committee how Donald
Trump’s administration views its war powers and their
limits under the AUMF.
As recently as August, Tillerson’s State Department
informed Congress it thinks the 2001 version is fine—even
though that 60-word document, passed in the traumatic
days after the 9/11 attacks, long predated the rise of the
Islamic State and the al Qaeda offshoots that the U.S.
currently targets. And Trump is following in Barack
Obama’s footsteps. Obama rested the war on ISIS on the
AUMF a year after arguing for “ultimately repeal[ing]” the
2001 legislation.
“It is frankly amazing,” Sen. Bernie Sanders
told The Daily Beast, “that the president is
using the 2001 AUMF to wage war against
a group, ISIS, which did not exist when it
was written and passed.”
Few observers, including counterterrorism veterans,
consider the 2001 AUMF relevant to the 2017 version of
137
the war on terrorism. It’s not even a partisan issue. In
2011, the Republican chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, Buck McKeon, and his now-
successor, Mac Thornberry, urged the Obama
administration to work with Congress to pass a new one.
Not only did they argue the 2011-era war on terror was
materially different from the 2001 version, but they
thought Congress was shirking its responsibilities by
declining to consider an updated version.
“I think the AUMF has been stretched
beyond recognition at this point and we
need a new one, and Congress needs to
get back into the business of accepting
responsibility for armed conflicts,” Jeh
Johnson, Obama’s secretary of Homeland
Security and senior Pentagon attorney, told
The Daily Beast.
Johnson added:
“When you’re in office, you can’t say that,
because what you’re saying is the military
is acting beyond domestic legal authority.”
Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democratic senator, has for years
made a similar argument. In May, he and retiring GOP
colleague Jeff Flake, both of whom sit on the foreign
relations committee, introduced an alternative that is likely
to feature substantially in Monday’s hearing with Tillerson
and Mattis. Kaine’s urgency stems as well from his belief
that Trump particularly can’t be trusted with the 2001
AUMF.
“One of the reasons that I was so hard on
President Obama on this use of the 9/11
authorization against ISIS is I said, look, I
think this is being stretched far beyond
what was originally intended. I generally
believe[d] that President Obama will use
this broad definition and power in a very
careful way,” Kaine told The Daily Beast.
“But once you allow it to be stretched to
encompass anything, we will have a
president who will not use it in a careful
 way. And I think there’s a lot of us,
Democrats and Republicans, who are very
worried about this president’s judgment.”
But while a constituency exists for the threshold question
of revisiting the AUMF, there is no consensus for how
strictly it should bind the president’s conduct of the war.
And there is concern in civil libertarian circles that not
only is Kaine’s alternative insufficient, it might
inadvertently give Trump even more warfighting power
than he presently has.
‘Never-Ending Wars All Around the World’
Sixteen years on, the 2001 AUMF looks less like a
temporary grant of sweeping powers to address an
immediate crisis than the American equivalent of an
Emergency Law familiar in authoritarian countries like
Egypt. Its reach has come to include wars against al Qaeda
offshoots or affiliates in Yemen (now nearing its ninth
year) and Somalia (its 11th). It is the legal predicate for,
more recently, the military detention without charge of an
unnamed American citizen captured nearly two months
ago in Syria allegedly fighting for ISIS. (Coincidentally,
the Justice Department on Monday must respond to an
ACLU challenge to his detention.)
The Kaine-Flake replacement AUMF explicitly blesses a
war against ISIS. It permits the same against “any person
or force, other than a sovereign nation” that “is a part of, or
substantially supports al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria” and “is engaged in hostilities
against the United States, its Armed Forces or other
personnel.” Specified are several such groups: Khorasan,
the Nusra Front, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-
Shabab.
The text also codifies war in “Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria,
Somalia, Libya or Yemen,” but does not restrict the war to
those six countries. A president can add a person or group
to the list after telling Congress why doing so is “necessary
and appropriate.” He or she does not have to provide the
objective of military action or a deadline for achieving it.
Nor does the bill rule out U.S. citizens or groups on U.S.
soil as potential targets.
If Congress has a problem, it will have to formally vote to
disapprove a new target. That’s one of the major
legislative oversight mechanisms the new AUMF provides.
The other is that the AUMF “sunsets” in five years,
138
meaning Congress will have to debate a new one
afterward, lest the war powers vanish.
Kaine considers that a reasonable compromise between
oversight and executive prerogative:
“We put some similar limitation on
geography, allowing the administration to
list where action is taking place and then
putting the burden upon the shoulders of
Congress to disapprove if we don’t really
feel like that’s warranted. And both of those
require a notice not only to us but to the
public. And they defer to an executive by
having it be subject to a resolution of
disapproval rather than approval.”
Some of Kaine’s Democratic counterparts in the House are
similarly wary of backing specific curtailments on
executive power. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who has
introduced new war authorizations over the last several
years including one in April, is pushing for a mechanism
that would allow Congress to “modify, revise, or repeal”
any president’s decision to deploy ground troops, in
addition to a three-year sunset. But he cautioned against
blanket prohibitions on ground troops or geographic
locations, telling The Daily Beast that he wants to preserve
the executive branch’s “flexibility.”
“I certainly am concerned that we carefully
weigh the deployment of troops anywhere,
even in a counterterror mission,” Schiff said
in an interview. “Because you can have
mission creep. But I think the better
approach is to allow a congressional check
rather than, on the front end, trying to
define geographically.”
But all this sits uneasily with legislators to Kaine’s and
Schiff’s left.
“I have great respect for Jeff and Tim,” said
their foreign-relations committee colleague
Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat,
“and they deserve credit for coming up with
the only possibly workably framework. I
don’t think their framework goes far enough
to protect against executive abuse, but I
think they’re close.”
Murphy considers two to three years “a good starting
point” for war authorization alongside geographic
restrictions on where the war is fought:
“I think the question is whether we would
continue to allow for very targeted special
operations missions and place the
 limitations on broader deployment of U.S.
forces.”
Sanders, who recently termed the war on terrorism a
disaster, sounded similar tones without mentioning the
Kaine-Flake AUMF specifically.
A new AUMF
“must be clear and specific about who we
are fighting, the mission objectives, and
reporting requirements from the president.
It must explicitly affirm U.S. compliance
with international law, and include a sunset
clause to enable Congress to reexamine
the AUMF after several years and decide
whether it is still necessary and
appropriate,” Sanders said. “The American
people do not want to be engaged in never-
ending wars all around the world.”
‘The President Could List the U.S. as a Battlefield’
Outside of Congress, criticism of the new AUMF is
sharper—prompted by the specific ways the war on
terrorism has mutated.
Kaine and Flake’s AUMF does not require a target to be a
member of ISIS or any similar group. Even a single
“person” can be legally attacked. The AUMF’s threshold
for inclusion, “substantially support[ing]” such a listed
target, goes undefined, meaning Trump—who has no
problem conflating Islam and terrorism—will be in charge
of defining who “substantially supports” terrorism. In an
era when people who have no actual contact with ISIS
shoot up nightclubs in its name, Christopher Anders of the
ACLU considers the new bill an even broader grant of
authority than the 2001 version.
“One of the major problems with this bill is
there is no prohibition on the president’s
authorization of military action within the
U.S. itself and against U.S. citizens. Under
this bill, the president would be able to list
the U.S. as a battlefield country and be
able to list Americans and American groups
as among the enemy,” Anders told The
Daily Beast.
And the political dynamic the Kaine-Flake AUMF lays out
puts Congress in the position of needing overwhelming
opposition to preventing the sprawl of the war on
terrorism.
.
139
“Congress, if it was able to muster a two-
thirds majority in both the House and
Senate would be able to stop the president
from doing that, but that’s a high hurdle,”
Anders added, because the president could
veto such a legislative “disapproval.”
In practice, Congress would have to clear that hurdle in the
aftermath of a terrorist attack and over a White House’s
argument that its actions are necessary to prevent the next
one.
Nor does a sunset actually yield finality. Sunsets are
legislators’ favorite Augustinian technique for gesturing at
ending controversial security measures instead of ending
them. Reauthorizing sunsetting surveillance legislation like
the Patriot Act and now the FISA Amendments Act in
practice becomes a vehicle for expanding their scope.
Whatever hesitation there is on the left about insufficient
prohibitions on a sprawling war are not shared across the
aisle. Influential Republicans who agree that it’s past time
to replace the AUMF do not see doing so as a mechanism
to rein in the war on terrorism.
“Consistent with Article II, you cannot have
Congress dictating military tactics. So
geographical limitations, all sorts of ideas
and limitations not only don’t make sense,
hinder our military, but probably are not
constitutional,” Thornberry, the House
Armed Services Committee chairman, told
The Daily Beast. “Time limits, I think you
can make a better argument on, although
there is another side that you’re
telegraphing something to the enemy that
you may not want to. All that can be
discussed.”
And whatever AUMF debate occurs in the wake of
Monday’s testimony—or doesn’t—will unfold as the
Pentagon mulls expanding operations in Niger and the
Chad River Basin against previously obscure local fighters
whom the military ties to ISIS that are responsible for
killing four elite U.S. soldiers this month. Murphy warns
that acquiescing to or expanding Trump’s military mandate
for counterterrorism will not stop there.
“I would be less worried about [Trump’s]
plans in North Korea if we were doing our
work to constrain his actions in the Middle
East and Africa,” Murphy said.
Congressional “silence,” Murphy continued,
“suggests he has a blank check from us.”
 "Unhinged" Billionaire Steyer Urges Nation To
"Impeach Mentally Unstable Trump" In
Prime Time World Series Ad
By Tyler Durden
Oct 29, 2017 8:45 PM

In the commercial break before the National Anthem was
sung at tonight's game 5 of The World Series, hedge fund
billionaire Tom Steyer decided it was time to release his
full length ad demanding that President Trump be
impeached...
Incidentally, not one of the players, coaches, ballboys,
crowd, or concession workers 'took a knee' during the
singing of the National Anthem.
Here is the full commercial.

"He's brought us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructed

justice at the FBI, and in violation of the constitution, he
has taken money from foreign governments and threatened
to shut down news organizations who report the truth.

If that isn't a case for impeaching and

removing a dangerous president then
what has our government become?

While some approved of this striking political statement,

others were rather displeased with the stunt receiving some
angry feedback from social media:

What a clown Tom steyer is that

commercial was blatantly lying he’s got
such a punchable face
...I'm Tom Steyer, and like you, I'm a citizen who knows — AMERICAN DUCK ????????????
it's up to us to do something. (@americanduck8) October 29, 2017

...this president is a clear and present As some enjoyed it:

danger who's mentally unstable and
armed with nuclear weapons...
The billionaire environmentalist has also
been sharply critical of California
As a reminder, President Trump was not impressed with Senator Dianne Feinstein, who he
Mr. Steyer during the week: considers soft on Trump because she once
said he could be “a good President.”
In fact, according to CNN, Steyer is
strongly considering a run against
Feinstein in California’s primary election
next year.

140
 President Trump Confident
In Missile Defense: In The Grip Of Dangerous Illusion
Andrei AKULOV
29.10.2017
The US is pushing ahead with expansion of the nation’s
homeland ballistic missile defense (BMD). The effort
enjoys strong bipartisan support in Congress and among
experts. Many allies place a high value on BMD
cooperation with the United States. However, there are
ample reasons to question the efficiency of US missile
defenses, especially the capability to protect against
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
“We have missiles that can knock out a
missile in the air 97% of the time,”
President Donald Trump said in
his interview with Fox News on October 11,
adding “and if you send two of them, it’s
going to get knocked down.”
He was talking about the threat coming from North Korea
to be repelled by the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense
(GMD) in Alaska and California – the $40 billion project
administered by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).
The US military conducted the first-ever missile defense
test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental
ballistic missile in May. The ICBM-type target was fired
from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands toward
the waters just south of Alaska. The mission was to
prepare for countering an intercontinental missile launched
by North Korea. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA)
described the test as an “incredible accomplishment”.
According to Vice Admiral Jim Syring, director of the
agency, “This system is vitally important to the defense of
our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a
capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.” The
assessment appears to be exaggerated as the test was not
conducted in a realistic environment.
The next test of the GMD system is scheduled for late
2018 and, for the first time, will involve firing two
interceptors against one ICBM target. It makes
unsubstantiated the president’s affirmation that two
interceptors are enough to knock out a North Korean
missile as no such tests have been conducted so far.
The US currently deploys 36 interceptors – 32 at Fort
Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base,
California. By the end of 2017, there will be 44 deployed
GBIs. A majority of the interceptors use the CE-I variant
141
of kill vehicle that has scored only two successes in four
tests. At least ten interceptors are to be equipped with the
CE-II Block I vehicle, which has had two successful
intercept tests in three tries.
It is generally believed that it takes at least four-five
interceptors to hit the target. It means President Trump is
off base saying the hit probability is 97%. Prior to the
ICBM test, the GMD system had successfully hit its target
in only ten of 18 tests since 1999. A success rate is about
56%, not 97%. But even 56% is almost certainly an
overstatement, given the less-than-realistic nature of the
tests.
A success rate for four-five interceptors per target may be
97% but the possibility that each successive interceptor’s
chance of successful kill might not be independent of the
previous one, due to correlated factors such as design
shortcomings, leading to a lower overall success rate.
Nevertheless, President Trump believes each
interceptor has a single-shot probability of kill (SSPK) for
a given interceptor of 97% (rather than 56%).
According to the Washington Post,
“No single interceptor for ICBMs has
demonstrated a 97-percent success rate,
and there is no guarantee using two
interceptors has a 100-percent success
rate. Moreover, the military’s suggestion
that it could achieve a 97-percent success
rate with four interceptors appears based
on faulty assumptions and overenthusiastic
math. The odds of success under the most
ideal conditions are no better than 50-50,
and likely worse, as documented in
detailed government assessment.”
Joe Cirincione, the President of Ploughshares Fund and the
author of Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before
It Is Too Late, investigated anti-missile programs for
almost 10 years as professional staff on the House Armed
Services and Government Operations Committees.
He believes that “If people took a close look at just one of
these interceptor tests, they would likely conclude, as I did,
that the tests bear little resemblance to real-world
conditions.”
If North Korea fired an ICBM — or multiple ICBMs — at
the United States, the GMD with its Ground-Based
Interceptors (GBIs) is only one system that could take a
shot at intercepting and destroying the warhead outside the
earth’s atmosphere in midcourse flight. Other missile
defense systems such as THAAD and Aegis are in no
position to hit ICBMs as they’re designed for other classes
of targets.
With only one test against an ICBM, the MDA is not even
close to demonstrating that the system works in a real-
world setting. The GMD systems have not yet been tested
in the range of conditions under which it is expected to
operate. No tests have been conducted at night or against
complex countermeasures, such as electronic
countermeasures and decoys. The tests are always rigged
because the intercept team knows the timing and trajectory
of the incoming missile. But even the scripted tests have
often failed. What has been done so far is insufficient to
demonstrate that an operational BMD capability really
exists.
The US has not publicly conducted any tests to see
whether the missile-defense radars can distinguish a
missile from chaff. Even cheap inflatable balloons can
make all intercept efforts go down the drain. With no air
resistance (or drag) in space, a decoy like a balloon shaped
like a nuclear warhead could travel in the same way as the
true warhead, making it difficult for a missile to
distinguish the real thing from the decoy. Balloons are
light enough to enable a sophisticated warhead launch 20
or 30 decoy balloons to obscure the path of the warhead,
swamping the defense system with fake signals.
In February and April 2016, the
Government Accountability Office (GAO)
.
142
assessed that the MDA has not
“demonstrated through flight testing that it
can defend the US homeland against the
current missile defense threat,” relying on
“a highly optimistic, aggressive schedule”
to upgrade the system.
The US abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty in 2002, which greatly obstructed arms control
process. Efficient or not, the US current and potential
BMD capability is taken into consideration to influence
Russia’s military planning. It provokes Moscow into
taking countermeasures to respond to BMD plans and
negatively affects the prospects for future Russia-US arms
control agreements. With uncertainties raised about the
strict balance of arms agreed upon in New START, a chain
reaction is triggered leading to arms race.
Philip Giraldi, a highly respected expert and the Executive
Director of the Council for the National Interest,
believes that the American people are being fooled by the
administration, which tries to make them think that a
nuclear war is thinkable. According to him,
“If that is the message being sent by the
White House, it would encourage further
reckless adventurism on the part of the
national security state.”
Mr. Giraldi hit the nail right on the head. The GMD effort
creates a dangerous illusion that a victory in a nuclear
conflict is achievable and no money should be spared to
spur the implementation of the MDA plans. In reality, the
US defense industry is the only benefactor while the
taxpayers throw money into the drain. The result:
further erosion of arms control and reduced security.
 EXCLUSIVE: US Left Wing Groups Travelled To
Germany For The G20 Summit Last July To Meet With Al
Qaeda And ISIS Leaders And Plot The Destruction Of
President Trump, Secret FBI Investigation Reveals
 Bestselling author Edward Klein is set to release his latest book All Out War: The Plot to Destroy
Trump
 Klein makes the shocking revelation that an FBI investigation discovered collusion between
American anarchists and ISIS and Al-Qaeda
 'This is the greatest challenge to law enforcement since the Weather Underground and the Black
Panther Party,' the FBI report declared
 It reveals the FBI sent a task force to Germany to report on radical groups that planned to
protest President Trump's attendance at this year's G20 Summit
 The investigation determined that U.S.-backed anarchist/radical groups had traveled to
Germany and took part in the violence
 There was also evidence that three key leaders of an Oakland group met in Hamburg with a
leader of the Al-Qaeda
 The foreign terrorists were helping them acquire the weapons they are seeking, primarily bomb-
making equipment and toxic chemicals and gasses
By Ed Klein For Dailymail.com
Published: 09:30 EDT, 29 October 2017 | Updated: 11:47 EDT, 30 October 2017

Edward Klein is the former editor in chief of the New York Virginia, that left-wing anarchist groups are just as
Times Magazine and the author of numerous bestsellers dangerous as right-wing white supremacists.
including his fourth book on the Clintons, Guilty as Sin, in
2016. His latest book is All Out War: The Plot to Destroy
Trump will be released October 30, 2017

A secret FBI investigation of the violent 'resistance'

movement on college campuses against President Trump
has led to an alarming discovery—the collusion between
American anarchists and foreign terrorists in the Islamic
State and Al qaeda, according to a confidential
'Informational Report' by FBI field offices.

'There is clearly overwhelming evidence

that there are growing ties between U.S.
radicals and the Islamic State, as well as
several [ISIS] offshoots and splinter
groups,' stated the FBI field report, which
was delivered to Acting Director Andrew
McCabe on July 11, 2017, and which is
being published for the first time in my new
book All Out War: The Plot to Destroy
Trump.
The FBI report on efforts by Islamic terrorists to recruit
followers among violent U.S. groups like Antifa
corroborates President Trump's controversial claim,
following last summer's deadly protests in Charlottesville,
143
A secret FBI investigation of the violent 'resistance' movement on
college campuses against President Trump has led to an alarming
discovery—the collusion between American anarchists and foreign
terrorists in the Islamic State and Al Qaeda (Pictured above are the
protests in Charlottesville, VA)
'This is the greatest challenge to law
enforcement since the Weather
Underground and the Black Panther Party,'
the FBI report declared.
Last summer, the FBI dispatched a task force to Europe to
report on massive demonstrations planned by radical
groups, such as the German contingent Antifaschistische
Aktion, to protest President Trump's attendance at a
meeting of leaders and central bank governors of the G20
group of major industrialized countries
'Task force covered G20 meeting in
Hamburg, studied intel from local
authorities, Interpol, and other assets,
determined that as assumed U.S.-backed
anarchist/radical groups had traveled to
Germany and took place in the violence,'
the FBI's summary stated.
'There is also evidence of meetings
between these individuals and associates
of ISIS. There is an urgent need to closely
surveil the identified individuals.'
The agents sent by the FBI paid particular attention to a
group of anarchists from Oakland, a major port city that
lies adjacent to the campus of the University of California
at Berkeley, the scene of several violent protests.
It reveals the FBI sent a task force to Germany to report on radical
groups that planned to protest President Trump's attendance at this
year's G20 Summit (pictured) and found U.S.-backed
anarchist/radical groups had traveled to Germany and met with
terrorists
'While there has been military progress in
Iraq against the Islamic State, their
influence in Europe and throughout the
world is clearly growing,' the report said.
144
'Now that the bureau has determined they
have followers in the radical U.S.
resistance movement in the United States,
it is clear there will be additional violence in
the attacks on law enforcement and U.S.
institutions, including banks.
'Ties between three key leaders of the
Oakland group [names redacted] met in
Hamburg with a leader of the AQAP [Al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] and the
AQIM [Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb],'
the report continued. 'The leader from
AQAP is an Egyptian-born male [name
redacted] who is known to be in charge of
finances and recruiting for the group.
The FBI field report was delivered to
Acting Director Andrew McCabe in July
'There is evidence from informants that he
is helping the Oakland group acquire the
weapons they are seeking, primarily bomb
making equipment and toxic chemicals and
gasses.
'One of the men from Oakland traveled to
Syria to meet with ISIS; the purpose was
for training in tactics, but was thought to be
primarily a bonding visit to discuss possible
massive disruptive attacks in the U.S.
'While in Hamburg, several of the Oakland-
based criminals were photographed
throwing Molotov cocktails and wielding
iron bars, which have been their weapons
of choice, though they are almost certainly
on the verge of upping the caliber of their
weaponry for use in the U.S.
'Despite having their faces covered by
masks, they were positively identified.
'This group and their connections with the
radical Islamic groups must be disrupted
and destroyed.
 'Making some sort of common cause with
Americans who are determined to commit
violence against the U.S. makes them
potentially very useful to radical Islam.'

The FBI dispatched a task force to Europe to report on massive

demonstrations planned by radical groups, such as the German
contingent Antifaschistische Aktion

Ed Klein's latest book is

All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump
will be released October 30, 2017

Before he was fired as director of the FBI, James Comey

collected intelligence on the connections between Middle
Eastern jihadis, European radicals, and the American
anarchists who are part of the anti-Trump 'resistance'
movement.
Mounted policemen ride through a group of protesters sitting on the
ground, in Hamburg, Germany, during the G20 Summit in July
'The Americans communicate with the
Islamic State and other terrorist
organizations on websites, and they use
those websites to download instructions on
making weapons,' said an FBI source who
had access to Comey's intelligence
reports.

'As the Trump administration has

demonstrated it's serious about destroying
the Islamic State, and depriving ISIS of
territory in Iraq and Syria, the alliance
between the American radicals and ISIS
has grown even closer. The Internet chatter
between the Americans and the Islamists is
astronomical.

'The FBI is really playing catchup ball,

'Action has been taken with the appropriate
agencies to see that these named
individuals will be identified when they
return to the United States. It has not been
determined if they will be detained or
surveilled.…
145
because the Obama administration refused
to give the bureau the resources it needed
to effectively infiltrate and surveil the
radical groups on college campuses,' the
source continued.
'Any talk of a connection between radical
Islam—a phrase the Obama people
wouldn't even use—and American
extremists was pretty much laughed off.
[Former Attorney General] Loretta Lynch
would have blown a gasket if she heard
that the FBI was surveilling so-called
college political organizations.

'All that has changed under the Trump

administration. Everyone's aware that the
resistance movement, with its effort to get
rid of Trump by any means necessary, has
created fertile soil for ISIS and al Qaeda to
establish a beachhead in America.'

146
 Crooked Cop Mueller Leaks Investigation Info To CNN
Continuing His Long History Of Corrupt
And Criminal Actions
By Jim Hoft
Monday, October 30, 2017
Robert Mueller continued with his now
widely reported corrupt and criminal
activities last night by leaking
information sealed by the courts to
CNN. This is just another corrupt and
criminal act in Mueller’s corrupt and
criminal career.
Last night we found out from information leaked to CNN
that the Mueller investigation has filed charges in the
ongoing superfluous investigation into President Trump
and the far out possibility that he colluded with Russia in
the 2016 election. CNN reported that:
A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday
approved the first charges in the investigation led by
special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources
briefed on the matter.
The charges are still sealed under
orders from a federal judge.
In typical bad cop form, former FBI Head
and current Special Counsel Mueller
proved again that he is as dirty as it
gets.
Mueller’s career is littered with
numerous investigations of major
scandals and likely crimes that Mueller
147
did not meaningfully investigate as FBI
Director resulting in no arrests and no
consequences. All of these resulted in
the Clintons and/or Obama
Administration getting away with
criminal activities:
IRS Targeting (2010-2013):
The IRS intentionally selected and then
delayed or denied tax-exempt 501(c)(3)
applications from conservative groups to
prevent them from participating in the 2012
election, followed by IRS agent Lois Lerner
invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege
against self-incrimination. (No charges
have been filed of any wrong doing by any
government officials in this case.)
Fast and Furious (2010): this ATF
program, which seems to have served no
rational purpose, allowed over 2,000 guns
to be purchased illegally inside the United
States and then “walked” into Mexico for
use by criminals, one of which was later
used in the 2010 murder of Border Agent
Brian Terry by the member of a Mexican
cartel
Associated Press Spying (2012): the
Department of Justice illegally seized the
communications of AP reporters made
during April and May 2012, allowing the
DOJ to unmask journalists’ confidential
sources
Clinton Foundation Pay-for-Play (2009-
2013): during the period in which Hillary
Clinton held the office of Secretary of State,
the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton
received millions of dollars in paid speaking
fees and a million dollar “gift”from countries
involved in matters with the State
Department, many of which had ties to
terrorism and human rights abuses; some
of these funds were apparently diverted
from charitable causes to personal
expenses, such as Chelsea Clinton’s 2010
wedding.
 Russian Uranium Deal (2009-2013):
Hillary Clinton’s State Department
approved a deal allowing a Russian
company to control 20% of the uranium
mining production capacity inside the
United States, which was followed by
millions of dollars in donations to the
Clinton Foundation from people associated
with the transaction. This past week
information was reported that prior to the
Obama administration approving the very
controversial deal in 2010 giving Russia
20% of America’s Uranium through the
approved sale of Uranium One, the FBI
had evidence that Russian nuclear industry
officials were involved in bribery, kickbacks,
extortion and money laundering in order to
benefit Vladimir Putin, says a report by The
Hill. Mueller was the head of the FBI at
this time! He was even hand picked by
Hillary Clinton to hand over uranium to
Russia on an airport tarmac at this time.
Clinton Private Email Server (2009-
2013): during her entire tenure as
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton dodged
Freedom of Information Act requirements
by using a private email server to conduct
official government business, as well as
sent and received classified information
that was Top Secret over an unsecured
system—an “extremely reckless” (and
obviously illegal) act.”
Mueller by not upholding the law in
these cases above created a two-tiered
system of law in the US – Laws for the
political elite and laws for everyone
else.
Mueller’s acceptance of the lead role in the investigation
into Russia is another obvious example of his corrupt and
criminal tendencies.
Based on numerous accounts he has
obvious conflicts of interest and even
liberal publications like the USA
Today have called for Mueller to step
down as special prosecutor because of
his conflicts of interest with the
investigation he is carrying on. Now we
know he took over the investigation in
spite of his criminal activities in
covering up the FBI investigation into
Uranium One. A person of integrity
would easily have seen his conflicts of
interest and would recuse himself.
There are now speculations that Mueller was hired by
Rosenstein to cover up their illegal actions related to
148
Uranium One. It’s also suspected that Mueller is spending
like a drunken sailor on the investigation. Also, it is now
clear that the dossier used as evidence to spy on Trump
and create the special investigation was promoted by the
Clintons and is totally based on lies from a company
(Fusion) known for slanderous reporting.
The entire team Mueller has hired to
assist in the Russia investigation is
former Obama and Clinton related
attornies. Special Counsel Robert
Mueller’s attorneys are a Who’s Who of
Liberal Activism.
Here is a summary of the Mueller team:
 Robert Mueller – Special Counsel Team leader. —
Best friend to fired leaker James Comey a key
witness in the case and cohort at the FBI in
assisting Mueller with many of the cases noted
above.
 Rush Atkinson, an attorney on detail from the Criminal
Division’s Fraud Section at the Department of Justice
— Donated $200 to Clinton in 2016
 Peter Carr – DOJ spokesman under Barack Obama.
 Andrew Goldstein, a public corruption prosecutor on
detail from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern
District of New York
— Worked under Trump-basher Preet Bharara in
the liberal New York southern district.
 Adam Jed, an appellate attorney on detail from DOJ’s
Civil Division. — Defended Obamacare at the DOJ.
 Lisa Page, an attorney on detail from the FBI’s Office
of the General Counsel and a former trial attorney with
the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang
Section – Investigated Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry
Firtash, a one-time business partner of former
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, at the
DOJ.
 Elizabeth Prelogar, an appellate attorney on detail
from the Office of the Solicitor General. -Fluent in
Russian; former law clerk to Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
 James Quarles, a former partner at WilmerHale and a
former assistant special prosecutor for the Watergate
Special Prosecution Force. –Former assistant special
prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution
Force.
 Jeannie Rhee, a former partner at WilmerHale who
has served in the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ and
as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of
Columbia. — Rhee is a Clinton Foundation Lawyer
and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in
the Office of Legal Counsel under Barack Obama.
 Brandon Van Grack, an attorney on detail from the
Justice Department’s National Security Division.
— Led a grand jury inquiry in Northern Virginia
 scrutinizing former Trump associate Michael
Flynn’s foreign lobbying.
 Andrew Weissmann, who is on detail from the
Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and who has served
as general counsel at the FBI and as an assistant U.S.
attorney for the Eastern District of New York. —
Weissmann donated $2,300 to the Obama Victory
Fund in 2008, $2,000 to the DNC in 2006 and at
least $2,300 to the Clinton campaign in 2007.
 Aaron Zebley, a former partner at WilmerHale who
has previously served with Mueller at the FBI and has
served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern
District of Virginia. — Worked with Robert Mueller at
the WilmerHale firm.
 Aaron Zelinsky, an attorney on detail from the U.S.
Attorney’s Office in the District of Maryland. — Worked
under Assistant AG Rod Rosenstein in Maryland.
 Zainab Ahmad, a top national security prosecutor on
detail from U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District
of New York.
.
 Michael Dreeben, an appellate attorney on detail from
the Office of the Solicitor General, described by former
colleagues as one of the brightest criminal law experts
of the past two generations.
It is very clear that Mueller is a very dishonest, bad and
morally corrupt cop and he should not only recuse himself
from the Russia investigation, he should be under
investigation himself for all of the above items. It appears
he leaked information to CNN to curtail the focus on his
corrupt actions and inactions.
God please bring this country justice!
Lock up Corrupt and Criminal Mueller
and the rest of the Deep State!

149
 Mueller And Fake News Charges
Against Manafort
By Jon Rappoport
October 30, 2017
Here we go. Special counsel Mueller and his team have
filed the first federal charges against Trump-campaign
officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.
CNN is running the headline: MANAFORT, GATES
CHARGED WITH CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE
US.
Other press outlets are following suit, emphasizing the
“conspiracy against the US.”
CNN writes:
“The indictment against the Manafort and
Gates contains 12 counts: conspiracy
against the United States, conspiracy to
launder money, unregistered agent of a
foreign principal, false and misleading US
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)
statements, false statements, and seven
counts of failure to file reports of foreign
bank and financial accounts.”
—But here is the real takeaway, and of
course MSM outlets are ignoring it:
the conspiracy charge is a piece of federal
boilerplate. Alongside the basket of other
charges mentioned above, conspiracy is a
general category that is tacked on. It isn’t a
specific singular charge. It definitely isn’t
“these two men conspired with Russia to
hand Trump the election.”
In fact, CNN adds:
“The charges do not cover any activities
related to the campaign, though it’s
possible Mueller could add additional
charges.”
But when MSM outlets blare “conspiracy against the
United States,” most readers and viewers will assume this
does mean a charge of working with Russia to make
Trump president.
It’s a nice little devious trick.
150
Of course, the Mueller indictments are also being used to
blot out the Clinton Uranium One scandal and the Trump
dirty dossier scandal, both of which involve the Clintons,
and Mueller as well, since he was the head of the FBI
when the Bureau discovered all sorts of corruption and
bribery involving Russia’s nuclear industry, during
Uranium One negotiations, and either failed to disclose the
findings, or failed to use them to make an impact on
Obama.
Today, it’s all about “conspiracy against the United
States,” and the mainstream news audience who thinks and
comprehends and talks in terms of vague generalities—like
thirsty travelers in the desert spotting the mirage of an
oasis.
“OH, CONSPIRACY AGAINST AMERICA,
WELL THAT’S IT THEN, THEY NAILED
THEM.”
That and $2.75 will get you a ride on the New York
Subway.
In case you haven’t read my piece on the Clintons and the
Uranium One scandal—which most definitely DOES
connect Bill and Hillary to corrupt dealings with the
Russians, and which hasn’t been “debunked,” as MSM
outlets keep insisting, here it is:
—Cue the dawn sunrise and violins for the
beautiful first couple of American politics
(the Clintons).
But what about the uranium scandal?
The what?
Before I quote a NY Times piece on this—suppose, just
suppose the beautiful first couple, Bill and Hillary, have
been running a parallel operation to the government, in the
form of a Foundation that is taking in major chunks of cash
from people who want (and get) serious political favors.
Well, current news stories confirm that. We already know
that.
But uranium?
Consider this plot line. Follow the bouncing ball.
 Putin wants 20% of uranium on US soil. That 20% is
already owned by a Canadian mining company.
 The Canadian executives want to sell it to Putin.
 But because uranium is a US “national security”
product, various US federal agencies have to OK
the deal. One of those agencies is the US State
Department.
 The State Department is headed up by Hillary
Clinton. Her Department says yes to the uranium
deal.
 The kicker? Those Canadian mining executives,
who wanted the sale to Putin to go through,
donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.
Getting the picture?
On April 23, 2015, the NY Times ran a story under the
headline: Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid
Russian Uranium Deal.
The bare bones of the story:
A Canadian company called Uranium One
controlled a great deal of uranium
production in the US. It was sold to Russia
(meaning Putin and his minions). So Putin
now controls 20% of US uranium
production.
From the Times:
“…the sale gave the Russians control of
one-fifth of all uranium production capacity
in the United States.”
The Times:
“The [Pravda] article, in January 2013,
detailed how the Russian atomic energy
agency, Rosatom, had taken over a
Canadian company [Uranium One] with
uranium-mining stakes stretching from
Central Asia to the American West. The
deal made Rosatom one of the world’s
largest uranium producers and brought Mr.
Putin closer to his goal of controlling much
of the global uranium supply chain.”
“But the untold story behind that story is
one that involves not just the Russian
president, but also a former American
president and a woman who would like to
be the next one.”
“At the heart of the tale are several men,
leaders of the Canadian mining industry,
who have been major donors to the
151
charitable endeavors of former President
Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that
group built, financed and eventually sold off
to the Russians a company that would
become known as Uranium One.”
“Frank Giustra…a mining financier, has
donated $31.3 million to the foundation run
by former President Bill Clinton…”
“Since uranium is considered a strategic
asset, with implications for national
security, the deal [to sell Uranium One to
Putin] had to be approved by a committee
composed of representatives from a
number of United States government
agencies. Among the agencies that
eventually signed off was the State
Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s
wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
“As the Russians gradually assumed
control of Uranium One in three separate
transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian
records show, a flow of cash made its way
to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s
chairman used his family foundation to
make four donations totaling $2.35 million.
Those contributions were not publicly
disclosed by the Clintons, despite an
agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the
Obama White House to publicly identify all
donors. Other people with ties to the
company made donations as well.”
“And shortly after the Russians announced
their intention to acquire a majority stake in
Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received
$500,000 for a Moscow speech from a
Russian investment bank with links to the
Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One
stock.”
If you’re Putin and you’re sitting in Moscow, and the
uranium deal has just dropped this bonanza into your lap,
what’s your reaction—after you stop laughing and popping
champagne corks? Or maybe you never really stop
laughing. Maybe this is a joke that keeps on giving. You
wake up in the middle of the night with a big grin plastered
on your face, and you can’t figure out why…and then you
remember, oh yeah, the uranium deal. The US uranium.
Who’s running the show in America? Ha-ha-ha. Some
egregious dolt? Maybe he’s a sleeper agent we forgot
about and he reactivated himself. And this Clinton
Foundation—how can the beautiful couple get away with
that? Can we give Hillary a medal? Can we put up a statue
of her in a park? Does Bill need any more hookers?
You shake your head and go back to sleep. You see a
parade of little boats carrying uranium from the US to
Russia. A pretty line of putt-putt boats. You chuckle. Row,
row, row your boat…merrily, merrily, merrily,
merrily…life is but a dream.
Good times.
Final note:
There is a great deal of difference between
a major outlet like the NY Times running
their Clinton/uranium piece for one day—
and pounding on it for weeks and months.
In the latter case, they would let loose the
hounds, who would probe and push and
interview relevant people and get
confessions and parlay those confessions
up the food chain—blowing the story into
an enormous scandal—which it is.
The Times had its hands on a volcanic piece…and they let
it drop. Because the ceiling and the limit had been reached.
The Times basically executed what’s called a limited
hangout, a partial exposure of a story that was getting too
hot to suppress entirely.
The limited hangout allows the venting of steam—and
then nothing more. In this case, the Clinton camp denies
there was any quid pro quo, they assert Hillary had nothing
to do with the uranium deal, and the curtain falls.
Thus you have the reality which the major media did
expose, vs. the reality they could have exposed. The
“could have” part would have changed current history—
but it was squelched, and put under wraps.
Tossed on the junk heap.
—end of my 2016 article—
Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee and Chairman
Chuck Grassley are looking into these crimes, because new
reports of corruption are surfacing:
FOX News:
“The Hill reported that the FBI had
evidence as early as 2009 that Russian
operatives used bribes, kickbacks and
other dirty tactics to expand Moscow’s
atomic energy footprint in the U.S. — but
the Obama administration approved the
uranium deal benefiting Moscow anyway.”
“Grassley on Wednesday [raised]…the
question of whether the [US government]
committee that approved the [uranium]
transaction [in 2010] was aware of the FBI
probe. The Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
152
[which approved the uranium deal] included
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”
As Newsweek reports, that early FBI probe was launched
under FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller is now trying
to dig up (or invent) every tidbit he can about Russian
collusion with…Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
My, my.
Newsweek contacted the FBI a few days ago, asking
whether Mueller had informed the Obama White House
about his old FBI probe that uncovered Russian corruption
relevant to the uranium deal that was being put together at
the time.
Newsweek:
“The FBI said it had no comment to
Newsweek questions about whether
Mueller alerted senior Obama
administration officials, including Clinton,
about the [FBI] investigation before they
brokered the [uranium] deal.”
BOOM.
Are you kidding?
No comment?
That’s tantamount to admitting,
“Look, either way we answer that question,
we’re screwed or the Obama White House
is screwed, so we’re remaining mum.
We’re protecting VERY IMPORTANT
PEOPLE and the truth doesn’t matter.”
This should be the subject of screaming headlines from
mainstream news around the world:
FBI CLAMS UP ON URANIUM DEAL. FBI
REFUSES TO SAY WHETHER BOSS
MUELLER TOLD THE WHITE HOUSE
ABOUT RUSSIAN CORRUPTION IN
URANIUM DEAL. FBI COVERING UP
CORRUPTION IN CLINTON OBAMA
RUSSIAN URANIUM DEAL.
However, the FBI refusal is buried deep in mainstream
stories.
But wait, it gets even better:
FOX: “[Grassley] is calling for the Justice
Department to lift an apparent ‘gag order’
on an FBI informant who reportedly helped
the U.S. uncover a [2009-10] corruption
and bribery scheme by Russian nuclear
officials but allegedly was ‘threatened’ by
the Obama administration to stay quiet.”
“Victoria Toensing, a lawyer for the former
FBI informant, told Fox News’ ‘America’s
Newsroom’ that her client has ‘specific
information about [Russian] contributions
and bribes to various entities and people in
the United States’.”
“She said she could not go further because
her client has not been released from a
nondisclosure agreement but suggested
the gag order could be lifted soon. [It was
lifted a few days ago.] Toensing also
claimed that her client was ‘threatened by
the Loretta Lynch Justice Department’
when he pursued a civil action in which he
reportedly sought to disclose some
information about the case.”
.
153
The gag order and the non-disclosure agreement are
nonsense. They don’t apply when enforcing them would
cover up a major crime.
I have suggestions for the FBI informant’s lawyer
Toensing, if she’s playing it straight.
Hire at least four top-flight private security firms to guard
your client around the clock, and hope these firms don’t
have strong ties to government law-enforcement.
Issue a firm declaration from your client stating he is in
good health and has no intention of committing suicide.
Do these things yesterday.
After all, it’s the Clintons we’re talking
about, and Obama and the FBI.
And the Clintons.
And, of course, the Clintons.
 "Did He Wear A Wire?":
Former Trump Campaign Aide Pleads Guilty
To Lying To FBI
By Tyler Durden
Oct 30, 2017 12:35 PM

Update: Papadopoulos's attorney has weighed in... conversations happened before he joined the campaign,
statements rebutted by the Justice Department's timeline.

***

In addition to the news that former Trump campaign
executive Paul Manafort and his longtime deputy, Rick
Gates, have been indicted on 12 counts including tax fraud,
money laundering, failing to register as a lobbyist for a
foreign country, and conspiring against the US,
Papadopoulos also shut down a Facebook account
following a second interview in February. The account
included communications with foreigners including
Russian nationals - thereby obstructing the FBI's
investigation.

unsealed court documents have revealed
that former Trump campaign adviser
George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty on
Oct. 5 to making false statements to the
FBI.
Noting that the Russian government often uses foreign
intermediaries to accomplish its foreign policy goals, the
FBI said it investigated Papadopoulos, who served as a
foreign adviser for the Trump campaign starting on March
2016 and continuing through most of the campaign, for
any such contacts. This investigation included an interview
in January 2017. According to the indictment, there is
probable cause to believe that on Jan. 27, Papadopoulos
made material false statements and omitted material facts
to the FBI regarding his interactions during the campaign
with foreign contacts, including Russian nationals.
A self-described energy consultant, Papadopoulos was the
youngest and least experienced member of the small
foreign policy team Trump abruptly formed last March
after coming under criticism for his lack of foreign policy
expertise. Furthermore, the Washington Post reported that
in at least half a dozen email requests sent between March
and September 2016, adviser George Papadopoulos urged
Trump or senior members of his campaign to meet with
Russian officials. Some of those emails were read to the
newspaper by a person with access to them.
These newly surfaced emails mark the latest in a long
string of examples of the Trump team’s efforts to establish
direct communication with Russia during the 2016 race.
In one, Papadopoulos offered to arrange

Specifically, Prosecutors charged Papadopolous with
lying to investigators and that he falsely described his
interactions with a certain foreign contact, identified as
a professor, who discussed "dirt" related to emails
concering then-presiential candidate Hillary Clinton, when
in fact, he had repeated communications with that contact
while serving as an adviser on the campaign.
Papadopoulos allegedly told the FBI that those
“a meeting between us and the Russian
leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under
President Trump,” as quoted by the Post.
It is worth recalling, however, that as the WaPo first
reported back in August,

154
 several Trump officials, including Paul
Manafort, who served as Trump’s
campaign chairman, expressed concern
over the proposed meetings. Other
officials who raised concerns over
Papadopoulos’s proposals to meet with
with Russian officials include the Trump
campaign’s co-chairman, Sam Clovis,
and Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic.
Papadopoulos does not spell out in
them why it would be in Trump’s
interest to do so. His entreaties appear
to have generated more concern than
excitement within the campaign, which
at the time was looking to seal the
Republican nomination and take on a
heavily favored Hillary Clinton in the
general election.

Papadopoulos also passed on an exchange with the
Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), which
conveyed that the Russian foreign ministry was receptive
to Trump making a trip to Russia. An official with the
Council confirmed that a discussion about a U.S.-Russia
dialogue “informally” occurred.
“We discussed the idea informally as one
of the opportunities for ... dialogue between
Russia and the U.S.,” Ivan Timofeev told
The Post. “RIAC often hosts meetings with
prominent political figures and experts from
the US and many other countries.”
The Papadopoulos emails are part of 20,000 pages of
documents the campaign provided to Congress earlier this
month.
***
A growing question now is what Papadopoulos may have
"given" the government as part of the plea agreement, and
whather he has "flipped" on Trump:
Former US Attorney Preet Bharara says the FBI appears to
have found a cooperating witnes in Pap - which is
significant.

Manafort, according to the report, passed on the note to

one of his colleagues, saying “We need someone to
communicate that DT is not doing these trips.”

“We thought we probably should not go

forward with any meeting with the
Russians until we have had occasion to
sit with our NATO allies,” Clovis said in a
March email discussing a potential
meeting.
In his plea agreement, the government
says it will offer leniency to Pap in
*** exchange for his cooperation, and that
sentencing will be delayed before
Then there's this from the WaPo's initial account: cooperation is completed.

Papadopoulos emerges from the sample of

emails as a new and puzzling figure in the
examination of the Trump campaign’s
contacts with Russian officials and their
proxies during the 2016 election, now the
subject of a special-counsel investigation.

Less than a decade out of college,

Papadopoulos appeared to hold little

sway within the campaign, and it is
unclear whether he was acting as an
intermediary for the Russian
government, although he told campaign
officials he was.

While the emails illustrate his eagerness to strengthen the

campaign’s connections to the Russian government,

155
Finally, as The Smoking Gun asks,

"did George Papadopoulos agree to

wear a wire or make any FBI-monitored
calls?"

Finally, with some asking whether the young ex-advisor

may have had alterantive motives, the Guardian's Jon
Swaine points out that the former aide sought book
publisher recommendations three weeks ago.

“Interested in meeting with a prominent

publisher. Recommendations welcome, ”
wrote Papadopoulos

And at least some, for now, believe the answer is yes:

***

Here's Pap's plea agreeement:

156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
....and the criminal complaint

166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
 Paul Manafort Indicted On
12 Counts In Mueller Probe, Surrenders To FBI
By Tyler Durden
Oct 30, 2017 11:52 AM
Update: Democrat Adam Schiff, the ranking member on
the House Intelligence committee, said the indictments
open up "new lines of inquiry" in the Russia probe, even
after reports surfaced earlier this week that many
Republican members of Schiff's committee are trying to
wind it down.
Update: Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has
confirmed that the White House has no intention of firing
Special Counsel Robert Mueller. She added that the role of
George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser during the
campaign who pleaded guilty to obstruction earlier this
month, was "extremely limited."
180
Sanders reiterated that the Manafort indictment has
"nothing to do with us," noting that his alleged criminal
activities took place before he joined the campaign. When
asked if the president now regrets hiring Manafort, she
said she hadn't asked him about his feelings on the matter.
She also played down Papadopoulos's involvement with
the campaign was minimal, saying he met with a group of
foreign policy advisers one time, and had his named
included on a list of advisers given to the Washington Post.
Sanders added that Manafort was hired to lead the
campaign's delegate push ahead of the convention, and was
let go shortly after.
Watch the press conference live:
***
Update: President Trump on Monday called for the focus
to be shifted to Hillary Clinton after his former campaign
chairman Paul Manafort turned himself into the FBI after
being indicted on 12 counts, including conspiracy against
the United States."Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul
Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't
Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????" Trump
tweeted. "Also, there is NO COLLUSION!"
Update: Sources close to the White House have released
what appears to be an unofficial statement: "This has
nothing to do with the White House."
The statement alludes to the fact that Manafort's alleged
misdeeds took place before he joined the Trump campaign.

Update: Messages of support from Republican
Congressmen for the Mueller probe are beginning to
trickle in...
Update: In an apparent attempt to pre-empt criticism of
the Mueller probe from President Trump, Nancy Pelosi
and Chuck Schumer have both released statements
defending the investigation...
181
Update: The Justice Department has released the
Manafort/Gates indictment. The indictment contains 12
counts total, and the big one appears to be conspiracy
against the US. They are also facing charges of tax fraud,
money laundering and giving false statements.
The two men are expected to appear in
court at 1:30 am ET.
In total more than $75,000,000 flowed through Manafort's
offshore accounts, according to the Mueller indictment.
Manafort allegedly laundered more than $18 million which
was used by him to buy property, goods and services in the
US, income that he concealed from the US Treasury, the
DOJ and others. Gates was instrumental in helping
Manafort move the money form his illict foreign accounts
into the US, and eventually transferred more than $3
million to accounts he controlled.
According to the indictment, between at least 2006 and
2015, Gates and Manafort acted as unregistered agents of
the Government of Ukraine, the Party of Regions (a
Ukrainian political party whose leader Victor Yanukovych
was President from 2010 to 2014), Yanukovych, and the
Opposition Bloc (a successor to the Party of Regions that
formed in 2014 when Yanukovych fled to Russia). The
two men generated tens of millions of dollars in income as
a result of their Ukraine work. In order to hide Ukraine
payments from United States authorities, from
approximately 2006 through at least 2016, they laundered
the money through scores of United States and foreign
corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.
Manafort and Gates used money from their Cyprus
accounts to finance lavish lifestyles. Manafort spent more
than half a million dollars of it on clothes from stores in
Beverly Hills, and $20,000 on housekeeping. Gates spent
the money on his mortgage, personal expenses, tuition
payments and an interior decorator for his Virginia home.
 Manhattan condominium, and homes in Arlington,
Virginia, and eastern Long Island.

***

Update: The Washington Post reports that Manafort was

seen entering the FBI's Washington field office Monday.

***

Update: Manafort has been hit with several charges,

including tax fraud, WSJ reported. He's expected in federal
court in Washington later Monday, a person familiar with
the matter said. Meanwhile, Rick Gates is also reportedly
turning himself in.

***

Read the indictment in its entirety below, whose highlights Update: CBS News confirms a photojournalist has
are below, courtesy of Bloomberg: captured images of Manafort leaving his home this
morning with his lawyer.
 Both men hid their work for the former Ukrainian
president Victor Yanukovych, his Party of Regions and
the Ukrainian government from 2006 “through at least
2016,” according to the indictment.
 Manafort alone laundered more than $18 million to
finance what the indictment called his “lavish lifestyle,”
which included millions of dollars in real estate, luxury
cars, antiques, clothing, landscaping services and
home improvements. He also defrauded banks that
loaned him money, prosecutors said, and failed to file
reports to the Treasury Department declaring
ownership of foreign bank accounts.
 After news reports surfaced in August 2016 about * * *
Manafort’s work in Ukraine, he and Gates “developed a
false and misleading cover story” to distance Surprise, surprise. The New York Times is reporting that
themselves from their activities, the indictment said. the first indictment in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
This included “false and misleading letters” in probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign
November 2016 and February 2017 to the Justice and Russia has been unsealed.
Department, which was trying to determine whether
they had acted as “foreign principals” under the Foreign
Agents Registration Act. Prosecutors charged them And the target is none other than Paul
with false statements for those two letters. Manafort,
 They lobbied members of the U.S. Congress and
worked with two other Washington lobbying firms, who briefly served as chief executive of the Trump
identified in the indictment only as Company A and campaign last summer before reports about his work for
Company B, according to the indictment. Manafort and Ukraine's former leader Viktor Yanukovich forced him
Gates directed the work of those firms on Ukraine and out. Manafort has reportedly been asked to surrender by
paid them more than $2 million from the offshore the FBI, sparing him an embarassing perp walk.
accounts, it said.
 To hide their assets, the men controlled dozens of Manafort's former deputy Rick Gates
business entities in Cyprus, Grenadines and the U.K. has also been asked to surrender.
that masked their ownership, the indictment said. They The charges against the pair weren't
also owned U.S. entities in Delaware, Virginia and immediately clear.
Florida.
 Prosecutors seek the forfeiture of four Manafort
But they do represent an escalation in the probe that has
properties, including a Brooklyn brownstone, a Lower
loomed over President Trump's first year in office.

182
Gates is a longtime protege and junior partner at
Manafort's firm. His involvment in the probe was revealed
in the spring. His name appeared in documents linked to a
Cypriot firm Manafort set up to receive payments from
Eastern European politicians like Yanukovich, who
purportedly paid Manafort with money looted from the
Ukraine state.
Manafort had been udner investigaiton
for violations of federal tax law, money
laundering and whether he failed to
properly disclose his foreign lobbying.
As we've noted, since these charges
mostly stem from Manafort's work
before he became involved with the
183
campaign, they leave ample room for
Trump to declare victory.
As far as impact to the market - so far nothing - and as
KBW’s Brian Gardner explains, none is expected, despite
expectations for much sound and fury and told-you-so's
from the left.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indicting former Trump
campaign manager Paul Manafort or former National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn over activities separate
from Trump campaign/administration would be
"mostly political noise," and would not significantly
affect markets.
However, Gardner notes that any unsealing
of indictments may dominate the week’s
entire news cycle, drowning out
coverage of tax legislation and
monetary policy.
Now, we watch for the administration's response.
Here's the indictment:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
 'View' Shuts Down Meghan McCain
After She Brings Up Clinton Funded Dossier
By Kristine Marsh
October 30, 2017 3:07 PM EDT

and Clinton funded Russian dossier, which brought out

loud groans from the panel and the audience.

“Donnnn!” Whoopi sighed with frustration. Co-host Sara

Haines claimed this wasn’t true, while admitting she was
satisfied that Mueller had finally found evidence of
Russian collusion:

This behavior actually goes into 2016 so it did go into the

actual campaign... The other thing I just keep thinking is,

‘This nothingburger sure tastes good.’

Monday on ABC’s The View, things got heated when Anyone else?” she joked.
discussing the breaking news that morning about ex-
“I was told I was crazy for so long. People
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had been
kept saying depending where you were
indicted by FBI special counsel Robert Mueller. After
watching, which I was trying to cross
announcing the news, the audience cheered as the panel
reference my sources so I could see what
joked that they hoped President Trump would be next. As
everyone was saying, some people were
co-host Meghan McCain brought up Hillary Clinton’s
saying, ‘Oh, the obsessing with this Russia
funding of the Russian dossier, co-hosts Sunny Hostin and
is just crazy.’ I just feel a little better
Joy Behar angrily shut her down, insisting that Democrats
because I was beginning to think ‘Is it all in
and Clinton had nothing to do with any Russia collusion.
my head? Are these all coincidences?’”
Haines gushed.
Whoopi chuckled while announcing the news that Paul
Manafort had been indicted by the FBI this morning. The
McCain urged caution to linking this indictment to the
audience roared in approval as The View producers played
Trump campaign colluding with Russia:
a fake clip of President Trump being arrested by the FBI.

“But we don't know what we don't know yet.

Whoopi explained:
“I want to just be clear that was actually
scenes from the show Daredevil with the
theme some “To Russia with Love.” I don't
know who did it. They did a beautiful job. It
looks like a great thing. It's not real. I just
want to make sure people understand that
because people say ‘oh, my God they put
this thing out there and they said this was
real.’ We know it's not real. It's a mock up
that somebody sent out,” she stated.
“It's not real yet,” Joy Behar joked, to
audience cheers.
The hosts moved on to talk about the indictment and
President Trump’s tweet denying any of Manafort’s
collusion being done on behalf of his campaign. Trump’s
tweet also brought up the media’s dismissal of the DNC
215
Let's not get--like we don’t even know
what--” she began.
“But if we talk about the indictment, which
is a fact, right? Because I have it right
here,” Hostin interrupted, holding up a
document. “It’s significant,” she stated.
“Isn’t it also a fact, it came out last week
that the DNC and Hillary Clinton have
ties to this Fusion GPS oppo research
group and they also paid money to get
this Russian dossier,” McCain started to
say.
“But isn't it normal to have opposition
research conducted?” Hostin turned to ask.
“Not through Russian operatives! Which
Hillary Clinton did as well,” McCain
answered.
Haines interrupted to clarify that she wasn’t looking for
ties specifically to Trump, but was encouraged to learn her
paranoia was justified in that there was ties to Russia at
some level, from someone:
“Just to be clear, it’s not that it traces to
Trump, but I’m saying, I always had a
problem with the fact there was a crazy
amount of ties and this is a little bit of
confirmation,” she added.
“But this is the ultimate breakdown of
democracy. The humor and levity
surrounding it on both sides--” McCain
started before Hostin angrily shushed her.
“Wait, wait, wait. Let’s not talk about
‘both sides’” she stopped McCain from
completing her thought.
“Can I please finish?” McCain urged.
“No, no, no. Let's not talk about both
sides,” Hostin argued. “Let’s talk about
what’s happening today,” she added.
“I just said, Hillary Clinton and the
dossier, the DNC paid for--” McCain
started to say again.
“Hillary Clinton is not the president and
Hillary Clinton wasn’t just indicted!”
Hostin gushed, to loud cheers and
applause from the audience.
As McCain tried to push back, Hostin kept repeating, “No”
over her as she was speaking.
As the cheers died down and Hostin shook her head, a
frustrated McCain tried to explain:
“You know what, I'm trying to give you
guys insight because I actually know a
lot about--” she began before being
interrupted by Hostin again.
“We don't need any insight into Hillary
Clinton!” Hostin declared emphatically
again to shut down the conversation.
216
But Haines urged Hostin to let McCain get her point out:
HAINES: Let her talk. I want to hear it.
MCCAIN: Okay Sunny, you don’t need any
insight from me. You know what, Paul
Manafort, I will say, for those of us who
work in Republican politics has always
been someone who is ethically ambiguous
because of these money dealings and
allegedly taking money from Ukrainian
officials in the Russian government. We all
know the story about Don Jr. meeting up
with the Russian operative allegedly to gain
oppo research on Hillary Clinton. A source
of the White House just said to Sara
Murray, “These guys were bad guys when
they started. They were bad guys when
they left.” So during the campaign when he
was hiring people like Roger Stone and
Paul Manafort it raised a lot of alarms for
people like me. Because in inner political
circles, your campaign operatives are a
reflection of the candidate. I will just say.
We don't know what we don't know at
this point, but to sort of like poo poo the
idea that the DNC is now also attached
to this Russian dossier is what makes
Republicans heads go crazy.
Joy Behar came in as backup for Hostin.
“It's a distraction Meghan,” she
dismissed her argument.
“Why are we even talking about the
DNC? Why are we talking about Hillary?
Why aren't we talking about the two
people who were indicted today?!”
Hostin again stated with frustration, to
audience applause.
“Because it's the same thing you’re
vilifying them over!” McCain finally was
able to say.
“No, no,” Hostin waved that away. Behar
shifted the conversation back to
Republicans.
BEHAR: You know what really bothers
me? 75% of the Republicans in this
country do not think it's a big deal that
the Russians invaded our country
through cyber attacks.
MCCAIN: President Obama told Mitt
Romney that it was a 1980s foreign
policy in the 2012 Republican debate.
Again, Hostin angrily shut down McCain’s point, to on cue
applause from the audience.
 HOSTIN: President Obama wasn't
indicted today! [applause]
MCCAIN: President Obama did not take
Russia seriously. I'm just trying to explain
to you my side of the aisle on this.
BEHAR: Let us give a little to you too.
MCCAIN: I’m just saying it’s
intellectually dishonest to say that
Democrats have always cared about
Russia until it started impacting our
election. President Obama did not take
it seriously. I just quoted you what he
said to Mitt Romney.
But Behar didn’t want to put the focus back on Democrats,
insisting that it was Republicans who didn’t care about
foreign collusion into our elections.
“I'm talking about something else. 75%
of Republicans do not think it's important to
invade our democracy,” she insisted.
“It’s very disheartening to hear this about
the people in this country that they don’t
care about democracy that we have
worked so hard, that your family and mine
have fought so hard to preserve,” Behar
added.
After more back-and-forth, McCain urged:
.
217
“I’m just saying, don't underestimate the
politicization of this as well,” she stated.
Haines admitted she didn't like the timing of the report on
Hillary Clinton dossier, saying it was a convenient
distraction from the Manafort indictment, nevermind that it
has been reported by conservative outlets for weeks now:
“If it comes out that there's more collusion
on any side, I'll always be concerned. I
think the timing of bringing up Hillary
Clinton while we're finding out the present
administration is having these problems is
just a little more concerning to me,” she
stated.
“It’s a canard,” Behar agreed.
But Hostin wouldn’t let McCain’s point about the DNC
and Clinton go.
“We danced around every single topic
except what happened today. We have an
indictment against Paul Manafort who was
the campaign chairperson in March 2016
and Richard Gates. We're talking about
millions and millions of dollars that were
money laundered. We're talking about
meetings with the Russians. This is not
about both sides. This is about this side. I
think we need to call it what it is,” Hostin
stated.
 Tony Podesta Resigns As Head Of Lobbying
Firm After Becoming Target In Mueller Probe
By Tyler Durden
Oct 30, 2017 2:22 PM

As the left and the media ramp up their
Manafort-ian mania against Trump, it
appears the trail of destruction from
special counsel Mueller's probe has
spread to Democratic power-lobbyist
Tony Podesta.
As we explained in Aug 2016, Paul Manafort - now under
indictment on 12 charges - and his deputy Rick gates
previously worked with the Podesta Group, run by Tony
Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman
John Podesta.
paid Mercury and the Podesta Group a
combined $2.2 million over roughly two
years.
In papers filed in the U.S. Senate, Mercury and the Podesta
Group listed the European nonprofit as an independent,
nonpolitical client. The firms said the center stated in
writing that it was not aligned with any foreign political
entity.
And now, just hours after Manafort and Gates handed
themselves over to the feds, Politico reports,

...emails obtained by the Associated Press showed that the founder of the Podesta Group, is
Gates personally directed two Washington lobbying firms, stepping down from the lobbying shop
that bears his name after coming under
Mercury LLC and the Podesta Group, investigation by Special Prosecutor
between 2012 and 2014 to set up Robert Mueller.
meetings between a top Ukrainian
official and senators and congressmen
on influential committees involving
Ukrainian interests.

Gates noted in the emails that the official, Ukraine's

foreign minister, did not want to use his own embassy in
the United States to help coordinate the visits.

...

And this is where the plot thickens,

because while the bulk of the press has
so far spun the entire Ukraine lobbying
scandal, which led to Manafort's
resignation, as the latest "proof" that
pro-Moscow powers were influencing
not only Manafort but the Trump
campaign in general (who some
democrats have even painted of being a
Putin agent), the reality is that a firm
closely tied with the Democratic party,
the Podesta Group, is just as implicated.
As AP further adds, the European Center for a Modern
Ukraine, a Brussels-linked nonprofit entity which allegely
ran the lobbying project,
Perhaps Podesta knows what is likely to happen next.
Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide
meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his
impending departure.
“[Tony] was very magnanimous and said,
“This is an amazing group of people,” a
source said of Podesta’s remarks.
Podesta also told staff he “doesn’t
intend to go quietly, or learn how to play
golf.” He said he “needs to fight this as
an individual, but doesn’t want the firm
to fight it.”
Fritts also addressed the gathering, telling
staff that she is “thrilled at this opportunity”

218
 and that, “This is not about me, this is swamp should probably control themselves in any
about y’all.” premature celebrations as this appears to be far from over.

Several other senior staff spoke about their excitement Here's one reason why we suspect more than a few on the
about the future of the firm. The meeting ended with a left are now concerned...
standing ovation for Podesta.

It emerged last week that Podesta is the subject of a

criminal investigation led by Mueller's team for potentially
violating a federal disclosure law. That law, known as the
Foreign Agents Registration Act, pertains to working on
behalf of foreign governments. An NBC report found that
the Podesta Group was one of several firms working on
Paul Manafort's public relations campaign for European
Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which the Podesta Group
claims it thought was a nonpartisan think tank, something
which this site reported first last August.

It goes without saying, that Podesta's brother, John, is

arguably one of the top figure in Democratic politics,
serving most recently as chief of staff in the Bill Clinton
White House and also as the chairman of Hillary Clinton's
2016 presidential campaign.

What happens next to Tony (and perhaps his brother John)

is to be determined, but one thing is clear: both sides of the
.

219
 Trump May Not Seek Re-election:
Rand Paul, Chris Christie
By Nicole Goodkind
10/30/17 at 10:03 AM
Another top GOP official has raised doubts about whether
President Donald Trump will run for re-election.
Senator Rand Paul said Sunday night that even though the
president is raising millions for a 2020 campaign,
Republicans should not assume he's running.
“There could well be a primary," the junior
senator from Kentucky said on MSNBC,
after being asked if a 2020 primary would
be good for the Republican Party.
Paul had prefaced his remark by saying Republicans "need
to know [if] President Trump [is] running for re-election. I
think you won't know that until you get into sort of second,
third year of his presidency."
.
220
Paul’s comment echoes what Trump insider and New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie told the Today show's Matt
Lauer on October 27:
"If he runs again I would support him, yes,
but I'm not so sure what will happen."
Christie added,
"Four years is a long time, and especially
for someone who has not spent a lifetime in
politics, so I think those years affect him
differently. So I'm sure the president will
make whatever decision is best for him and
his family and the country.”
Trump, who hates losing, may be exploring his options for
a graceful exit that can be framed as a win.
Paul's and Christie’s comments came after special counsel
Robert Mueller filed his first indictments in his
investigation into Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016
election. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort
and Rick Gates, his longtime business partner, have been
named in a multiple-count indictment citing money
laundering and other illegalities. The indictment was
unsealed Monday morning, and the charges don’t look
good for a president who campaigned on “draining the
swamp.”
Ohio Governor John Kasich is already running a primary
campaign against Trump, according to a new report. Vice
President Mike Pence and Senators Tom Cotton and Ben
Sasse are also running shadow primary campaigns,
claimed in August New York Times piece claimed.
Opting not to run for a second term would be an
unorthodox move, much like the rest of Trump’s
unprecedented presidency.
Only three other presidents have purposefully stepped
away from the White House after one term. James Polk ran
in 1844 on the promise that he’d serve for just four years
and did just that. In 1927, Calvin Coolidge, known for
being rather terse, handed reporters a slip of paper that
simply said,
“I do not choose to run for President in
1928.” In 1968, amid growing protests over
the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson
announced he would not seek re-election.
 Manafort Indictment
Shows That Mueller Is A Fraud
Peter Flaherty President, National Legal and Policy Center
11:43 AM 10/30/2017
More than anything else, the indictments of Paul Manafort
and his partner Rick Gates demonstrate the fraudulent
nature of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The probe has little to do with Russian interference in last
year’s election. Instead, it is calculated to protect Mueller
and a cabal within the FBI and Justice Department who
covered up crimes by Hillary Clinton because they
believed it was likely that she would be elected president.
And once Mueller and then his friend and successor James
Comey covered for Hillary, they had to keep covering.
There was a reason that Mueller was so available when he
was so swiftly appointed Special Counsel in May by
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Comey
firing threatened to expose all that these same officials had
swept under the rug. Yes, Rosenstein bit the bullet and
drafted the memo that was the legal basis for firing
Comey, but it would be followed by appointing Mueller.
In July, Comey preemptively exonerated Hillary despite
her maintenance of a private email server and mishandling
of classified material. By accusing her of being “extremely
careless,” he purposely distracted attention from the
context of the emails. Hillary and Bill Clinton operated an
aggressive shakedown operation of domestic and foreign
interests, many of which are unsavory and criminal.
Concealing the true nature of the operation was at least
part of the Clintons’ motivation for the private server.
The outlines of the Uranium One deal were not a secret.
Media outlets like the New York Times reported on the
U.S. government approval of a partial sale of the Canadian
mining company to Rosatom, a Russian firm, while those
who benefitted donated to the Clinton Foundation and paid
Bill Clinton $500,000 for a single speech in Moscow.
Then came more detailed reports about how the FBI
cracked the case of a major Russian effort to penetrate the
221
North American uranium industry through a host of illegal
activities, but somehow the whole matter was slow-walked
and kept from U.S. government officials who had to
approve the Uranium One deal. Mueller and Comey
ultimately supervised the probe.
Meanwhile, the FBI’s email investigation was supervised
by now-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has
significant connections to the Clintons through his wife Jill
McCabe. Hillary headlined a fundraiser for a group
supporting Jill McCabe’s campaign for the Virginia state
senate, as first reported in the Wall Street Journal. The
National Legal and Policy Center subsequently exposed
more Clintonista support, including from then-Clinton
Foundation operative Doug Band who wrote a personal
check for $50,000.
The plot thickened last week when the bombshell hit that it
was Hillary’s campaign and the Democratic National
Committee that paid for the Fusion GPS dossier. Reporters
were chagrined to realize that they had been lied to
repeatedly for months and months. Hillary now claims that
the first she heard of it was when the dossier memo was
printed by BuzzFeed in January, a likely lie. As long as
this “what did Hillary know and when did Hillary know it”
question is of no interest to Mueller, his investigation has
no credibility whatsoever. But therein lies the dilemma for
Mueller. A real probe of Hillary would mean a review of
his own actions and those of his colleagues. He’s cornered.
Mueller’s strategy is clear. He has to rescue himself,
Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein and others from their
complicity in Hillary’s dealings with the Russians. Mueller
is creating a diversion by going after Manafort, the lowest
of low-hanging fruit. Just about any inquiry into
Manafort’s dealings over the years was sure to yield
results.
Donald Trump’s demeanor invites assumptions by some
about his commitment to democratic values, but it is
Hillary and her campaign that colluded with the Russians,
paid the hit squad Fusion GPS to manufacture and plant
information on her opponent, and hired people to provoke
violence at Trump rallies.
The Clintons’ ruthlessness, along with the unwillingness of
the nation’s top enforcement officials to stand up to them,
has created a constitutional crisis.
 Manafort Indictment Inspires Desperate
Rolling Stone Hope For Quick Trump Exit
By P.J. Gladnick
October 30, 2017 2:35 PM EDT
It's gonna happen! Paul Manafort has been indicted and...
and that means that Donald Trump will soon be leaving
office. That pretty much sums up the attitude of Rolling
Stone writer Bob Dreyfuss who, upon hearing the news
about Paul Manafort's indictment, just couldn't contain
himself over the fantasy that this will lead to a quick exit,
via resignation or impeachment, of President Donald
Trump from office. Here is Dreyfuss in today's Rolling
Stone sounding positively orgasmic over the fantasy that
Manafort's indictment will inevitably lead to Trump's
quick exit in Mueller Starts Coming for Team Trump:
The Manafort and Gates arrests give rise to a host of
critical questions, ones not faced since Watergate:
Will Manafort and Gates turn state's
evidence and tell Mueller what they
might know about possible collusion
between Russia and the Trump
campaign? Who's next? Will the
president pardon any or all of those
accused? Will he have Mueller fired?
Will a serious move to impeach the
president begin? And even: Will Trump
be forced to resign?
Will Dreyfuss be institutionalized if nothing happens to
Trump? Meanwhile he continues his joyful reality-
challenged outbursts of Trump exit fantasies:
...as Mueller closes in, the stakes get
higher and higher, and it's indeed
possible the special counsel will
eventually issue a scathing report about
Trump and Russia, perhaps in 2018, that
could unleash widespread calls in
Congress for Trump's impeachment.
Alternately, if Trump becomes convinced Mueller is
getting too close, the president could ask the Justice
Department to fire the special counsel or persuade his
allies in Congress to defund Mueller's work, something
that Trump's emphasis on the "costly" nature of the
investigation suggests may be an option he's considering.
Either action – firing Mueller or
defunding him – would trigger a political
222
firestorm that, in itself, would accelerate
calls for impeachment.
Yeah, all roads lead to Oz...I mean impeachment.
To give Dreyfuss credit he does, very briefly, alight on
some reality only to quickly flit away from the painful
truth:
It's true that, so far, allegations that the
Trump campaign cooperated with or
encouraged Russia's intervention are
unproven. But there's plenty of smoke.
It turns out that Dreyfuss' own Rolling Stone colleague,
Matt Taibbi, has tossed cold water on the notion of Trump-
Russia collusion on March 8 in Why the Russia Story Is a
Minefield for Democrats and the Media:
Former Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper appeared on Meet the
Press this past weekend to discuss the
Trump-Russia scandal. Chuck Todd asked:
Were there improper contacts between the
Trump campaign and Russian officials?
The following conversation then took place:
JAMES CLAPPER: We did not include any
evidence in our report, and I say, "our,"
that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my
office, the Director of National Intelligence,
that had anything, that had any reflection of
collusion between members of the Trump
campaign and the Russians. There was no
evidence of that…
CHUCK TODD: I understand that. But
does it exist?
JAMES CLAPPER: Not to my knowledge.
Todd pressed him to elaborate.
CHUCK TODD: If [evidence of collusion]
existed, it would have been in this report?
JAMES CLAPPER: This could have
unfolded or become available in the time
since I left the government.
 This is the former Director of National
Intelligence telling all of us that as of
12:01 a.m. on January 20th, when he left
government, the intelligence agencies
had no evidence of collusion between
Donald Trump's campaign and the
government of Vladimir Putin's Russia.
.
223
Virtually all of the explosive breaking news stories on the
Trump-Russia front dating back months contain some
version of this same disclaimer.
...Reporters should be scared to their
marrow by this story. This is a high-wire
act and it is a very long way down..
 Five Ways the Trumps Have
Gotten Richer Since the Election
By Chris Riotta
10/30/17 at 11:05 AM
President Donald Trump's first year in the White House
may have gotten off to a slow start, with no major
legislation passed thus far, but his private business
interests are certainly booming in 2017.
The first family has enjoyed a successful year of deals, and
a number of projects that were in the pipeline well before
the Trump presidency are set to begin.
Several Trump business ventures appeared to move
forward in step with the president and first family
conducting government affairs, including a deal in
Argentina that was fast-tracked after Trump's call with
President Mauricio Macri. Meanwhile, several licenses for
Ivanka Trump's brand in China were approved as the first
daughter enjoyed dinner with President Xi Jinping at Mar-
a-Lago.
224
Trump hugging his family after being sworn as the 45th
president during the Presidential Inauguration in
Washington on January 20, 2017. Mark Rolston, Getty
Below are five of the ways the Trumps are getting richer
while in the White House:
1. Trump's continued global business
ventures, despite vows of "no new
foreign deals."
The president did not put his businesses in a blind trust
upon taking office in January, even though ethics experts
from both parties suggested he should do so. The Trump
Organization also hasn't stopped its pursuit of global deals
that have been in the works for years. For example, Donald
Trump Jr. is reportedly planning to launch two new luxury
residencies in India within the next few weeks. Ivanka
Trump has been granted exclusive rights to use her name
in countries like China and Japan, allowing her business to
sell high-end spa packages and accessories even as she
works as a senior adviser to the president.
New Trump-branded properties are popping up around the
world, as projects that were previously shied away from
are getting new energy, including a luxury beachfront
resort in the Dominican Republic.
2. Business is booming at Mar-a-Lago.
Just days after Trump was inaugurated as the 45th
president, his private property in West Palm,
Florida, doubled its membership rate to $200,000. The
president then began visiting Mar-a-Lago regularly almost
immediately after moving to Washington, affectionately
referring to the resort as his "Winter White House."
Financial records he filed to the Office of Government
Ethics revealed business was booming at Mar-a-Lago,
jumping from $16 million in annual profits in 2015 to
nearly $30 million in 2016. Trump's latest records indicate
Mar-a-Lago has pulled in $37 million since his 2016
filing.
 3. Trump's new hotel in Washington
raked in $20 million in its first few
months.
The launch of Trump's new hotel in Washington, D.C.,
appeared to be perfectly timed with his transition into
public service, opening as the president moved from his
penthouse in New York City to the People’s House. (His
new business venture is just blocks away from the White
House.) He even launched his re-election fundraising
effort at the new hotel in June, which helped to raise $10
million for his 2020 campaign as major donors paid
$35,000 to dine at his property.
4. The first family profits from visits to
Trump-branded properties and golf
courses.
Trump has spent 96 days of his young presidency visiting
his own properties, 76 of them at golf clubs. With each trip
the president or first family take to a Trump-branded
property, the government spends thousands of dollars to
225
keep Secret Service agents and administration officials
nearby. That includes more than $130,000 spent on golf
carts alone. Top Democrats have pushed for legislation
that would make it illegal for Trump’s security detail to
make payments to the president’s private properties as he
visits. A proposal by Representative Adam Schiff (D-
Calif.) states, "None of the funds made available by this
Act to the United States Secret Service may be used to
purchase, rent, or otherwise acquire goods or services,
including hotel rooms, office space, or golf carts, from
entities that are owned or operated by the President or the
immediate family of the President."
5. Trump-branded book royalties are
soaring
The first family’s books have seen tremendous sales
success throughout the year, with Trump's most famous
title, The Art of the Deal, enjoying quite a comeback in
2017. The book’s royalties have at least doubled since last
year, when the president's financial disclosure statement
said he earned between $50,000 and $100,000 on the 1987
publication. This year, Trump listed those royalties at
somewhere between $100,000 and $1 million.
The president isn't the only family author raking in the
cash. The first daughter’s book, Women Who Work,
reached the New York Times best-seller list after selling
over 10,000 print copies in its first five days. And Trump's
first wife, Ivana, is on a media tour across the country to
promote her new book on the Trump family, Raising
Trump.
 Podesta Group Plays
Key Role In Manafort Indictment
Peter Hasson - Associate Editor
2:19 PM 10/30/2017
Tony Podesta Interview (Photo: Screenshot/United States Studies
Centre/YouTube)
The Podesta Group, a Democratic lobbying firm co-
founded by Clinton campaign manager John Podesta,
appears to play a central role in the indictments of former
Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort.
From 2006 to 2014, Manafort and Richard Gates “engaged
in a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign in the United
States at the direction of [former Ukrainian President
Victor] Yanukovych, the Party of Regions, and the
government of Ukraine,” according to the indictment. The
Party of Regions is a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party
whose leader, Yanukovych, served as president from 2010
to 2014.
Manafort and Gates chose two companies, identified as
Company A and Company B in the indictment, to lobby on
behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a
European nonprofit that officials say was created as a
mouthpiece for the Party of Regions. Previous news
reports have indicated that the two companies are the
Podesta Group and Mercury LLC.
The head of the Podesta Group, Tony
Podesta, resigned from the group on Monday amid
increasing attention from special counsel Robert Mueller’s
226
investigation into Russian influence operations. Tony’s
brother, John Podesta, served as Hillary Clinton’s
campaign chair during the 2016 election.
The two companies were aware that they were lobbying on
behalf of the Ukrainian government and worked with
Manafort to conceal their foreign lobbying activities from
the public, according to the indictment.
(RELATED: Tucker BOMBSHELL: Podesta Group Is
In Mueller’s ‘Crosshairs’ Over Russian Influence)
“Manafort repeatedly communicated in
person and in writing with Yanukovych, and
Gates passed on directions to Company A
and Company B,” the indictment states.
WATCH FOR MANAFORT’S INDICTMENT
CHARGES:
“At the direction of Manafort and Gates,
Company A and Company B engaged in
extensive lobbying,” the indictment adds.
“Among other things, they lobbied multiple
Members of Congress and their staffs
about Ukraine sanctions, the validity of
Ukrainian elections, and the propriety
of Yanukovych’s imprisoning his
presidential rival, Yulia Tymoshenko (who
had served as Ukraine President prior
to Yanukovych).”
The two companies received payments “solely through off-
shore accounts associated with the Manafort-Gates
entities,” according to the indictment.
The Podesta Group retroactively filed lobbying disclosures
in April admitting their previously hidden Ukrainian
lobbying activities.

WATCH FOR MORE ON MANAFORT’S

INDICTMENT:

227
 Trump Adviser May Have Been Wearing
A Wire In Conversations With Campaign Associates
Chuck Ross - Reporter
10:46 PM 10/30/2017

Government” as long as he continued “to

meet with and provide information to the
Government on request.”

Papadopoulos was arrested on July 27 on charges that he

Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos (Youtube
screen grab via LinkedIn)
The former Trump campaign adviser who accepted a plea
deal for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians
is a “proactive cooperator” with federal investigators,
according to court documents unveiled on Monday.
The term, which refers to George Papadopoulos, generated
speculation that the 30-year-old energy consultant has
worn a wire to help prosecutors in the Office of Special
Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian
interference in the presidential campaign.
The reference to Papadopoulos’ status is found in a court
filing submitted by prosecutors asking a federal judge to
seal court filings in the case on the basis that “premature
disclosure” of his arrest “would significantly undermine
his ability to serve as a proactive cooperator.”
lied to FBI agents during a Jan. 27 interview. Agents met
with Papadopoulos as part of the bureau’s investigation
into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russian government.
As part of his plea deal, Papadopoulos acknowledged that
he lied to agents during that meeting about his interactions
with three Russian nationals. Papadopoulos initially
claimed that he knew the Russians prior to joining the
Trump campaign on March 6, 2016. But investigators
obtained Papadopoulos’ emails and social media
exchanges, which showed that he was lying.
Papadopoulos discussed arranging meetings between
Russian government officials and the Trump campaign.
One of Papadopoulos’ contacts, a London-based professor,
also told him in April that the Russian government had
obtained “thousands” of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The website Hot Air explored the meaning of the term, and
pointed to a 2001 federal court case which explained that

“proactive cooperation is generally

understood to mean that the defendant will
engage in some type of undercover work
on behalf of the Government, such as
wearing a wire and/or meeting face to face
with persons suspected of involvement in
criminal activity.”

At a plea hearing held on Oct. 5, Aaron Zelinsky, a
prosecutor in the Office of the Special Counsel, shed light
on Papadopoulos’ cooperation.
Zelinsky said that at Papadopoulos’
sentencing, prosecutors would make note
of his “efforts to cooperate with the
228
The White House on Monday downplayed the revelations,
saying that Papadopoulos played a small part on the
campaign and that the Trump team did not collude with the
Russian government.
Papadopoulos’ Oct. 5 plea deal and his earlier
arrest remained a closely held secret until Monday, just
hours after Mueller’s office unsealed an indictment against
former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his Recordings of Papadopoulos’ conversations could have
business associate, Rick Gates. then been used to approach additional subjects.

Manafort and Gates are charged with money laundering On CNN, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said that the
and conspiracy. The indictment provides no evidence of government’s disclosure strongly suggests that
collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian Papadopoulos was wearing a wire or recording
government. conversations with Trump associates.

The revelation that Papadopoulos was serving as a “What this says to me is that Papadopoulos
“proactive cooperator” touched off widespread speculation between July and October was wearing a
about how much he had done to help the Mueller team. wire. He was recording
conversations secretly with people who
Ron Hosko, a former assistant director of the FBI’s are subjects and targets of
criminal division, says that it is possible that Papadopoulos this investigation,” he said, adding that
wore a wire as part of his cooperation agreement. “that’s the only reasonable explanation of
what’s in those court papers.”
“I think it’s a fair assessment that it means “If he was wearing a wire, this summer and
Mueller and Co. might have been working fall, think about that, just weeks ago, that is
with [Papadopoulos] to engage other a whole new chapter of possibilities in
subjects in conversation along the lines this investigation and potentially a very,
suggested in the article,” said Hosko, very big deal.”
referring to the Hot Air article which
discussed the possibility of Papadopoulos
wearing a wire.
.

229
 Trump, GOP Lawmakers: Manafort Charges
No Relation To Campaign, Alleged 'Collusion'
By Brooke Singman | Fox News
October 30, 2017
President Trump fired back on Monday in an attempt to
distance his White House from the grand jury indictments
of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an
aide, noting their crimes were committed “years” before
they worked on the campaign.
The president led a chorus of critics of the investigation by
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, noting that the crimes for
which Manafort and his aide, Rick Gates, are charged
appear to predate the presidential campaign by years.
“Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul
Manafort was part of the Trump campaign.
But why aren’t Crooked Hillary & the Dems
the focus?????” Trump tweeted Monday.
“….Also, there is NO COLLUSION!”
Manafort and Gates were indicted by a federal grand jury
Friday on 12 counts, including conspiracy against the
United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered
agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading Foreign
Agent Registration (FARA) statements, false statements
and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign banks
and financial accounts. The indictments were announced
Monday.
Mueller’s team also unsealed a guilty plea by former
Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George
Papadopoulos, who admitted to making false statements to
FBI agents as part of the investigation. According to court
documents, Papadopoulos’ false statements were in
230
regards to his relationship with a Russian ‘professor,’ who
had ties to Russian government officials.
The special counsel probe and Russia “hoax,” as the
president has described it, has cast a cloud over the Trump
administration. But last week, the White House enjoyed a
shift in focus, amid new revelations in the controversial
Obama-era Uranium One deal and the payments behind
the salacious anti-Trump dossier.
Reports last week revealed that Hillary Clinton’s campaign
and the Democratic National Committee paid more than $9
million to law firm Perkins Coie, which commissioned
Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research that ultimately
led to the now-infamous dossier.
Over the weekend, it was revealed that the conservative
Washington Free Beacon website initially funded the
opposition research into then-candidate Donald Trump and
other GOP contenders for the White House. Lawyers for
the Free Beacon told the House Intelligence Committee
that the website funded the research between fall 2015 and
spring 2016.
But some Republicans say that the Manafort-Gates
indictments provide “no evidence” in the Russian collusion
narrative.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., who has repeatedly called for
Mueller’s resignation, over the special counsel’s
relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, said
the indictment “doesn’t have anything to do with Donald
Trump.”
“I believe that Mr. Mueller’s conflict of
interest is absolutely incontrovertible, and I
think this is further indication he’s headed
in this direction no matter what,” Franks
said on his local radio station, KTAR-FM
Morning News, Monday. “It’s ironic
because ostensibly his investigation is
supposed to be into Donald Trump’s
potential involvement with Russia, yet this
doesn’t have anything to do with Donald
Trump.”
Franks added:
“They may try to parlay it into something to
hook President Trump in, but right now, this
is par for the course. I should suggest this
was kind of predictable.”
Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., who is a member of the House
Intelligence Committee, which is leading its own Russia
probe, echoed a similar sentiment.
“This pre-dates the campaign entirely, and
could pre-date Paul Manafort even meeting
Donald Trump. This has nothing to do with
the campaign,” King told Fox News on
“America’s Newsroom” Monday. “The
investigation still has to go forward but
what I’ve seen so far, is there is no
evidence at all linking the Trump campaign
to Russian influence or collusion.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee is also leading a
bipartisan Russia probe, and said that the indictment
"doesn't change" their investigation.
"The special counsel has found a reason
on criminal violations to indict two
individuals and I will leave that up to the
special counsel to make that determination.
It doesn't change anything with our
investigation," Senate Intelligence
Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C. said in a
statement to Fox News. "We received
documents from and had interest in two of
the individuals named, but clearly the
criminal charges put them in the Special
Counsel's purview."
But Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member of the
Senate Intelligence Committee said that the indictments
are “significant” and a “sobering step” in the special
counsel’s investigation.
“That’s why it is imperative that Congress
take action now to protect the
independence of the Special Counsel,
wherever, or however high his investigation
may lead,” Warner said in a statement
Monday. “Members of Congress,
Republican and Democrat, must also make
clear to the President that issuing pardons
to any of his associates or to himself would
be unacceptable and result in immediate,
bipartisan action by Congress.”
231
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also said
that the president “must not, under any circumstances,
interfere” with Mueller’s work.
“If he does so, Congress must respond
swiftly, unequivocally, and in a bipartisan
way to ensure that the investigation
continues,” Schumer said in a statement
Monday.
While Trump has not suggested any plans to interfere with
the special counsel investigation, there are currently two
pieces of legislation in the Senate, with bipartisan
sponsorship, that would ensure a judicial check on the
executive branch’s ability to remove a special counsel.
Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Thom
Tillis, R-N.C., are behind the bills, along with Democratic
senators.
"The president is not firing the special
counsel," Trump's attorney, Jay Sekulow,
said on CNN Monday.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also said
Monday the president has
"no intention or plan to make any changes
in regard to Special Counsel."
Though some argue the indictments are irrelevant to the
Trump-Russia collusion narrative, former top-ranking
Justice Department official under both Bush and Obama
administrations, James Trusty, told Fox News that this is
what happens during a broad investigation.
Last week, Mueller expanded his probe to investigate
Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta’s dealings with
Manafort and a Ukrainian nonprofit. The Podesta Group
told Fox News last week they were “cooperating” with the
special counsel’s office.
Trusty said last week that Mueller has “a lot of room to
legitimately poke around and find information on one
party or another.”
“It’s a cliché, but a good cliché –
prosecutors go where the evidence leads
them,” Trusty told Fox News last week.
“When you define the mission broadly,
there is a lot of room for [an independent
prosecutor’s] exploration.”
Trusty said that if a special counsel’s mission is defined
broadly,
“it is all fair game if the independent
prosecutor is doing his job the right way.”
 Andrea Mitchell Tees Up
Dems to Dismiss Clinton/Russia Collusion
By Kyle Drennen
October 30, 2017 5:04 PM EDT
On her MSNBC show on Monday, anchor Andrea Mitchell
brought two different Democratic lawmakers to brush
aside serious questions about Hillary Clinton and the DNC
funding the infamous Russian dossier against Donald
Trump. The host even teed up a soundbite of Clinton
herself mocking journalists who actually covered the story.
First Mitchell brought on Democratic California
Congressman Eric Swalwell and wondered:
“What about the recent steps taken by
Chairman [Devin] Nunes, by other
[Republican] leaders, by Trey Gowdy, to
go after Hillary Clinton on the very day
that we felt that they were getting closer
– that Mueller’s getting closer to
indictments?”
Predictably, the liberal politician followed her lead in
deriding the dossier revelation, even warning:
“Well, it helps the Russians, because
the Russians like to see further discord
in our country....and we’re going back in
time and reopening, you know, cases
around e-mails or, you know, uranium
deals, that disunity allows them to attack
us again.”
Mitchell didn’t bother to challenge his laughable notion
that holding Clinton accountable somehow “helps the
Russians.”
Later in the hour, while introducing Democratic
Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, Mitchell sneered:
232
As the first criminal charges are
revealed in the special counsel’s Russia
investigation, President Trump and
Republicans are going to battle with
Democrats on two fronts, demanding
new scrutiny of Hillary Clinton’s alleged role
as Secretary of State in a 2010 uranium
deal and the Clinton campaign and DNC’s
funding of that controversial dossier on
Donald Trump. Is this all misdirection by
the President and his advisors?
Moments later, she set up a clip of Clinton attacking Fox
News for properly examining the scandals:
“The President and his allies, as well as
one news organization, have been
focusing almost entirely on Hillary
Clinton....She has said that she had
nothing do with it. This was Clinton at the
Human Rights Campaign gala on Saturday
night.”
A soundbite followed of Clinton telling the left-wing
group:
“It does strike me that in the last few
days at least Fox News seems to think
that’s where I live, in the White House.
Because they spend a disproportionate
amount of their time talking about
impeaching me.”
Mitchell continued:
“So she went on to talk about the fact that
she is being criticized when she actually
lost the election.”
Turning to Markey, she asked:
“At this stage, do you think that there is a
legitimate issue about what the Democrats
did, as well as what the Republicans
arguably did, during the campaign?”
Markey promptly disregarded the legitimate question:
 Look, what Donald Trump is doing is
he’s just throwing out all of these red
herrings about Hillary Clinton.
As a matter of fact, there are so many red
herrings the President has been pointing
out over the last two or three days that we
probably will have to have an aquarium to
put all of these red herrings in....And the
President is just throwing out Hillary Clinton
as red meat to his base in order to give
himself some kind of core support.
Mitchell did eventually talk to a non-Democrat about the
Clinton/Russia allegations, radio host and MSNBC’s token
“conservative” Charlie Sykes:
“Charlie, the political fallout from this, the
President pushing back, saying that it really
should be Hillary Clinton we’re looking at...”
However, Sykes sounded just like her and the Democrats
on the issue:
...it felt like there was a coordinated
campaign over the last week to discredit
this investigation, to shift the focus from
the Trump investigation to Hillary Clinton. I
mean, this was like a bonfire of what
about-ism, trying to change the subject.
And now you have real laws, real
indictments, real guilty pleas. So this
comes at a crucial moment.
The biased coverage throughout the show was brought to
viewers by Ally credit, GoDaddy.com, and Golden Corral.
Here are excerpts of the October 30 exchanges:
12:24 PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: What about the recent steps taken by
Chairman Nunez, by other Democratic [sic] leaders, by Trey
Gowdy, to go after Hillary Clinton on the very day that we felt that
they were getting closer – that Mueller’s getting closer to
indictments?
REP. ERIC SWALWELL [D-CA]: Well, it helps the Russians,
because the Russians like to see further discord in our country.
And if we’re not doing all we can to make sure that we’re not
gonna prevent a future attack and we’re going back in time and
reopening, you know, cases around e-mails or, you know,
uranium deals, that disunity allows them to attack us again.
(...)
233
MITCHELL: What is your reaction to the Republican leadership
on the committee wanting to investigate the uranium connection?
SWALWELL: Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. And Paul Ryan
is green-lighting all of this. You know, he has allowed Devin
Nunes to recuse himself but still issue what I think are non-
relevant subpoenas. He’s allowed these new investigations open.
You know, I think, for Democrats, as part of our case, you know,
as to why we want to be in the majority in 2018, that, you know,
we will response – we will govern responsibly and focus on what,
you know, Americans care about when it comes to, you know,
the freedom to choose in our democracy.
MITCHELL: Do you think that the uranium issue should be
investigated?
SWALWELL: If there are issues that haven’t, you know, been
explored by the Intelligence Committee, sure. But not at the
expense of, I think, this investigation. I think what’s happening
here is the disruptive way to put this ahead of our investigation
because of, at best, an incuriosity [sic] about what the Russians
did, and at worst, a way to work and advance the White House’s
narrative.
(...)
12:40 PM ET
MITCHELL: As the first criminal charges are revealed in the
special counsel’s Russia investigation, President Trump and
Republicans are going to battle with Democrats on two fronts,
demanding new scrutiny of Hillary Clinton’s alleged role as
Secretary of State in a 2010 uranium deal and the Clinton
campaign and DNC’s funding of that controversial dossier on
Donald Trump. Is this all misdirection by the President and his
advisors? Joining me now is Democratic Senator Ed Markey,
member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
(...)
MITCHELL: The President and his allies, as well as one news
organization, have been focusing almost entirely on Hillary
Clinton, the fact that the Clinton campaign did hire the firm that
ended up producing the dossier through Christopher Steele, the
former intelligence official, the intelligence agent from the British
intelligence service. And also, the fact that there was this
uranium deal while she was secretary of state. She has said that
she had nothing do with it. This was Clinton at the Human Rights
Campaign gala on Saturday night.
HILLARY CLINTON: It does strike me that in the last few days at
least Fox News seems to think that’s where I live, in the White
House. Because they spend a disproportionate amount of their
time talking about impeaching me.

MITCHELL: So she went on to talk about the fact that she is
being criticized when she actually lost the election. At this stage,
do you think that there is a legitimate issue about what the
Democrats did, as well as what the Republicans arguably did,
during the campaign?
SEN ED MARKEY [D-MA]: Look, what Donald Trump is doing is
he’s just throwing out all of these red herrings about Hillary
Clinton. As a matter of fact, there are so many red herrings the
President has been pointing out over the last two or three days
that we probably will have to have an aquarium to put all of these
red herrings in. But it’s all clearly intended to get away from the
central point that there has been a guilty plea and two other
indictments which have been brought down here today. And the
President is just throwing out Hillary Clinton as red meat to his
base in order to give himself some kind of core support. But
.
234
ultimately this whole issue is just going to continue to return to
the Trump campaign and the Trump White House. What did they
know and when did they know it about Russian interference in
our elections?
(...)
12:51 PM ET
MITCHELL: Charlie, the political fallout from this, the President
pushing back, saying that it really should be Hillary Clinton we’re
looking at, we’ll have more to say about that in a moment.
(...)
CHARLIE SYKES: You know, and this also comes at a rather
dramatic moment because it felt like there was a coordinated
campaign over the last week to discredit this investigation, to shift
the focus from the Trump investigation to Hillary Clinton. I mean,
this was like a bonfire of what about-ism, trying to change the
subject. And now you have real laws, real indictments, real guilty
pleas. So this comes at a crucial moment.
MITCHELL: And, of course, that was replicating – what you just
referenced – was replicating the way the President, when he was
a candidate, handled it all.
(...)
 Trump Lied: Guilty Plea Proves
Campaign Collusion With Russia…But Was It Russia?
Trump's Lead Policy Advisor Along With Kushner On Israel
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor
October 30, 2017

The game Papadopoulos is playing out shows signs of

staging, a plea deal for a very minimal violation that does
so much more than the Manafort/Gates indictment, in that
it places the Trump campaign directly in bed with Russian
intelligence.

When we look at how it all comes together, however, it

may well be that everyone is played here, Russia for sure,
Trump as well. This was an insane way to get into the
Trump campaign, through a “green kid,” rather than the
endless number of savvy surrogates Trump had surrounded
himself with.

With Israel's Defense Minister

We clearly have a sniff test problem:

Editor’s note: VT believes George

The White House is yet to comment on the
Papadopoulos to be a groomed Mossad
information. George Papadopoulos, an
operative placed inside the Trump
international energy lawyer, has become
campaign. He was first arrested back in
the third adviser to President Donald
July and agreed to a plea bargain that
Trump’s campaign to face criminal charges
was only made public today. What he
in the Russia probe.
has been doing since is worth volumes.

Did Papadopoulos “catfish” the Russians? Was “the

professor” a Russian agent or as we believe, Papadopoulos
“handler” in a move against both Russia and the US?

If so, is Mueller falling into a trap or does he have a

handler too?

As we follow the narrative of the Papadopoulos guilty

plea, the read out here differs considerably. There was no
proof it was Russians at all. You see, Papadopoulos was
laundered into politics through the Hudson Institute, long
recognized as one of many Washington “stink tanks” allied
with Israel’s Likudist extremist movement and their Mafia
backers.

Worse still, he was sent through the

London School of Economics, a Mossad
According to the US Justice Department, the former US
“spy factory.” Simply Google “London
President Donald Trump’s campaign adviser,
School of Economics and Mossad.”
GeorgePapadopoulos, pleaded guilty on October 5

235
to making false statements to FBI agents in the Russia
probe.
“George Papadopoulos, of Chicago, Illinois,
pleaded guilty on Oct. 5, 2017, to making
false statements to FBI agents, in violation
of 18 U.S.C. 1001. The case was unsealed
on Oct. 30, 2017,” the Justice Department
statement says.
The indictment reads that Papadopoulos
allegedly lied “about the timing, extent and
nature of his relationships and interactions
with certain foreign nationals whom he
understood to have close connections
with senior Russian government officials.”
The White House hasn’t yet commented on Papadopoulos’
indictment, which comes just hours after another former
member of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort
was charged on 12 counts, including “conspiracy
against the US” and money laundering.
Manafort, who worked as an advisor to Ukrainian former
President, Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted
during violent Maidan protests resulting in a coup
in February 2014, has been charged over being engaged
in a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign in the US
on behalf of Kiev.
US President Donald Trump has already commented
on the first charges as part of the so-called Russia probe
by saying that Manafort was accused with regard
to dealings he had made “years ago”, prior to becoming
236
part of his election team. He has also yet again stated that
there was no collusion between his election campaign team
and the Kremlin, a claim repeatedly denied by both the US
president and Moscow.
From Wikipedia:
Papadopoulos was born
in Chicago, Illinois, to parents who
emigrated from Thessaloniki, Greece.
Papadopoulos graduated with a Bachelor
of Arts in Political Arts & Government
from DePaul University in 2009. He
received a Master of Science from
the University of London in 2010, with
another master’s degree from the London
School of Economics. From March 2011 to
September 2015, Papadopoulos worked as
a research associate at Hudson Institute. In
2012, he represented the United States at
the Model United Nations in Geneva.
Papadopoulos advised Ben Carson‘s presidential campaign
from November 2015 to January 2016. He joined Donald
Trump’s presidential campaign in May 2016 where he
performed similar tasks.[1] Three days after joining
Trump’s campaign, Papadopoulos sent emails
concerning Vladimir Putin to seven campaign officials.
Between March and September 2016, he made at least six
requests for Trump to meet with Russian politicians, one
of which was rejected by Paul Manafort in May.[2][3] He
was interviewed about Russia–United States
relations by Interfax in September 2016, in which he said
that Barack Obama promised to cooperate with Russia, but
that promise did not go through.[4]
Senator Richard Burr, chair of the Senate panel
investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United
States elections, said in October 2017 that the panel was
interested in Papadopoulos because he had sent e-mails
attempting to set up meetings between Trump
and Vladimir Putin.[5]
Since Trump assumed his office as President of the United
States, Papadopoulos worked as an independent energy
and policy consultant.[6]
 YIKES: Debbie Wasserman Schultz
REALLY Should Have Sat This One Out
By Doug P.
Posted At 11:00 Pm On October 30, 2017

Florida Rep. and former DNC head who has been under
fire in her own right for several different reasons decided
on Monday it would be a good idea to practice dressing up
as the definition of self-unawareness for Halloween:

According to many, Wasserman Schultz should consider

remaining silent:

Better late than never?

237
 That pretty much sums it up.

Place your bets!

***

238
 ‘How Is All That Not Collusion?’
Acosta Squabbles with WH’s Sanders on Indictments
By Curtis Houck
October 30, 2017 4:37 PM EDT
With all of the news arising from Mueller Monday, the
White House press briefing was guaranteed to feature
tough questions for Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders. Naturally, CNN’s Jim Acosta chose to make his
presence known, arguing that Monday’s indictments
already illustrate collusion between the Trump campaign
and Russia happened..
Acosta started off with a basic question for Sanders in how
would she “describe” one of the indicted individuals
(George Papadopoulos)
“as having a limited role when there is a
photograph of Mr. Papadopoulos sitting
at a table with then-candidate Trump.”
Sanders brushed off the question, so Acosta interjected:
He was sighted by then-candidate Trump in
a meeting with The Washington Post as to
who his top foreign policy advisers are.
That seems to fight against what you are
saying and also, how is it not collusion
when George Papadopoulos was in contact
with various people who are promising dirt
on Hillary Clinton and a series of events
that closely mirrors what occurred with the
President's own son.
The White House official tried to jump in, but not before
Acosta could drop this rather premature conclusion (even
if it’s to raise a line of argument or try and trap Sanders):
“He had contacts with Russians in
pursuit of information that was
239
damaging about the Clintons. How is all
of that not collusion?”
Sanders reiterated the Trump team’s line that
Papadopoulos was just a
“member of a volunteer counsel that
met at one time over the course of a
year and he was part of a list that was
read out in The Washington Post.”
“I’d hardly call that some sort of regular
adviser or as you want to, you know,
push that he is like a senior member of
the staff. It’s — he was not paid by the
campaign. He was a volunteer on, again,
a counsel that met once,” she added.
The press room chaotically began shouting while Acosta
followed up about
“these collusion activities” seeing as
how Papadopoulos “was pursuing
information from the Russians.”
“Again, he was a volunteer. I think that's
something you need to ask him. I'm not
here to speak on behalf of the, you
know, thousands of people that may
have volunteered on the campaign,”
Sanders shot back before calling on NPR’s
Mara Liasson.
Here’s the relevant transcript from October 30's White
House Press Briefing:
White House Press Briefing
October 30, 2017
1:45 p.m. Eastern
JIM ACOSTA: Sarah, how can you describe Mr. Papadopoulos
as having a limited role when there is a photograph of Mr.
Papadopoulos sitting at a table with then-candidate Trump.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: The President has thousands
of photographs with millions of people, so —

ACOSTA: He was sighted by then-candidate Trump in a meeting
with The Washington Post as to who his top foreign policy
advisers are. That seems to fight against what you are saying
and also, how is it not collusion when George Papadopoulos was
in contact with various people who are promising dirt on Hillary
Clinton and a series of events that closely mirrors what occurred
with the President's own son. He had contacts with Russians —
.
240
SANDERS: This individual was on a —
ACOSTA: — in pursuit of information that was damaging about
the Clintons. How is all of that not collusion?
SANDERS: Look, this individual was the member of a volunteer
counsel that met at one time over the course of a year and he
was part of a list that was read out in The Washington Post. I’d
hardly call that some sort of regular adviser or as you want to,
you know, push that he is like a senior member of the staff. It’s —
he was not paid by the campaign. He was a volunteer on, again,
a counsel that met once.
ACOSTA: [SHOUTING] What about these collusion activities,
Sarah? He was — he was pursuing information from the
Russians.
SANDERS: Again, he was a volunteer. I think that's something
you need to ask him. I'm not here to speak on behalf of the, you
know, thousands of people that may have volunteered on the
campaign.
 Lindsey Graham: There 'Will Be
Holy Hell To Pay' If Trump Fires Mueller
Fox News
October 30, 2017
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s charges against former
Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and two other
aides mark a new phase in his sprawling investigation into
Russia and President Donald Trump. But the president’s
supporters on Capitol Hill have said they want all the facts
to come in first.
There “will be holy hell to pay” if Mueller is dismissed,
Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News on
Monday, unconcerned about rumblings of the ongoing
threat Mueller poses to the president. He said there is zero
evidence from the White House that Mueller’s
investigation will be stopped or curtailed.
Asked to elaborate, Graham continued:
“I've heard nothing from the White House to
suggest that the president's going to try to
replace Mr. Mueller. Zero evidence from
anybody I've talked to. It would be wrong to
do so unless there were cause.”
.
241
People familiar with Trump’s thinking told The Associated
Press the president has become increasingly concerned that
the Mueller probe could be moving to an investigation into
his personal dealings.
“No politician should ever be afraid of the
American legal system working its will,”
Graham told Fox News about many of his
colleagues’ refusal to comment on the
case.
White House officials were publicly optimistic about
Mueller’s investigation wrapping up swiftly.
Many lawmakers noted the U.S. government would
continue as normal regardless of the indictments.
The agenda of the Trump administration such as health
care and tax reform shouldn’t be affected, said Senator
John N. Kennedy, R-La., noting that Americans can
multitask.
“Most Americans do, and I don’t see why
we can’t,” he told Fox News.
Trump immediately sought to distance himself after
Manafort and Rick Gates pleaded not guilty to a 12-count
indictment alleging money laundering, conspiracy and
other offenses. Another former aide, George
Papadopoulos, was revealed to be cooperating with
authorities after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.
 Russian Content May Have Reached
126 Million Facebook Users,
There Is Just One Catch
By Tyler Durden
Oct 30, 2017 7:52 PM
One month ago, the media world and political punditry
was in a furore after Facebook revealed that some 470
alleged Russian troll accounts had paid Facebook a
whopping $100,000 to purchase 3,000 advertisements
potentially influencing the outcome of the election (even
though many of the ads "showed support for Clinton" and
only half ran before the actual election). The furore did not
last long: gradually the story fizzled, before becoming a
watercooler joke that Russia had managed to buy the
outcome of the US presidential election for a whopping
100 grand - which would make Vladimir Putin not only a
propaganda genius of the highest order, but the best damn
advertising mastermind to ever live, generating the
highest ad IRR in history. One can only imagine what
insidious, civilzation-ending thoughts he could implant in
America's fragile, feeble minds for $1 million, or gasp... 10
million dollars (about 1% of what Hillary spent).
So, eager to keep the "Russia interfered in US elections"
meme going (not to be confused with what the Washington
Post one year ago titled "The long history of the U.S.
interfering with elections elsewhere"), tomorrow
Facebook's general counsel, Colin Stretch , together with
his peers from Google and Twitter, will will sit before the
Senate judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism and
try to fascinate the public with some far bigger numbers,
while hopefully also pitching the vast reach Facebook and
other social media have.
To do that, Facebook will say that it
estimates that a grand total of 126 million
people may have seen content posted
by Russian-backed accounts over more
than two years that, as the WSJ puts it,
"sought to disrupt American society",
according to a prepared copy of the
remarks obtained by The Wall Street
Journal.
How is this number different from the far smaller number
quoted previously when referring only to the Russian
trolls' alleged ad outreach? Because this time, Facebook
will count virtually every post created by these alleged
Russian troll farms as direct form of propaganda: as the
WSJ explains, tomorrow's definition of "reach" will
include such content as "free posts and events listings."
242
In all, Facebook will claim that Russian-linked accounts
allegedly churned out 80,000 pieces of content - call them
posts, surveys, notes, and pretty much anything else, as
well as ads - between January 2015 and August 2017.
Going back to the revised "total reach" number, at first
blush it sounds unprecedented: up to a whopping 126
million people, more than a third of the US population -
and more than half of Facebook's entire US
penetration - may have been brainwashed by those pesky
Russians.
A quick tangent:
When it comes to Facebook's US
penetration, lately it's difficult to separate
the truth from the lies, because readers
may recall that on month ago, Brian
Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research,
calculated that Facebook claimed that its
ad platform can reach millions more
young adults in the U.S. than are
estimated to actually live in the country.
Facebook's Ads Manager claims to have a
potential reach of 41 million people in
the U.S. between the ages of 18-24,
according to Wieser, even as the U.S.
Census Bureau estimates there were
only 31 million people in that age range
last year.
Oops.
Of course, numbers are "fluid" when it comes to the
advertising industry - and by fluid we mean grossly
fabricated and fraudulent - and the last thing we want to do
is get Facebook in even more trouble with its advertisers
who one day will get sick of reaching robotic click farms
in Bangladesh and ask for their money back.
However, there is one catch. When Facebook says that up
126 million people may have seen the allegedly Russian
content, what it really means is that there has been a total
of 126 million possible impressions and "click thrus" (we
give Facebook the benefit of the doubt on the math here).
What it did not say, or actually did as we will show
momentarily, is that at the same time as the Russian
content was running, everyone else was also desperately
seeking to attract the attention - and clicks - of these 126
million potential eyeballs, or rather 252 million eyeballs,
with their own content, ads, articles, and what not.
How much more content? Here is the math - the Russians
supposedly created 80,000 pieces of content. Now, as
WaPo explains, for Facebook, which places roughly 220
posts each day in the news feeds of U.S. users, the amount
of content equals a tiny fraction of total content served.
How tiny? Americans in total were served over 33
trillion stories in their News Feeds between 2015 and
2017. In this context, those 80,000 Russian posts appear...
modest.
Which is precisely what Facebook will say tomorrow in its
defense. Quote the WSJ:
In his testimony, Mr. Stretch plans to say
that “any amount” of fake or malicious
activity is “too much,” while at the same
time playing down its importance,
according to the prepared remarks. Mr.
Stretch plans to argue that these posts
were a small fraction of the content
consumed by Americans during this
period—0.004% of posts, or one out of
23,000 pieces of content.
In other words, yes - up to 126,000,000 Americans may
have seen the "socially-damaging" Russian content on
Facebook. The problem is that those same 126,000,000
Americans also saw a few trillion other stories in the
same time period. And speaking of "socially-damaging",
.
243
this is what Facebook will claim was the content of the ads
and posts:
“Many of the ads and posts we’ve seen
so far are deeply disturbing—seemingly
intended to amplify societal divisions
and pit groups of people against each
other,” Mr. Stretch plans to say.
Judging by Donald Trump's twitter feed, at least one
person was religiously clicking on the Russian Facebook
content.
Which about covers Twitter. What about Google? Here is
WaPo:
Google said it had found 18 English-
language channels with 1,108 videos
uploaded, totaling about 43 hours of
content, that originated with Russian
operatives.
The company also found that two accounts
linked to the Russian troll farm spent a
total of $4,700 on search and display
ads during the 2016 election cycle.
So to summarize: having spent $100,000 on Facebook ads,
and unleashed a troll army to wrote Facebook posts -
which had a 0.004% change of being read - Putin then
went for the kill, and assured himself a Trump presidency
by splurging another $4,700 for Google ads and creating
an additional 43 hours of video content.
The rest is history.
 Is Russiagate Dead?
Paul Manafort & Kiev Caught Up In FBI Dragnet,
Kremlin Not Mentioned
Robert Bridge
Published Time: 30 Oct, 2017 17:21 Edited Time: 31 Oct, 2017 06:37
Russiagate – an elaborate work of bad fiction built on the
shifting sand of fake news – claimed what may be its first
political victims. And the punch line is that Ukraine – not
Russia – is the focal point of the indictment.
Donald Trump, who, in a twist of tragic irony, just last
week approved the release of archived documents related
to the JFK assassination, is now suffering the sting of the
first bullet, as it were, in the relentless Russiagate saga that
seems determined to bring down his own presidency.
The other irony is painfully obvious on the very first page
of Robert Mueller’s indictment against Paul Manafort and
Rick Gates: there is absolutely nothing related to so-called
“Russian collusion.”
Paul Manafort, the first sacrificial victim in the ongoing
Russia witch hunt, works as a lobbyist, political consultant
and lawyer who once served as Trump’s campaign
chairman. On Monday morning, he walked through the
244
front doors of FBI headquarters after being ordered to
“surrender” to federal authorities.
Together with his long-time business partner, Manafort
will now be processed, fingerprinted and arraigned like
any common criminal before the special counsel. The
charges:
“conspiracy against the United States,
money laundering and other charges.”
In other words, serious stuff.
As mentioned, however, the name ‘Russia’ barely appears
in the indictment, whereas ‘Ukraine’ is mentioned dozens
of times.
“Manafort and Gates generated tens of
millions of dollars in income as a result of
their Ukraine work. In order to hide Ukraine
payments from United States authorities,
from approximately 2006 through at least
2016, Manafort and Gates laundered the
money through scores of United States and
foreign corporations, partnerships, and
bank accounts,” the opening page of the
report reads.
Wasn't this promised to be a probe into Russia somehow
hijacking US democracy like a thief in the night? So where
is the Russian connection in the indictment? It's not to be
found. This 'oversight' is already resonating in the Russian
capital like a bad joke. Yet few people are laughing,
because Russia has been dragged through the hot coals for
over a year, enduring a slew of sanctions, reckless media
reports, diplomatic disasters – even NATO encroachment
– over empty claims of “Russian meddling” in the US
presidential elections on behalf of Donald Trump.
The indictment against Manafort and Gates goes on to say,
in connection once again to Ukraine, that
“[I]t is illegal to act as an agent of a foreign
principal engaged in certain United States
 influence activities without registering the
affiliation.”
Well, that's interesting. A very good lawyer could probably
level the very same charge against US Senator John
McCain and Victoria Nuland, former assistant secretary of
state for European and Eurasian affairs, both of whom
showed up in central Kiev, agitating the masses amid the
Maidan protests. That certainly seems to qualify as
"influence activities." But I digress.
This is not the first time Manafort has been manhandled by
the FBI, and I can’t help but think - call it a hunch - it is
due to his Trump affiliations.
In July, for example, Manafort and his family were rudely
awakened in a pre-dawn FBI raid that was a bit over the
top, to say the least.
Even CNN, rarely sympathetic to the
Trump camp, described it as “an unusually
hard-nosed tactic in a probe that centers on
possible tax and financial crimes.” FBI
agents stormed into the Manafort home
“with guns drawn” as the family was still
asleep. The FBI even insisted on searching
Kathleen Manafort for weapons, the
sources told CNN.
Now compare the way Trump affiliates are being treated,
on the basis of exactly nothing, to that of the Clinton
campaign and the Democratic National Convention
(DNC), which attracted enough dirt to keep the FBI busy
for many decades.
The most publicized ‘indiscretion’ was the shocking
revelation that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had
conducted government business over her home computer
system.
As the Associated Press delicately
described it, the “unusual practice of a
Cabinet-level official running her own email
server would have given
245
Clinton…significant control over limiting
access to her message archives. The
practice also would complicate the State
Department’s legal responsibilities in
finding and turning over official emails in
response to any investigations, lawsuits or
public records requests.”
In an investigation conducted by former FBI Director
James Comey, of the approximately 30,000 emails Clinton
turned over in 2014, the FBI found
“110 emails, in 52 email chains, have been
determined by the owning agency to
contain classified information at the time
they were sent or received. Eight of those
chains contained information that was ‘Top
Secret’ at the time they were sent; 36 of
those chains contained ‘Secret’ information
at the time; eight contained ‘Confidential’
information at the time.”
It is also worth noting that while Clinton was secretary of
state in 2010, a US soldier, Chelsea Manning, stole
250,000 diplomatic cables and handed them over to
WikiLeaks, which happily dumped them into the public
realm.
Despite all that, not only did Comey issue a statement
exonerating Clinton for organizing her government emails
through a private server, he allegedly did so before
completing the investigation, according to two Republican
senators.
This is just one of many incidences of wrongdoing on the
part of Hillary Clinton and the DNC that has been
categorically ignored, while Russia continues to get tarred
and feathered on the basis of groundless accusations that it
somehow handed the election to Trump right under the
noses of the American people. Never mind the fact that the
US voting machines aren’t even connected to the internet.
But no matter.
 occasion, yet remains beyond the arm of the law and the
disfavor of the media.

The other much more sensitive scale is being used 24/7

against the Trump administration, despite the total absence
to date of any solid evidence connecting Donald Trump’s
victory in the 2016 presidential election to Russian
“meddling.”

The question now is, how far will this anti-

Russia inquisition go, especially
considering that Mueller’s investigation has
done nothing to prove the year-long media
farce of "Russia collusion."

It is critical to put to rest this Russophobic nonsense,

which is not only disastrous for US-Russia relations, but to
the future of America’s two-party political system, which
has been hanging in the balance ever since Trump entered
the Oval Office.

Clearly, there appears to be two separate standards

influencing the scales of justice in the United States. On
the one side, there is the scale that judges the behavior of
Hillary Clinton, who has broken the law on more than one
.

246
 Sanders Would Have Won
2016 Election: Trump Pollster
Tue Oct 31, 2017 06:03AM

Towards the end of the race, however, Sanders changed his

tone and bowed out in favor of Clinton, who went on to
lose the November 8 presidential election to Trump.

US President Donald Trump (left) and Independent Senator Bernie

Sanders
Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders
would have defeated President Donald
Trump in the general election had he Former Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton listens
secured the Democratic nomination last as rival and US Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a presidential
year, according to the pollster for primary debate in Flint, Michigan, March 6, 2016. (Photo by
Reuters)
Trump’s election campaign.
According to WikiLeaks, Trump won the election because
Speaking at a Harvard University Institute of Politics event
Democrats rigged the system to have Clinton beat Sanders.
Monday, Tony Fabrizio acknowledged that Sanders could
have won the 2016 presidential election, which the final
Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, lost to Sanders could have won the election but the Democratic
Trump. National Committee (DNC) stopped him from doing so by
pushing him out from the primary race, the whistleblowing
agency suggested following the election.
“There’s no question that if it had been
anybody other than Clinton or anybody
other than Trump, that race would not have In addition, various polls also suggested that Sanders
been as close as it was either way,” would have defeated Trump in the presidential election by
Fabrizio said. “It would not have been.” a large margin if he had been the Democratic presidential
nominee instead of Clinton.
When asked what could have happened if Trump faced
Sanders in the election, Fabrizio replied, Numerous polls taken before the 2016 presidential election
showed that Clinton and Trump were deeply unpopular
politicians, while Sanders enjoyed very high popularity.
“I think Sanders beats Trump.”
“I think Sanders would have had the ability Clinton, a former first lady, US senator and secretary of
to reach a lot of the less than college- state, was viewed by many voters as a corrupt member of
educated, low-income white voters,” he the elite Washington establishment.
added.
Emails released by WikiLeaks have revealed that officials
Sanders inspired a populist movement during the 2016 from the DNC sought to undermine Sanders’s bid to win
Democrat primaries. He ran a close race with Clinton and the nomination.
promised to continue the fight all the way until the
Democratic National Convention in June 2016, where the
party’s nominee was going to be named.
247
 CNN Segment Insinuates Russian Facebook
Ads Tipped the Election; Compares Them to a Disease
By Curtis Houck
October 31, 2017 3:47 PM EDT
On the Tuesday edition of CNN’s At This Hour, Reliable
Sources host Brian Stelter questioned the intelligence of
the American people, insinuating that the Russian
Facebook ads brainwashed people into voting for Donald
Trump and propel him into the White House.
Stelter was speaking to host Kate Bolduan when he argued
that
“most people may not have actually
paid attention to this Russian
propaganda and it didn't take most
people, it only took a couple million or
you could argue a couple hundred
thousand given how close the election
was in key states.”
If one reads that and doesn’t conclude that Stelter is
making the suggestion that Russian Facebook ads (which
he hasn’t seen) tipped the election against Hillary Clinton,
I don’t know what to tell you.
Stelter continued:
We talked a lot in the last 12 months about
fake news, not President Trump's definition
but actually fake stories that are made up
to design and deceive you. A lot of that was
done for financial gain but some of it was
done by these foreign governments trying
to affect elections and the question for the
Congress — for Facebook and Twitter and
Google today and tomorrow is what are
you doing now to make sure this never
happens again? Because I don't see
248
enough action being taken to stop it in the
future.
Here’s the thing. The liberal media are always hell-bent on
influencing elections to help fellow leftists, so the new
reality on the horizon seems to be they’ll question the
legitimacy of elections if they don’t pan out the way that
they want.
Because, just like Hillary Clinton, they still refuse to admit
she lost and are trying to undermine the White House’s
legitimacy.
Later in the segment, Bolduan, Stelter, and Obama-era
Defense Department lawyer Ryan Goodman noted that we
haven’t seen the Russian-backed Facebook ads/pages yet.
That’s true and the American people should see them.
However, Stelter’s claims moments earlier skipped ahead
to create a conclusion without evidence in the middle.
When trying to prove guilt in a court of law, you start with
the notion of innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until
proven innocent.
Anyhow, Goodman compared these voters that Stelter
insulted to people affected by a disease or someone who’s
fallen victim to a credit hack:
If you go into a medical facility, you’re
exposed to communicable disease. The
medical facility has to notify you that
happened. If you have a data breach and
your private information was compromised,
they have to notify you. Why wouldn't they
have to notify the public in this instance?
So what Facebook says and they say this
explicitly on their site, they will share it with
Congress and share it with Mueller but they
won't share it with the American public.
“And this all gets to a key question
which I think lawmakers would say
we're no closer to. Are they any closer
to protecting and making sure. this
doesn't happen in 2018 — one year from
now for the 2018 election than they were
clearly not prepared to deal with in this
 in 2016. I think the answer is no,”
Bolduan concluded.
This attack on the intelligence of voters was brought to you
by At This Hour advertisers Consumer Cellular, T-Mobile,
and liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s NeedToImpeach.com.
Here’s the relevant transcript from October 31's CNN’s At
This Hour with Kate Bolduan:
CNN’s At This Hour with Kate Bolduan
October 31, 2017
11:45 a.m. Eastern
KATE BOLDUAN: Brian, the number is huge and it’s just
Facebook. What do you think it really means?
BRIAN STELTER: Well, you know, I think everyone has the
experience of scrolling through the news feed, just scrolling by
items not paying attention.
BOLDUAN: Right.
STELTER: So most people may not have actually paid attention
to this Russian propaganda and it didn't take most people, it only
took a couple million or you could argue a couple hundred
thousand given how close the election —
BOLDUAN: In certain states for sure.
STELTER: — was in key states. We talked a lot in the last 12
months about fake news, not President Trump's definition but
actually fake stories that are made up to design and deceive you.
A lot of that was done for financial gain but some of it was done
by these foreign governments trying to affect elections and the
question for the Congress — for Facebook and Twitter and
Google today and tomorrow is what are you doing now to make
sure this never happens again? Because I don't see enough
action being taken to stop it in the future.
BOLDUAN: On today, Ryan, it made me remember an interview
that was done with Sheryl Sandberrg of Facebook recently and
.
249
there had a lot of criticism, obviously, leading up to this — the big
names that haven't been forthcoming about what they know. Like
Facebook knows more as Drew is getting to more than what
they've been saying.
[LONG CLIP OF AXIOS’s MIKE ALLEN INTERVIEW
SANDBERG]
BOLDUAN: And wasn't fully transparent, obviously, in that
answer. I mean, is Facebook going to have to have a better
answer today?
RYAN GOODMAN: Yeah. They know. It's just that she wouldn't
tell. He asked her three times. The best, most charitable read is
that they're giving that information behind the scenes to the
congressional investigators and to Mueller, but today they're
going to have to at least address that question pretty squarely
under a lot of pressure.
BOLDUAN: Do you think we will see the ads ourselves, the
public.
GOODMAN: That's a huge question. I think we should.
BOLDUAN: Why not?
STELTER: I think we will tomorrow. There's a lot we don't know
but I have a feeling we're going to see some of the congressmen
go ahead and make these available. These are ads, you know,
that were bought by these Russian troll farms with divisive
messages. Sometimes anti-Clinton messages.
BOLDUAN: I don't understand the argument why not. Especially
if it's labeled these are the bad ads.
GOODMAN: The public has a right to know. If you go into a
medical facility, you’re exposed to communicable disease. The
medical facility has to notify you that happened. If you have a
data breach and your private information was compromised, they
have to notify you. Why wouldn't they have to notify the public in
this instance? So what Facebook says and they say this explicitly
on their site, they will share it with Congress and share it with
Mueller but they won't share it with the American public. They
cite a 1986 law, but that law really is about truly private
communications. It would not be a private communication,
especially if you’re talking about something like an ad.
BOLDUAN: And this all gets to a key question which I think
lawmakers would say we're no closer to. Are they any closer to
protecting and making sure. this doesn't happen in 2018 — one
year from now for the 2018 election than they were clearly not
prepared to deal with in this in 2016. I think the answer is no.
STELTER: They would say yes and I think we all should be
incredbly skeptical because I don't see that proof yet.
 Nunes: ‘DoJ Needs
To Investigate Deep State Leaks’
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 31, 2017

job” and find out who in the intelligence community is

“Deep state is leaking. They’re leaking to
responsible for illegally passing information regarding
make you look bad” various investigations to the media.

Nunes also said that that his committee would “be bringing
back a lot of people” to question, including, potentially,
Obama administration officials.

But he was adamant that the Justice Department needed to

be more proactive and “do their job and begin to
investigate” the myriad of leaks.

“Deep state is leaking. They’re leaking to

(National Sentinel) Deep State: The head of the House
make you look bad. Are you going to bring
Intelligence Committee said Monday that the Trump
back Susan Rice and others to testify?
Department of Justice ought to be doing more to
Samantha Power, bringing them back?”
investigate who is leaking details of confidential
Ingraham asked.
investigations to the press.
“Unfortunately, we are bringing back a lot
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told Laura Ingraham during of the people, or the DOJ could do their job
her debut program on Fox News that DoJ should “do it’s and begin to investigate,” he said.
.

250
 Schweizer: ‘Is The Mueller Investigation Going To Cross
With The Financial Dealings Of The Kushner Family?’
By Dan Riehl
31 Oct 2017
Clinton Cash author and Breitbart News
Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer
joined Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM
host Alex Marlow on Tuesday to discuss
Paul Manafort and Rick Gates
surrendering to the FBI after being
charged by special counsel Mueller, as
well as other elements of the ongoing
investigation.
He also discussed the news that the Maryland Attorney
General is investigating Kushner-owned apartments and
what, if anything, Jared Kushner’s business dealings could
mean for Mueller’s investigation.
251
“Jared Kushner’s father was charged and
convicted on several counts, several
felonies, so he went to jail. And then Jared
Kushner’s uncle was similarly charged and
went to jail. So, it gives one the impression
that maybe this is not the most tightly run
ship and that there may be other legal
problems out there.”
“As of yet,” he continued, “there doesn’t
seem to have been any connection made
so far between Mueller’s investigation and
Jared Kushner but that’s the other question
because of course, we know the Kushner
company has done business and financing
with a lot of people around the world and
that includes people that have very high
connections in Russia.”
Schweizer added that that is not unusual in the New York
real estate world and said,
“the question has always been is the
Mueller investigation going to cross with
the financial dealings of the Kushner family.
And we’re just going to have to wait and
see on that.”
 This Is The Huge Anti-Trump
Protest That Was Organized By... The Russians
By Tyler Durden
Oct 31, 2017 2:59 PM

From November 2016... “Join us in the streets! Stop Trump and

his bigoted agenda!” reads the Facebook
Protesters demonstrating against the election of Donald event page for the rally.
Trump made their voices heard again Saturday - taking to “Divided is the reason we just fell. We
the streets of New York for the fourth straight day. A must unite despite our differences to
crowd of over 5,000 people gathered in Union Square stop HATE from ruling the land.”
around noon, their ranks rapidly growing and spilling out
of the park.

Hand-drawn signs floated above the

crowd, carrying messages like “Love
Trumps Hate,” “Unacceptable,” and
“Dump Trump.”

There's just one thing... BlackMattersUS

is a Russian-linked group.

Chants of “black lives matter,” “popular vote,” and

“America was never great” rang from the sea of dissenters.

So which 'leftist', anti-Trump group

organized these 1000s of people to
protest against their democratically-
elected President?

Simple.
As The Hill reports, sixteen thousand
Facebook users said that they planned
to attend a Trump protest on Nov. 12,
2016 organized by the Facebook page
for BlackMattersUS.
The event was shared with 61,000 users.
How do we know the organizers are
"Russians"?
Simple, "The Russians" said so...
The BlackMatters organizing group was
connected to the Internet Research
Agency (IRA), a Russian “troll farm”
with ties to the Kremlin, according to a

252
 recent investigation by the Russian So to clarify...
Magazine RBC.
The Russians spent $100,000 and created
Facebook has identified the IRA as the group responsible 0.004% of social media content to influence
for purchasing 3,000 political ads on Facebook’s platform the election... and then the same
and operating 470 accounts that appear to have attempted Russians continued to help President
to influence the perspectives of Americans during the 2016 Trump by unifying black and white
elections. Americans to protest against him.

253
 ‘Breaking Bad’ Star: ‘F–K You To Anyone
Who Wants Trump To Fail’
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 31, 2017
“Why would you want that? So you can be right?”
(National Sentinel) State of the Union: The star of the hit
TV series “Breaking Bad” has a message for anyone who
says they want President Donald J. Trump to fail, and it’s
not something you’d repeat in polite company.
“President Trump is not the person who I
wanted to be in that office, and I’ve been
very open about that,” Bryan Cranston said
in an interview with The Hollywood
Reporter on Monday.” That being said, he
is the president.
“If he fails, the country is in jeopardy. It
would be egotistical for anyone to say, ‘I
hope he fails,’” Cranston said. “To that
person I would say, f— you. Why would
you want that? So you can be right?”
The actor, who is currently promoting a Vietnam War-era
movie “Last Flag Flying,” said he doesn’t want Trump to
fail.
.
254
“I don’t want him to fail,” Cranston argued.
“I want him to succeed. I do. I honestly do.”
Those comments are the polar opposite of what Cranston
said before the November election, when he claimed he
would move to Canada if Trump beat Democratic
challenger Hillary Clinton.
But, in his interview, Cranston said regardless of political
affiliations, he’ll support anyone with “a good idea.”
“If you’ve got a good idea that helps the
country, oh man, I’m gonna support you,”
Cranston said. “I don’t care if you’re a
Republican and I’m a Democrat or
whatever, I don’t care.”
Perhaps sensing the deep divisions within the country,
Cranston added:
“We’ve got to get away from this idea that
our country is a political football, and
someone with a different opinion is the
enemy. Assume they love this country as
much as you do, and there’s always room
for improvement. How can we make it
better?”
 GDP 3% Defies Expectations,
But Networks Remain Silent
By Julia A. Seymour
October 31, 2017 2:46 PM EDT

U.S. News & World Report said the economy showed

“resilience,” Many other media outlets reported the strong
third-quarter growth. Business Insider exclaimed, “GDP
hits 3%, crushing estimates despite hurricanes.” Reuters
Breakingviews also mentioned the “pleasant surprise” for
GDP and mentioned other “positive signs” in the overall
economy.

“Economists had forecast that growth

slowed from the second quarter to an
annualized pace of 2.6%,” Business Insider
wrote (citing Bloomberg).
The U.S. economy maintained strong growth according to NPR also reported the news
the latest government estimates in the latest example of acknowledging the “economy grew faster
good economic news. than analysts had expected.”
"Together they represent the fastest six-
The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced on Oct. 27, month period of growth since 2014,”
that the first estimate of third quarter growth was 3 according to NPR.
percent. There are two revisions to come before the end of
2017. But it remained positive news, especially since the
President Donald Trump has claimed he will oversee an
BEA also confirmed that second quarter growth was 3.1
economy growing at an annual rate of 3 percent or higher,
percent thanks to consumer spending and business
but only time will prove that claim since — so far — only
investment.
two quarters have shown 3 percent growth.

The broadcast evening news programs ignored that good

CNBC reported that, “Trump may not yet have delivered
economic news — just like they ignored the 3 percent
on his promises of infrastructure spending, health-care
GDP announcement in August. However, many other news
reform or tax reform, but some economists say one factor
organizations — from NPR to CNBC — noted the positive
behind the pickup in the economy may be related to
result.
optimism about the future based on expectations for tax
cuts and his pro-growth policies.”
Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency the networks have
minimized and ignored positive economic news, in spite of
the fact many people voted for him thinking his policies
would improve the U.S. economy.

255
 So Much Winning: Several Economic Factors Have
Dramatically Improved In The Age Of Trump
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On October 31, 2017
“Home price increases appear to be
unstoppable”
(National Sentinel) Economy: The Age of President
Donald J. Trump is ushering in an economic renaissance of
sorts, with several indicators showing positive growth and
an upward trajectory.
For one, consumer confidence is at its highest level in 17
years, rising to 125.9 in October, according to the
Conference Board. It hasn’t been that high since
2000, CNBC reported.
The surge in confidence comes at a time when U.S. share
prices have hit record highs.
Meanwhile, in a separate report, CNBC noted that home
prices rose to all-new highs in August. Prices recorded
.
256
a 6.1 percent annual gain on the S&P’s most broad
indicator. This was better than the 5.8 percent increase
expected by economists polled by Reuters.
“Home price increases appear to be
unstoppable,” S&P Dow Jones indexes
managing director David Blitzer said,
before adding that national “home prices
have reached new all-time highs.”
Finally, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S.
economy overall is once again beating forecasts:
As The Wall Street Journal’s Morning
MoneyBeat newsletter noted Tuesday, a
number of better-than-expected readings
on the economy–from third-quarter gross-
domestic product to manufacturing activity–
helped pull the index out of negative
territory in October for the first time since
spring.
While Democrats and liberal-leaning commentators are
loathe to give President Donald J. Trump any credit,
supporters of the president note that if the economy was
tanking he would most certainly get the blame.
 Media Scoundrels Try Connecting
Mueller Indictments To Russia And Trump
By Stephen Lendman - Stephenlendman.Org
10-31-2017
Material US editors OK for publication defies journalism
the way it should be, absent from America’s major media,
featuring rubbish instead.
On Monday, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were indicted
on multiple charges - unrelated to Trump and Russia.
Media scoundrels suggested otherwise by deplorable
headlines, having most impact on readers, television
reports just as deplorable, insinuating Russia/Trump
connections, continuing the disgraceful drumbeat begun
last year.
Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, called charges against
his client “ridiculous,” adding:
“I think you all saw today that President
Donald Trump was correct: There is no
evidence that Mr. Manafort or the Trump
campaign colluded with the Russian
government.”
Spokesman for Rick Gates, Glenn Selig, said he
“welcomes the opportunity to confront
these charges in court. This fight is just
beginning.”
In early October, George Papadopoulos, a former Trump
campaign foreign policy advisor, pleaded guilty to lying to
the FBI about 2016 contacts in Russia, relating to leaked
DNC/Hillary emails.
The charge against him said he
“made material false statements and
material omissions during an interview with
the Federal Bureau of Investigation that
took place on January 27, 2017.”
He allegedly mislead the investigators
“about the timing, extent and nature of his
relationships and interactions with certain
foreign nationals whom he understood to
have close connections with senior
Russian government officials.”
257
He had communications with an “overseas professor” and
others, alleged to have connections to Russian Foreign
Ministry officials.
Meetings he reportedly tried arranging between them and
Trump campaign officials never occurred - nor is there
evidence that Russia obtained “dirt” on Hillary.
None of the above information suggests collusion between
Trump and Russia to help him defeat Hillary. Accusations
otherwise are bogus.
White House lawyer Ty Cobb said the Trump
administration
“continues to fully cooperate with the
special counsel regardless of indictments.”
Hillary’s spokesman said she had no immediate comment.
Undemocratic Dems disgraced themselves.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said
“(e)ven with an accelerating special
counsel investigation inside the Justice
Department, and investigations inside the
Republican Congress, we still need an
outside, fully independent investigation to
expose Russia’s meddling in our election
and the involvement of Trump officials” -
even though no evidence suggests it, she
failed to explain.
Media scoundrels reacted as expected, jumping on the
chance to insinuate or claim Trump team/Russia collusion.
NYT editors headlined
“Is the White House Scared Yet?”
A deplorable commentary headlined
“Plot Against America.”
Others headlined:
“Why George Papadopoulos Is More
Dangerous Than Paul Manafort”
 “Paul Manafort, and the Weakness of
Trump”
WaPo was especially outrageous, publishing nine
commentaries, suggesting Trump/Russia collusion. They
headlined:
“Trump tries out his insanity defense”
“A Manafort nothingburger is now on the menu”
“The bombshell in Robert Mueller’s indictments”
“Did Russia teach Paul Manafort all its dirty
tricks?”
“Seems like everyone’s colluding with Russia
now”
“Don’t overlook the Kremlin’s threats to our
courts”
“To what circle of hell are Republicans about to
consign themselves?”
258
“What a presidential president would have said
about Mueller’s indictments”
“These are the facts of the Russia investigation,
and they are not in dispute”
All of the above were in WaPo’s latest edition - likely
much more coming from all US media scoundrels,
jumping on the chance to bash Trump for the wrong
reasons, vilifying Russia at the same time.
The deplorable state of America’s media would make
Joseph Goebbels envious.
Its megaphone outclasses his best propaganda efforts,
losing its effectiveness when Hitler’s war machine began
getting smashed.
Will America face the same Waterloo? Are things too far
gone to change?
Will US-launched nuclear war kill us all, trying to save its
crumbling empire?
.
 Andrew McCarthy: 'Not Much'
To Manafort Indictment, 'A Boon For Trump'
By Michael Van Der Galien
October 31, 2017
Paul Manafort, Rick Gates
Although Robert Mueller has accused former Trump
campaign chief Paul Manafort of "conspiracy against the
United States," former federal prosecutor Andrew
McCarthy explains that his charges aren't even half as
exciting (or troubling, depending on your perspective) as
you might think:
Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United
States” heading on Count One (page 23 of the indictment).
This case has nothing to do with what Democrats and the
media call “the attack on our democracy” (i.e., the
Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election, supposedly in
“collusion” with the Trump campaign). Essentially,
Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, are charged
with (a) conspiring to conceal from the U.S. government
about $75 million they made as unregistered foreign agents
for Ukraine, years before the 2016 election (mainly, from
2006 through 2014), and (b) a money-laundering
conspiracy.
Although there are twelve counts in all, those are the two
most important allegations. Manafort's "conspiracy against
the United States" doesn't refer to him trying to undermine
the election process by working with Russia, but to his
"alleged failure to file Treasury Department forms required
by the Bank Secrecy Act." Also, it refers to his alleged
failure to register as a foreign agent from 2008 to 2014.
According to McCarthy, Mueller's case "seems shaky and
overcharged," at least "on first glance." For instance,
regarding the offense of failing to register as a foreign
agent, McCarthy explains that although that count may be
a "slam-dunk," it "is a violation that the Justice
Department rarely prosecutes criminally." Instead, the
259
Justice Department's practice is to "encourage people to
register, not indict them for failing to do so."
Oh, and then there's this:
It may well be that Manafort and Gates
made false statements when they belatedly
registered as foreign agents, but it appears
that Mueller’s office has turned one offense
into two, an abusive prosecutorial tactic
that flouts congressional intent.
With regards to the money-laundering conspiracy
allegation against Manafort (and his friend Richard W.
Gates), McCarthy opines that this accusation is actually
"far from slam-dunk":
For someone to be guilty of laundering, the
money involved has to be the proceeds of
criminal activity before the accused starts
concealing it by
(a) moving it through accounts or
changing its form by buying assets,
etc., or
(b) dodging a reporting requirement
under federal law.
Now, it is surely a terrible thing to take money, under the
guise of “political consulting,” from an unsavory Ukranian
political faction that is doing the Kremlin’s bidding. But it
is not a violation of American law to do so.
What's most remarkable about this indictment is that
Mueller doesn't even off-handedly refer to possible
collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential
campaign.
McCarthy rightfully calls that "a boon" for
Trump, adding that it "appears to reaffirm
former FBI director James Comey's
multiple assurances that Trump is not a
suspect."
What does this all mean? Two possibilities:
 1. Mueller is using these allegations against Manafort to
squeeze him, hoping he has some information on
possible collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russia back in 2015 - 2016.
2. Mueller simply didn't find any evidence of illegal
collusion, which is why he decided to focus on tax fraud
(and related crimes) instead.
.
If it's the second, nobody in their right mind would blame
Trump for shutting down the investigation once the
criminal persecution of Manafort gets started. If it's the
first option, however, doing so will undoubtedly cause
massive outrage.

260
 Russiagate Investigations
Discredited,Continue Anyway
By Stephen Lendman
Stephenlendman.Org
10-31-2017
After months of investigations by Congress and special
counsel Mueller, no evidence was found suggesting
Russian collusion with Trump to harm Hillary and help
him triumph last November.
No evidence exists. No collusion occurred, no Russian
meddling in America’s electoral process or any others.
Ongoing sham investigations represent exercises in mass
deception, exposing deep-seated Washington corruption,
deplorable governance, and betrayal of the public trust -
nothing else.
Fabricated accusations of Russian meddling in last
November’s presidential election surfaced over a year ago.
Yet not a shred of evidence proves them - lots of smoke,
no fire, clear proof of a corrupt political system too
debauched to fix, a bipartisan conspiracy against
democratic values, rule of law principles, and public
accountability.
Russiagate investigations continue ad nauseam, one of the
greatest hoaxes in modern times, most Americans none the
wiser.
Polls show their minds have been manipulated to believe
untruths, the power of media-supported repetitive
persuasion, a virtual daily drumbeat of disinformation, Big
Lies and fake news - failing to rise to the level of bad
fiction.
Congressional investigations since January uncovered
nothing. Special council Mueller’s work began with his
appointment last May.
All he’s been able to come up with are charges against
individuals connected to lobbying for Ukraine -
unconnected to Russia or Trump.
.
261
Putting it mildly, Russiagate investigations by him and
Congress laid an egg, proving one thing only - that no
Illegal or improper Russia/Trump connections exist, no
Russian meddling in America’s political process, nothing
but Big Lies claiming otherwise.
The indictment against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates said
nothing about Trump or Russia, Ukraine mentioned
repeatedly.
The so-called investigation into Russia hijacking
America’s political process seems farcical, a bad joke,
much ado about absolutely nothing.
It’s well known that Manafort lobbied for Ukraine from
2006 - 2016. Yet no accusations of wrongdoing were
levied until over a year after Russiagate surfaced.
Mountains of evidence show Hillary guilty of war crimes,
racketeering and perjury. Yet no one in Washington dares
lay a glove on her - not Congress or Trump’s Justice
Department.
No special counsel was appointed to investigate her high
crimes and levy charges. The double standard needs no
elaboration.
Former FBI director James Comey rejected recommending
criminal charges against her on any number of credible
charges, despite loads of evidence justifying them.
Yet groundless accusations let the Russiagate probe
persist. Trump most often is dead wrong.
He’s right about the “dishonest media” and “witch-hunt”
investigations into alleged ties between his campaign and
Russia, along with phony accusations of Russian meddling
into America’s political process.
Guilt is shared by both right wings of its duopoly
governance - the shame of the nation.
 John Podesta: ‘I’m The Victim’
Of Donald Trump’s ‘Big Lie’
By Charlie Spiering
31 Oct 2017
John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s former
campaign manager, complained that he
was the “victim” of a smear campaign
conducted by President Donald Trump.
“Not bad enough that I was the victim of a
massive cyber crime directed by the
Russian President … now I’m the victim of
a big lie campaign by the American
President,” Podesta stated on Twitter.
Podesta’s remarks came after Trump raised questions on
Twitter about the lobbying firm that Podesta co-founded
with brother Tony and its lobbying ties to Russia.
“The biggest story yesterday, the one that
has the Dems in a dither, is Podesta
running from his firm,” Trump tweeted.
“What he know[s] about Crooked Dems is
earth shattering.”
262
NBC News reported that Tony Podesta’s firm is the
“Company B” mentioned in Special Counsel Robert
Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s former campaign
manager Paul Manafort. Tony Podesta stepped down from
his firm after Mueller’s indictment was released, alleging
that he had been targeted unfairly by conservative media.
“It is impossible to run a public affairs firm
while you are under attack by Fox News
and the right-wing media,” he reportedly
told employees of his firm during his
announcement.
Trump criticized the news media for largely ignoring the
Podesta brothers’ ties to the larger Russia investigation.
“He and his brother could Drain The
Swamp, which would be yet another
campaign promise fulfilled,” he
wrote. “Fake News weak!”
 Mueller Is Running Amok
Matthew Walter
October 31, 2017
After months of getting themselves worked up about
hearings featuring a hero once accused of rigging the
election for Donald Trump and Don Jr.'s inability to sniff
out Nigerian prince emails, spectators of the Russia game
have finally gotten what they wanted: indictments.
Unfortunately, the indictments of former Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner Richard
Gates have nothing whatever to do with "collusion,"
however broadly defined. Politically speaking, we have
learned nothing except what we already knew: namely,
that a shady businessman who briefly worked for the
Trump campaign is, in fact, a very shady businessman
indeed, one who has just pled not guilty to failing to
register as a foreign agent on behalf of the Ukrainian
puppet government and not declaring all of his income
derived from his essentially pro-Kremlin lobbying.
Dot connectors will, of course, continue to connect dots. It
could be that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is hoping to
secure testimony from Manafort or Gates that will give
him the dirt he needs to bring more appropriate charges. It
could be that he already has that information and is just
waiting for goodness knows what occasion. At the very
least, obsessives will say, the hiring of Manafort indicates
— these comments almost write themselves — a very
serious lack of judgment on Trump's part. You don't say?
The man whose idea of a feel-good national unity speech
following an act of domestic terrorism was to suggest a
degree of moral equivalence between the KKK and its
opponents has horrible instincts, often fails to think things
through, is a bad judge of character, etc.? Gosh.
Even George Papadopoulos' guilty plea is no smoking gun.
The former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign
admits that he lied about email exchanges with a shadowy
figure known as "the professor" who had promised Russian
"dirt" on Clinton. But as far as we can tell, his
communications with Dr. Dirt went nowhere.
Papadopoulos also made vague references in his emails to
263
"meetings" with Russian officials that probably did not end
up taking place, which seems important only if you ignore
the fact that presidential candidates, especially after
securing their parties' nominations, routinely meet with
foreign leaders, even heads of state.
The most significant thing about Monday's Mueller
bonanza is that it reminds us what is wrong with these
hysterical wide-ranging special prosecutor investigations
that take place in public. Whitewater went on for nearly a
decade before it concluded in 2003. Does the fact that Bill
Clinton lied about sleeping with Monica Lewinsky prove
that he and Hillary and the McDougals broke the law in the
course of their real-estate dealings in the late '70s? If you
ask enough people enough questions about enough topics,
sooner or later you're going to catch somebody in a lie.
Monday's revelations don't in themselves mean anything
other than that Jeff Sessions' Justice Department is keeping
Mueller on a very long leash.
It needs to be shortened. The purpose of the investigation
is to determine whether the presidential campaign of
Donald Trump knowingly colluded with the Russian
government in the hope of altering the outcome of the
2016 election, not to see whether any person even loosely
connected with the former could be found guilty of any
crime, including perjury. The resignation of Tony Podesta
from the prominent lobbying group he founded in the wake
of Manafort's indictment suggests that we are getting very
far afield indeed.
There are many problems with the Mueller probe, not least
its show-boating obsession with keeping its business in the
newspapers, but the biggest one is that its parameters were
never well defined. What would count as actual collusion?
Idle language is thrown around about people having "ties"
to Russia or being "Kremlin-connected." How do you
define "Kremlin-connected"? What would be the broad
equivalent in the United States from Russia's perspective?
A former congressman? Anyone who does business on K
Street having a meeting? Defense contractors? Given the
country's autocratic structure, there are very few living
Russian nationals of any wealth or distinction who are not
"Kremlin-connected."
If it's not going away, the least we could do is broaden the
investigation's scope. Why not appoint another special
prosecutor to investigate British meddling in our
sacrosanct democratic process? The facts are there in plain
sight. A former member of Her Majesty's Secret
Intelligence Service collaborated with a presidential
campaign in an attempt to alter the outcome of the 2016
election. So did a former member of the British
Parliament, who peddled disgusting conspiracy theories on
Twitter and even attempted to collude with the Clinton
campaign on advertising strategy. The speaker of the
British House of Commons attempted to discredit Clinton's
opponent. Should we see whether the Right Hon. John
Bercow has ever emailed anyone who has ever in any
capacity ever been in contact with anyone in the Obama
White House? Hillary Clinton thinks we are in the midst of
a "new Cold War." Are we also in the throes of a rebooted
War of 1812?
.
264
The real lesson of the Russia non-story is that
globalization, the great theme of the 2016 election, is more
pervasive than any of us wants to acknowledge. No one
who works in consulting or lobbying or finance is lacking
in ties with Russia. Our press corps is largely made up of
enthusiastic children. These 20- and 30-somethings who
have never read a book were raised to excel in "critical
thinking," but they are amusingly bad at it. Anyone can
write a decontextualized story about a person or a group
having "ties" to any malicious foreign power because
having "ties" is what it means to exist somewhere in the
sinuous continuum of depersonalized financial accretion
that is late capitalism.
In 2017, everybody is working for somebody, somewhere.
 As CNN And MSNBC Go Wall-To-Wall With Trump-
Russia, 'Some' At Fox Are Embarrassed At Its Coverage
By Tom Blumer
October 31, 2017 8:46 PM EDT
Monday, as Paul Manafort and others were indicted, the
CNN and MSNBC had the following rules for covering the
indictments and other matters relating to the
Robert Mueller-led investigation into Russia and the 2016
election: 1) Though shalt only cover matters relating to
President Donald Trump and Russia; 2) While doing so,
thou shalt ignore Russia's interactions with Bill
Clinton and Secretary of State and 2016 presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton; 3) Thou shalt not report on any
other news stories while on-air.
The CNN Media blog reported that a few leftists at the
more open-minded Fox News are furious their network
didn't fall in line, both in saturation and tone.
This afternoon, CNN's Oliver Darcy set out to do what this
CNN Media team tries to do every day, which is make Fox
look bad. However, his write-up exposed his colleagues at
CNN and those at competitor MSNBC as totally obsessed
de facto partisan hacks (bolds are mine):
Some employees at Fox News were left
embarrassed and humiliated by their
network's coverage of the latest
revelations in special counsel Robert
Mueller's investigation into Russian
election meddling, according to
conversations CNN had with several
individuals placed throughout the network.
"I'm watching now and screaming," one
Fox News personality said in a text
message to CNN as the person watched
their network's coverage. "I want to quit."
"It is another blow to journalists at Fox
who come in every day wanting to cover
the news in a fair and objective way,"
one senior Fox News employee told CNN
of their outlet's coverage, adding that there
were "many eye rolls" in the newsroom
over how the news was covered.
The person said, "Fox feels like an
extension of the Trump White House."
On Monday, it was revealed that President Trump's former
campaign manager Paul Manafort and another associate
Rick Gates had been indicted by a grand jury on 12 counts,
265
including conspiracy against the United States. Unsealed
court records also revealed that another Trump associate,
George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty to making a
false statement to the FBI weeks ago.
The revelations jolted through the news
media, and Fox News -- the highest
rated network in the country -- did cover
it as its top story. But in contrast with
CNN and MSNBC, which aired non-stop
rolling coverage throughout the day,
Fox News found plenty of time to cover
other topics, like the NFL protests,
North Korea, and tax reform.
So CNN and MSNBC were all Manafort, Mueller et al, all
the time, while Fox actually covered other stories.
Fox isn't the network which should be embarrassed. No
one can rationally claim that the other topics Darcy
identified didn't have newsworthy developments yesterday.
Each had visibility at noon yesterday at the Drudge Report,
which, along with Google and MSN, is one of the three
most trafficked news sites in the nation. Throw in the trial
of sitting U.S. Senator and Democrat Robert Mendenez
and there's another story that should matter to viewers, but
not according to the CNN Media team.
This is also worth noting given that Mueller's legal filings
against the three men involved didn't illustrate any
evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russia (which is, presumably, the Swamp's Holy Grail).
Besides, we all know how things worked out for CNN
when they went all-in on Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
The fact that we can still mention that shows how
ludicrous that was and reflected poorly on the network.
Grand CNN master Jeff Zucker could try to spin it
otherwise, but these attempts are just disgraceful
Meanwhile, lefty whiners at Fox also acted as if the
network's evening opinion shows shouldn't be allowed to,
well, express their opinions:
Fox News journalists took significant
issue with their network's opinion hosts,
who deflected from the news and, in
Sean Hannity's case, characterized
Mueller's investigation as a "witch
 hunt," a term Trump used on Sunday in a
angry tweet to describe the probe.
"That segment on Outnumbered
[questioning Mueller's integrity] was absurd
and deserves all the scorn it can get," a
Fox News employee told CNN, referring to
the network's noontime talk show.
The person added that it was
"laughable seeing Hannity and [Laura]
Ingraham," two Fox News opinion hosts
who are openly supportive of Trump,
"tripping over themselves saying
[Mueller's team has] found nothing thus
far."
266
Well if by nothing, one means "evidence of
collusion," as of now, there is none.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but it's hard to imagine that CNN's and
MSNBC's one-dimensional imitations of Court TV didn't
cause a lot of channel-changing, once many viewers
figured out that the Trump-Russia-Manafort story was all
they would see, all day and all night.
At the end of the day, people probably have a hard time
seeing how Russia affects their lives. North Korea, one of
their Senators possibly going to jail, and taxes certainly
matter. But in the minds of CNN's media team, they're
probably just mindless "Fox-friendly topics."
 Podesta's Downfall Sends Shock Waves Through K Street
The Departure Of The Democratic Super-Lobbyist, And Indictment Of
Paul Manafort, Has Other Firms Working To Make
Sure They're Not Next.
By THEODORIC MEYER
10/31/2017 07:22 PM EDT
The news of Tony Podesta’s (center) resignation from his namesake
firm and indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates sent K Street
scrambling | John Shinkle/POLITICO
Washington lobbyists who represent foreign powers have
taken comfort for decades in the fact that the Justice
Department rarely goes after them for potentially breaking
the law. That all changed on Monday.
The news of Tony Podesta’s resignation from his
namesake firm and indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick
Gates sent K Street scrambling, as lobbyists rushed to
make sure they’re in compliance with the rules. The
developments also renewed calls for Congress to pass
legislation beefing up the Justice Department’s
enforcement of the law, which lawmakers in both parties
have derided for lacking teeth.
“Firms are going to be even more careful
than they have been in the past in the
foreign lobbying arena,” said Trent Lott, the
former Senate majority leader who’s now a
lobbyist at Squire Patton Boggs, where his
foreign clients have included Saudi Arabia
and Turkey.
Lobbyists may start to be more selective about which
foreign clients they’ll work for and avoid ones like the
nonprofit that hired the Podesta Group and Mercury. That
outfit was ostensibly independent, but prosecutors allege it
was really under the control of the Ukrainian president.
Squire Patton Boggs, for example, recently turned down
work for a potential client tied to Syria, Lott said.
267
“You need to know who you’re
representing, and sometimes it’s kind of
shrouded,” Lott said.
Prosecutions of violations of the Foreign Agents
Registration Act — which requires lobbyists who represent
foreign governments, political parties and other groups
seeking to influence American foreign policy to register
with the Justice Department — are rare. And it’s not clear
whether the Justice Department will follow special counsel
Robert Mueller’s lead and start cracking down on foreign
lobbying violations.
But lobbyists aren’t taking chances in the wake of
Podesta's announced departure from the Podesta Group,
long one of Washington's biggest lobbying shops.
“I feel like in the past, people got away with
a lot because there was a lot less scrutiny,”
said one veteran foreign lobbyist, who
spoke on condition of anonymity. “People
were more willing to find creative ways not
to file.”
Now, “I think at least in the short term
people are going to be very cautious,” the
lobbyist said.
An indictment unsealed on Monday charged Manafort and
Gates with crimes including money laundering, tax
evasion and conspiracy against the United States, in
addition to violating foreign lobbying law by orchestrating
a “multi-million dollar lobbying campaign” without
registering.
The indictment also described two Washington firms,
Company A and Company B, that lobbied for a nonprofit
called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which
the indictment alleges was actually under the control of
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, his political party
and the Ukrainian government. Companies A and B refer
to Mercury and the Podesta Group.
Washington’s lobbying firms are now taking steps to
ensure that what happened to the Podesta Group doesn't
happen to them. Marc Lampkin, a lobbyist at Brownstein
Hyatt Farber Schreck who does foreign work, said the firm
sent out a reminder to employees on Monday about “what
the rules and the law are, what the reporting requirements
are,” in addition to the firm’s regular training in keeping
with the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
“It’s at the top of everyone’s mind,”
Lampkin said. “It’s on the TV. Why not take
the opportunity to remind everyone what
the rules are?”
The DOJ unit dedicated to enforcing FARA is small, and
has focused in the past on prodding lobbyists to comply
with the law voluntarily, rather than going after them by
pressing criminal charges. Mueller’s willingness to indict
Manafort and Gates instead of just hounding them to file
has struck fear into lobbyists that they could be next.
“It used to be [that the Justice Department
would work with you to become compliant,”
said another foreign lobbyist, who also
spoke on condition of anonymity. “Now
there’s a fear that they’ll just prosecute
you.”
But the bar for criminal prosecution is high. Under the law,
prosecutors can go after lobbyists only for willful violation
of the law — a tough standard to prove.
Whether the Justice Department follows Mueller’s lead
may depend on Congress’ response to the Manafort affair.
Before this week's news, Republican and Democratic
lawmakers had raised alarms that foreign lobbyists are
getting away with not registering.
“I fear that FARA violations are happening
around this town all the time,” Texas' John
Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the
.
268
Senate, said at a Judiciary Committee
hearing in July.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill along with
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday designed to
strengthen enforcement of foreign lobbying laws. Grassley
said the measure had been in the works long before the
Manafort indictment was unsealed.
The bill would give the Justice Department power to
demand the production of documents and compel
testimony. It would eliminate an exemption that allows
lobbyists to register under the less onerous domestic
lobbying rules for some foreign clients and charge the
Justice Department with developing a comprehensive
enforcement strategy. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) introduced similar bills
earlier this year.
“Policy makers are here to serve the
interests of the American people, so we
need to know when someone is pushing
the priorities of a foreign interest,” Grassley
said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we’ve
seen time and again how lobbyists of
foreign principals skirt existing disclosure
laws to conceal their clients’ identities and
agendas.”
But Lott said he wouldn’t hold his breath waiting for
Congress to pass the legislation, especially with President
Donald Trump still pushing to move a tax reform bill by
the end of the year.
“There’s not much of anything happening
right now in Congress, to be perfectly
frank,” Lott said.
 USA Today Reporter Heidi Przybyla Appoints Herself
Arbiter of Truth on Russian Election Interference
By Chris Reeves
October 31, 2017 6:41 PM EDT
On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, USA Today senior politics and
White House reporter Heidi Przybyla reacted to reports
about hundreds of millions of alleged Russian Facebook
and Twitter impressions by calling for the news media to
uncritically accept that Russians “hacked” the election via
their activities on social media. She imperiously declared:
"We as journalists need to stop right now
saying that this did not have an effect" on
the 2016 presidential election.
Przybyla wasn’t alone in making such a proclamation on
the show, however. Here’s how co-host Joe Scarborough
and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson
responded to the social media impressions story:
SCARBOROUGH: You know, Gene, not
good in math, but you had 188 million
impressions -- or 288 million impressions
on Twitter. You had 126 million
impressions on Facebook. That adds up
to a lot of people. I mean, it's over 400
million impressions, more impressions than
there are people in the United States of
America. So, it’s kind of hard for the
Trump campaign or anybody, Facebook,
Twitter, anybody, to not say: that had an
impact in the election in some way.
ROBINSON: Right. Right, and it did. It
obviously did. Now, we can't quantify
that. Um, you know, maybe some
professor somewhere could come up with a
formula that, that, that tries to do
something, but we'll never know for sure
that that tipped the election to Donald
Trump. But clearly, to say that it had no
269
impact is ridiculous. And as far as there
being, you know, 37,000 fake, Russian
fake Twitter accounts, I could have told you
that. They’re all in my notifications [laughs].
SCARBOROUGH: Right.
ROBINSON: They’re all screamin’ at me.
You know, what an extraordinary day
yesterday though with these indictments.
And I’ll tell you, you know, one thing -- I
mean, you guys have covered most of it.
But one thing that I think ought to scare the
bejesus out of the White House is that
Papadopoulos was arrested in July-
SCARBOROUGH: [interjecting] Right.
ROBINSON: -and nobody knew, nobody
knew anything. And, and, you know, there
was not a leak. There was not a hint. And
the idea -- you know, it's not just the idea
that between July and October he was
wearing a wire. It's a question of: who else
has Mueller arrested? Who else has
Mueller turned? Who else might be wearing
a wire? And that's something that
everybody connected with the campaign
and everybody in the White House has to
worry about now. It’s -- it was an incredible
day.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It's real, yeah.
In the context of this hermetically sealed ideological echo-
chamber, it’s not particularly surprising that Przybyla
came out with such a strong declaration in favor of
establishing an unquestionable truth. Scarborough teed her
up:
And, Heidi, as we're talking about Facebook and Twitter,
we don't know if the Russians directly
influenced the election or not with 400
million impressions on Twitter and
Facebook, but we certainly know they
had the intent to do that.
And for the White House to not be concerned or express
concerns that the Russians intended to distort and twist and
influence American democracy at its highest levels is now
patently clear by the testimony yesterday and yet –
have we heard the White House once
express concern about this?
Przybyla responded at length:
No, but we as journalists need to stop
right now saying that this did not have
an effect. Because what we saw in this
election very clearly was that turnout on
the Democratic side was depressed and
that that was the strategic aim of the
Russians. They weren't trying to flip votes
from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. They
knew they couldn't do that. But if you look
at the precision targeting that took place,
for example, targeting Florida African-
American voters on Facebook with anti-
Hillary messages on criminal justice reform,
boy, that was really targeted to try and
depress those votes. So we need to stop
right now from saying that. And
secondly, well, I guess we shouldn't be so
surprised that the White House isn't
expressing outrage given that in tandem
with this effort, Donald Trump, himself,
was weaponizing the Russian gift of
Wikileaks. So, you know, we have counted
.
270
up the times that the President mentioned
Wikileaks and pushed Wikileaks on the
stump. And then to turn around and say
that that had no effect is just not
credible.
In theory, the whole point of journalism is to be skeptical
and ask questions in order to write stories that accurately
explain what is happening in the world in a way that makes
sense.
So, in an election where the Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton campaigns collectively spent about
$1,800,000,000 (including Super PACs) on putting their
respective messages out, are $100,000 of Facebook ads
and $270,000 of Twitter ads really supposed to have been
the major deciding factor? This seems at least debatable.
To assume that it is the case without any allowance for
doubt does not appear intellectually honest, and that’s not
even taking into account serious questions about what
precisely the meaning or value of a social media
“impression” is or whether or not ads that included pro-
Black Lives Matter content should be reasonably counted
as pro-Trump propaganda (which seems ludicrous on its
face).
Expect to see the liberal media keep
plugging away at this narrative for as long
they can use it to continue to undermine
President Trump’s legitimacy.
 Consumer Confidence Hits
Highest Level Since December 2000
 Consumer Confidence Rose To 125.9 In October, According To The Conference Board.
 The Rating Is At The Highest Level Since December 2000.
 This Accounts For Americans' Views Of Current Economic Conditions And Their Expectations For
The Next Six Months.
Michael Sheetz | @Thesheetztweetz
Published 10:00 AM ET Tue, 31 Oct 2017

Consumers were even more optimistic in October than

economists polled by Reuters expected. The economic weight of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma
pulled down the spirits of U.S. consumers in September,
Consumer confidence rose to 125.9 in October, according when the index was relatively flat. In October, "consumers'
to the Conference Board. assessment of current conditions improved," Franco said.

The index "increased to its highest level in almost 17
years," Lynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators at
The Conference Board, said in a statement. That was in
December 2000, when the index hit 128.6.
The surge in confidence comes at a time when U.S. share
prices have hit record highs. Stocks have been lifted by
strong economic growth, a surge in corporate earnings and
increasing expectations of tax reform. On Tuesday, stocks
traded slightly higher, near all-time highs.
"[This was] boosted by the job market which had not
received such favorable ratings since the summer of 2001,"
Franco said.
The high level of confidence suggests the economy will
continue to expand "at a solid pace" for the rest of 2017,
Franco added.
The index takes into account Americans' views of current
economic conditions and their expectations for the next six
months. Economists pay close attention to the numbers
because consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent
of U.S. economic activity.

President Donald Trump's goal of 3 percent growth has

been realized in two of the three quarters since he took
office, and economists say the trend can keep going for at
least another quarter and possibly longer.

Third-quarter GDP grew by 3 percent, well above the 2.5

percent expected by economists surveyed by Thomson
Reuters and below the 2.8 percent in the CNBC/Moody's
Rapid Update. The third-quarter number comes on top of
3.1 percent growth in the second quarter, making for the
best back-to-back quarters since 2014 and ending a long
streak of sluggish 2 percent growth.

271
 There's Less To Mueller's
Charges Than Meets The Eye
Aram Bakshian Jr.
October 31, 2017
Image: Former Trump 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort and
former campaign official Rick Gates appear in front of U.S.
Magistrate Deborah A. Robinson in U.S. Federal Court during a
hearing in the first charges stemming from a special counsel
investigation of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential
election in Washington, U.S., October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Bill
Hennessey
Manafort has been charged with acts and alleged offenses
that have nothing to do with his role in the campaign.
The most convincing indication of the flimsy results of
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into
alleged connivance between Donald Trump’s presidential
campaign and the Russian government can be found in the
morning-after, front-page headline of the Washington Post:
3 Trump Campaign Officials Charged
Sounds rather dramatic at first glimpse. But who is being
charged with what? A close reading of the story that
follows reveals that the only big name of the three
“officials” is Paul Manafort, the veteran Washington
lobbyist and wheeler-dealer who briefly served as the head
of Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican
nomination before he was fired. Manafort has been
charged with acts and alleged offenses that have nothing to
do with his role in the campaign. Manafort and his
longtime business associate, Rick Gates, have both pleaded
not guilty—and have yet to be proven guilty—of money
laundering, conspiracy and making false statements to
investigators. But, even if they are eventually convicted,
the charges are in no way connected to the Trump
campaign, much less to Donald Trump himself. While a
frenetic front-page story in the New York Times reported as
fact that the charges laid out in the indictments “laid out
the most explicit evidence to date that his campaign was
272
eager to coordinate with the Russian government to
damage his rival, Hillary Clinton,” the story that followed
showed nothing of the sort.
Even in the version touted by the New York Times, what
Manafort is charged with is laundering “millions of dollars
through overseas shell companies—using the money to
buy luxury cars, real estate, antique rugs and expensive
clothes.” Such behavior, if true, would indicate that
Manafort has, indeed, maintained questionable habits. But
none of it—no matter how many bucks he laundered to
dodge taxes or how many designer suits and oriental rugs
he splurged on with his ill-gotten gains—can even
remotely be argued at be an attempt to influence the
outcome of the 2016 presidential election on behalf of
Russia. Ditto with his sidekick, Gates.
Which brings us to the third “official” (according to the
Washington Post) or “advisor” (according to the New York
Times), an obscure young political bottom-feeder by the
name of George Papadopoulos. I think it is fair to say that,
even inside the Beltway, Papadopoulos is not a household
name. A few aging CIA conspiracy theorists may recall
that a Col. George Papadopoulos headed the military junta
that seized power and toppled the monarchy in Greece in
1967. But, aside from the fact that no one to my
knowledge has claimed that the elder and younger
Papadopouloses are related, the colonel was removed from
power in 1977, ten years before Papadopoulos minor was
born, and spent most of his later years as a Greek political
prisoner. He died in 1999, when our Papadopoulos would
have been all of twelve years old.
All we do know about the Papadopoulos minor is that he
seems to have struggled to hitch his wagon to the Trump
candidacy and was a one-line signatory on hastily cobbled
together list of foreign-policy “experts” endorsing the
Donald’s run for the nomination. His feverish efforts to
broker meetings between dubious Russian sources and
campaign leadership were repeatedly dismissed. What
Papadopoulos was charged with—and subsequently
pleaded guilty to—was lying to investigators about his
repeated, self-promoting attempts to become a serious
player in the campaign, mainly by claiming to have access
to Russian “sources” eager to spill the beans on Hillary
Clinton. The sources themselves have since been
unmasked as bogus and there is no evidence that they ever
had any input—much less acted in collusion with—anyone
in authority in the official Trump campaign.
So, at this point, what do we have? Two Washington
wheeler-dealers who did, indeed, play official—though
relatively brief—roles in the Trump campaign who now
face charges that have nothing to do with their campaign
roles or any campaign-related activities. Add to that one
fringe wannabee who desperately tried to become a major
player in the campaign, dangled spurious claims of access
to high-level Russian sources as an entry ploy, and was
repeatedly fobbed off by the campaign. Caught up in his
own lies, Papadopoulos ultimately pleaded guilty—and not
because his efforts had any impact on the campaign, but
because he was caught lying to the FBI about his activity.
273
The best response to these developments would have been
a calm, cool and measured rejoinder from the White House
Press office, which was, indeed, forthcoming. Hours later,
however, while much of the world slept, tiny fingers were
all a-twitter in the White House family quarters. In
characteristically bombastic terms (“The Fake News is
working overtime”), the Tweeter-in-Chief weighed in
personally, as is his wont.
While I don’t particularly admire his atrabilious style, it
often seems to work. Perhaps the best thing Donald Trump
has going for him is the fact that the sometimes shrill,
sloppy mini-comments he lobs into the debate tend to
render his political and media attackers at least as shrill
and sloppy. In fact, they often appear a lot more untargeted
and hysterical than Trump himself.
 Facebook, Twitter: Russian Actors
Sought To Undermine Trump After Election
By NANCY SCOLA And ASHLEY GOLD
10/31/2017 04:07 PM EDT - Updated 10/31/2017 07:09 PM EDT
Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter Acting General
Counsel Sean Edgett and Google Law Enforcement and Information
Security Director Richard Salgado testify before the Senate Judiciary
Committee's Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee on Capitol Hill on
Oct. 31. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Top lawyers from Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday that
Russian-linked posts and advertisements placed on the
social networks after Election Day sought to sow doubt
about President Donald Trump's victory.
Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a Senate
Judiciary panel that content generated by a Russian troll
farm known as the Internet Research Agency after Nov. 8
centered on “fomenting discord about the validity of
[Trump’s] election.” That's a change from Russia's pre-
election activity, which was largely centered on trying to
denigrate Hillary Clinton, the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence said in a January report.
“During the election, they were trying to
create discord between Americans, most of
it directed against Clinton. After the election
you saw Russian-tied groups and
organizations trying to undermine President
Trump’s legitimacy. Is that what you saw
on Facebook?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-
S.C.) asked at the hearing.
Stretch and his Twitter counterpart, Sean Edgett, called
that an "accurate" statement.
The disclosure opened a new wrinkle in the continuing
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016
election, which has increasingly focused on the role of the
biggest internet companies. Tuesday's hearing marks the
first time representatives of Facebook, Google and Twitter
have testified publicly about what they've learned about
274
Kremlin meddling on their platforms in the presidential
campaign. The companies face additional lawmaker
scrutiny Wednesday with back-to-back hearings by the
Senate and House Intelligence committees.
James Lewis, an international cyber policy expert at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the
revelation about Russian anti-Trump activity on social
media post-election fits with typical Kremlin information-
warfare efforts.
“Their goal is to create confusion and
dissent. The target is the U.S. and NATO,
not any particular candidate. They just want
chaos," Lewis said. "It went from being a
grudge match against Clinton to what they
thought was a priceless opportunity to
inflict harm."
The Silicon Valley giants have been slow to reckon with
Russian use of social media to undermine American
democracy. Days after the election — amid criticism that
Facebook allowed the spread of hoax stories and
misinformation — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said
it was a "pretty crazy idea" that fake news on Facebook
influenced the vote. But as reports have piled up about
Russian manipulation, Zuckerberg last month said he
regretted being dismissive about the concerns, though he
continued to argue that Facebook had a "far bigger"
positive effect by giving people and candidates a place to
communicate.
Democrats at the hearing homed in on the harm done by
online disinformation to their candidate, Clinton, when the
election was still up for grabs.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) took Facebook’s general
counsel to task for an ad featuring a kneeling soldier that
ran during the campaign arguing that the Constitution
should be amended to take control of the Army from
Clinton should she be elected president.
“This ad is nothing short of the Russian
government directly interfering in our
elections, lying to American citizens,
duping folks who believe they are joining
and supporting a group that is about
veterans and based in Texas when in fact it
 is paid for in rubles by Russians,” Coons
said, adding, “Should Facebook be a
platform that foreign adversaries can use to
run political ads?”
Stretch said the "advertisement has no place on Facebook"
and pledged the company is "committed to preventing that
sort of behavior from occurring again on our platform."
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) also took aim at Facebook.
“How did Facebook, which prides itself on
being able to process billions of data points
and instantly transform them into personal
connections for its user[s], somehow not
make the connection that electoral ads —
paid for in rubles — were coming from
Russia?" he said. "Those are two data
points: American political ads and Russian
money, rubles. How could you not connect
those two dots?”
In a sign of how seriously the companies are taking this
week's hearings, Facebook, Twitter and Google all
included in their testimony new disclosures about the
extent of Russian activity on their sites. Facebook said up
to 126 million people — a figure that represents nearly 40
percent of the U.S. population — viewed posts planted by
the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg, Russia-
based troll farm. That's more than 10 times the audience
that was reached by Russian-linked Facebook paid ads the
company earlier revealed to congressional investigators.
But the companies still appear eager to shield their top
executives from the gathering storm in Washington.
Facebook and Twitter sent their general counsels to
Tuesday's hearing, and Google sent its director of
information security. Zuckerberg and Facebook Chief
Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who recently held a
series of closed-door meetings with lawmakers on Capitol
Hill, were not in attendance. Facebook scheduled its third-
quarter earnings report for Wednesday, the same day as the
Senate and House Intelligence hearings.
Here are five other key moments from the hearing:
1) First look at the fake Russian ads
Tuesday's hearing offered the public its first look at
political ads that Facebook and Twitter have identified as
being purchased by the Russia-sponsored Internet
Research Agency. The companies provided copies of the
ads to congressional investigators earlier this month and
revealed yesterday that they were seen by millions of users
in the U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) showed an
advertisement depicting an altered image of comedian
Aziz Ansari holding a sign deceptively claiming voters
could cast ballots via text from home. Meanwhile, Coons
275
decried a sponsored image of a kneeling solider with the
text "Hillary Clinton has a 69 percent disapproval rate
among all veterans" overlaid on top. Facebook has said
publicly that lawmakers should decide whether to make all
3,000 Russia-backed ads it has found available for public
review.
2) Facebook not sure whether Russian
ads swayed election
Facebook wasn’t able to offer much in the form of a
definitive answer when Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)
asked the company if it felt like content on its platform had
an effect on the election. “In an election where a total of
about 115,000 votes would have changed the outcome, can
you say that the false and misleading propaganda people
saw on your Facebook didn’t have an impact on the
election?” Hirono asked. Stretch dodged in response.
“We’re not well-positioned to judge why any one person
or an entire electorate voted as it did,” he said.
3) Facebook won’t say no to accepting
election-related foreign money
Franken, in an especially fiery exchange, asked Twitter,
Google and Facebook if they would commit to not
accepting foreign money payments on election-related
advertisements, saying he wanted a simple “yes” or “no”
answer from the platforms — and wanted to know why
Facebook didn’t catch Russian agents purchasing ads
sooner. Stretch said he hesitated on the foreign currency
question because “it’s relatively easy for bad actors to
switch currencies. So it’s a signal but not enough.” Edgett
gave a quick “yes” to Franken, and Google Law
Enforcement and Information Security Director Richard
Salgado said Google would need to have a good enough
“signal” that the transaction was illegal to keep it from
going through. “Foreigners can’t use money in our
campaign, you know that?” Franken said.
4) Democrats — allies of tech — attack
their friends
For Democrats, who have for years had a largely warm and
productive relationship with liberal-leaning Silicon Valley,
the hearing represented a sharp break. Several members
seized upon the chance to unleash on the company reps
their simmering frustrations that the tech industry’s tools --
so often pitched as the means for making the world a better
place -- had harmed their nominee, perhaps even fatally.
Blumenthal highlighted widely shared posts on Twitter
that incorrectly claimed that voters could cast ballots for
Clinton simply by tweeting. “Do you know how many
thought they voted but in fact were fooled?,” Blumenthal
asked Edgett, who said he did not know.
5) No support for Honest Ads Act
Not a single one of the three tech giants would commit to
supporting Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mark Warner
(D-Va.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.)’s Honest Ads Act,
which would require disclosures about political advertising
on their platforms. All three have rolled out and touted
work to independently address the issue of ads, following
the introduction of the bill.
“We certainly support the goals of the
legislation and would like to work through
the nuances to make it work for all of us,”
Salgado said.
.
276
Their answers prompted Klobuchar to draw attention to the
lack of external oversight on these actions.
“Just to clarify, while you are taking
responsibility for a lot of what happened
here, and trying to make some changes,
there wouldn’t be an outside enforcer for
any of these policies, right?”
Cory Bennett, Steven Overly and Li Zhou contributed to
this report.
 The United Nations Is Behind
Antifa’s Planned Attacks Upon America
By Dave Hodges|
October 31st, 2017
UN Vehicles housed on abandoned US military bases.
In Parts one and two of this series on the takeover of the
United States, I asserted the following:
1. The Vegas massacre exemplified the composition
of the forces that are being brought to bear against
the people of the United States and they are Antifa,
MS-13, ISIS, CIA trafficking arm, the FBI “cleaners”,
the Deep-State left-overs of the Obama
adminstration, the Clinton Foundation, HSBC Bank,
George Soros, CIA/UN black ops and some others
to be covered at a later time
2. The plan is start a “holy hell” campaign similar to
the Las Vegas massacre and the Northern
California fires and force a crisis in which the
United Nations troops, already inside the United
States, will be brought out into the open and used
as a gun confiscation force.
In Part Three, the level of UN involvement is exposed. It is
clear that the operation command and control resides
within the administration of the UN in cooperation with
Deep State. The purpose of this unholy alliance is the
destruction of the United States.
Attention American Citizens: The United
Nations Is Not Your Friend
I have mentioned several groups which are coalescing to
conspire to take down this country and eliminate all
domestic opposition. In response to my previous
assertions, Steve Quayle sent me a note yesterday which
presents the “brains” and the operational control behind
277
this insidious plot. The following Steve Quayle
observation puts an operational face to the plot to destroy
America.
“Dave-…FOLLOW UP WITH WHO
COMPRISES THE MAJORITY OF THE
UN SECURITY COUNCIL—RUSSIA AND
CHINA …ALL THEIR MEN AND
MATERIAL ARE STATIONED IN AND
UNDER THE MILITARY BASES THAT
GEORGE BUSH SENIOR CLOSED AND
GAVE AWAY TO THE U.N.THIS
EXPLAINS ALL UN VEHICLE, FOREIGN
MILITARY VEHICLES AND
ENCOUNTERS WITH FOREIGN
SOLDIERS AS WELL AS THE FBI’S
ADMITTED 25,000 CHINESE SPIES IN
COUNTRY”
Steve Quayle
Let’s examine Steve’s message, piece by piece.
FBI Admits That 25,000 Chinese Spies
Are Freely Operating Within the United
States
The Washington Times and many other media outlets, on
July 11, 2017, previously reported on the FBI’s 25,000
spies that are operating inside the United States and the
FBI cannot and does not want to track them. Why?
Because the FBI was hopelessly compromised by Obama
administration, Deep-State holdovers who are working to
fulfill their mission which will culminate in the fall of the
United States.
In the Bundy ranch attempted takeover, the planned-t0-be
attemped confiscated land was to be handed off to the
Chinese solar company Cinta. Cinta is a front group for the
Chinese military. I have previously covered how many
Cinta operations lie adjacent to major American military
bases (eg Nellis AFB and Luke AFB).
It should also be noted that on July 4, 2016, then FBI
Director, James Comey, said there were ISIS cells
operating within all 50 states.
The Composition of the UN Security Council
The UN Security Council is composed of 15 Members.
There are five permanent members and 10 ad hoc
members. Steve Quayle was correct when he said it was
important to pay attention to the permanent members. The
composition of this group consists of members who are
enmies of the United States and the five permanent
members consists of China, France, Russian Federation,
the United Kingdom, and the United States.
the hundreds of reports I have received. In
the accompanying documentation the UN
vehicles are Alpine Armoring’s Pit-Bull VX
SWAT Truck models.
Jeff Stern posted photos of the vehicles on
Facebook, writing: ‘Can’t begin to tell you
how many of these I passed today on 81
near Lexington VA. Interesting times
ahead!”

The presence of the threat posed by the presence by the

Chinese and Russians is obvious. However, even the
French and the British are compromised. The French are in
the process of destroying their own country by admitting
millions of Middle Eastern Muslims who refuse to
assimilate and have carried out heinous acts of terror on
French soil. And of course, the UK is compromised by
their status with the Rothschild Banking Cartel.

The Bush Family of Presidents Close

Dozens of American Military Bases

Steve Quayle was correct about the closure of bases under

former President George H.W. Bush in which over 100
bases were closed. Some of the base closures were not
completed until Clinton took office, but Bush Sr. was the “Fernando Johnson questioned online:
catalyst. ‘Tactical Vehicles, with bullet proof glass?
Whatever could those be for, and why are
UN vehicles here, in THIS country?!”
On Sept. 8, 2005, the Department of Defense’s Base
Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) gave
President George W. Bush a list of 20 major military
installations that it had determined were no longer
necessary for the nation’s defense. The president signed
off on the list, and despite tepid opposition, it passed
through the House of Representatives. By the end of the
year, it was enacted, and a deadline was set: On or before
Sept. 15, 2011, the 20 bases would shut their doors. Most
of the bases closed under Obama were scheduled for
closure under Bush.

Since then, there have been multiple civilian sightings of

This is just one such report representing hundreds I have
UN planes landing at American Air Force bases and these
received through the years. As alarming as this appears to
troops are transporting UN troops and/or having UN
be, it is just part of an ongoing operation of the pre-
markings.
positioning of foreign assets on American soil in
preparation for the takeover.
The Internet has been abuzz with reports and photos of UN
military vehicles on US soil. Many people are looking at
Yesterday the Larry Nichols and Jack Easum reported in a
this as a shocking development. The following has been
story I carried in Part Two that 10 additional military bases
reported as if this were some novel and recent event:
are going to be closed and handed off the to the United
Nations.
“Military U.N. vehicles have been spotted
in Virginia, shocking motorists and sparking
Conclusion
conspiracy theories.
The white trucks, equipped with large off-
Steve Quayle’s summary observations were verified with a
road tires, were seen being transported on
minimial amount of reference material. The body of
Interstate 81 and this is just one example of
278
evidence to support Steve’s statement could fill several
libraries.
There are some who think I have gone off of the deep end
when I speak about FEMA camps and the intention of the
TPTB to put millions of us in FEMA camps where life and
.
279
death decisions will be made. It is time to revisit this topic
from a new perspective. This will be the subject of Part
Four of this series. My thanks to Steve for succinctly
providing summarizing the organizing structure behind the
present threat.
 The REAL Russian Conspiracy:
Left-Wing Media Refuses To Cover
Hillary Clinton’s Uranium One Scandal
By Jayson Veley
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
When it comes to the mainstream media, sometimes the
problem isn’t what they report on, but rather what they
don’t report on.
It was recently revealed that during her time as Secretary
of State under President Obama, former democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was busy cutting
sweetheart deals with Russia, ultimately giving them direct
access to government agencies and some of our most
crucial natural resources. Indeed, if the liberal media is so
concerned about collusion with the Russians, then perhaps
they should be spending more of their time addressing
Hillary Clinton, and less time slandering the president of
the United States. (Related: Hillary Clinton took $145
million from the Russians to sell out the U.S. uranium
supply to America’s enemies)
Sadly, yet predictably, that is not what they are doing.
Instead of talking about collusion day in and day out
between Hillary Clinton and the Russians, the same way
they have about Donald Trump, networks like CNN and
MSNBC have remained almost completely silent. This is
because despite all of the hype and the nonstop calls for
federal investigations, the liberals are only outraged over
collusion with the Russians when it’s a Republican – such
as Donald Trump – that is at the center of the controversy.
But when one of their own does practically the same exact
thing that they have been accusing Donald Trump of doing
for an entire year now, it’s suddenly irrelevant and brushed
under the rug. It is this sort of phoniness and selective
outrage that the American people are growing tired of, and
the proof lies in the 2010, 2014 and 2016 elections.
Of course, Hillary Clinton herself was quick to dismiss the
allegations as she always does. During an appearance on
C-Span earlier this week, the former Secretary of State
280
claimed that the collusion accusations have been
“debunked repeatedly.”
“It’s the same baloney they’ve been
peddling for years, and there’s been no
credible evidence by anyone,” Hillary said.
“The closer the investigation about real
Russian ties between Trump associates
and real Russians … the more they want to
just throw mud on the wall, and I’m their
favorite target, me and President Obama,”
Clinton said. “We are the ones they like to
put in the crosshairs.”
What the former Secretary of State fails to understand is
that it’s not President Trump, Fox News and the
Republican Party that has thrown her in the crosshairs; she
put herself in this position. Unlike the fake news
mainstream media, conservatives don’t have to come up
with twisted arguments and manufacture phony scandals in
order to take down political opposition. Conservatives rely
on the truth, while the progressive Left relies on lies,
rhetoric and propaganda.
President Trump responded to the news about Hillary
Clinton and the Uranium One deal with the Russians
during a brief discussion with reporters as he was leaving
the White House earlier this week. “The uranium sale to
Russia and the way it was done was so underhanded,” the
President said. “With tremendous amounts of money being
passed, I actually think that’s Watergate: modern age.”
Later, during an impromptu speech, President Trump
criticized the mainstream media for the way that they
portray him:
“I went to an Ivy League college,” Trump
reminded people. “I’m a very intelligent
person. I think the press creates a different
image of Donald Trump than the real
person.”
Indeed, the mainstream media does try to portray President
Trump in a negative light, which is exactly why they
obsessively reported on the Trump-Russia allegations for
months while sweeping news about Hillary Clinton
working with the same regime under the rug. Trump is a
direct threat to everything that the progressive Left stands
for, and so in their minds, lying and selective reporting are
justified if it means tearing him down.
 Team Trump Attacks
‘Low Level’ George Papadopoulos:
He Was the Coffee Boy
October 31, 2017

The morning after news broke of his secret guilty plea over
his contacts with Russian agents, former Trump foreign-
policy adviser George Papadopoulous, of course, came
under attack on Twitter from his old boss. “Few people
knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who
has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!”
President Trump tweeted. Former Trump campaign official
Michael Caputo went further—and lower—calling the 30-
year-old, who the then-candidate touted to The Washington
Post as an “excellent guy,” nothing more than “the coffee
boy” who “he never heard of.” Papadopoulos is now
cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigators.

281
 Washington Prepares For The Unexpected
As Russia Investigation Unfolds
Michael Scherer
October 31, 2017
© J. Scott Applewhite/AP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), center, joined by, from left, Judiciary Committee Chairman
Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), at the Capitol on Monday.
The hardest part for official Washington is not knowing
what happens next.
Amid the escalating criminal investigation into Russian
involvement in the 2016 election, every corner of the city
finds itself preparing for the unexpected.
Democrats fret that President Trump might try to shut
down the inquiry. Republicans worry that their last best
hope for a legislative win, a tax overhaul, could fall victim
to the scandal. And the president's denial that his campaign
worked in any way with Russia continues to be tested by
new disclosures.
The only person with any significant control over events,
special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, offered no hints
Monday on his next move beyond the day's bombshells —
legal filings that included the indictment of two former
Trump campaign officials and the guilty plea of a third.
And the possibilities seemed only to grow as the day wore
on. Hours after the first indictments landed, a leading
Democratic lobbyist, Tony Podesta, announced that he
would leave his firm after its apparent role in a Ukrainian
lobbying campaign was described in court papers.
"We are in a real testing time for
democracy," said Thomas Mann, a scholar
at the Brookings Institution. "You really
282
have to go back to Watergate to find
anything of this scope and dimension."
Former Democratic strategist David Axelrod liked to say
that presidential campaigns provide MRIs of candidates'
souls. The corollary is that criminal investigations can
similarly expose the hidden malignancies of Washington.
The release of the charges followed the disclosure last
week that a prominent Democratic lawyer and a news
outlet backed by a major Republican donor had at different
times paid a firm that compiled opposition research on
Trump alleging ties to Russian interests that could threaten
national security.
Both disclosures were the sort of tradecraft that rarely
becomes public, but there was little sign that they would be
the last. Mueller has signaled that he will seek to turn
every stone in his search and use all available legal tools.
Monday's court papers revealed that he had decided to file
charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a
nearly 80-year-old law that regulates lobbying for foreign
powers but rarely leads to criminal charges.
Legal experts say the Mueller investigation is likely to
bring more charges, not to mention a protracted legal
process that is likely to distract from other priorities.
"The charges brought last week could
easily result in prosecutions extending into
2019, just on the trial level, not even the
appellate level," said Jonathan Turley, a
law professor at George Washington
University Law School. "That is going to
continue to have a dysfunctional impact on
the Trump administration."
That raises the prospects for political distractions that
could continue into the 2018 campaign season, possibly
complicating Republican efforts to hold the House and
Senate. It also undercuts the expectations of White House
aides, who say they expect the Mueller investigation to
conclude soon.
Already, there are signs that the growing scandal has
begun to distract from a key week for Republicans looking
to build momentum behind tax legislation.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) avoided questions from reporters on the
indictments. At a separate event, House Speaker Paul D.
Ryan (R-Wis.) said this when asked about the indictments:
"I really don't have anything to add, other
than nothing's going to derail what we're
doing in Congress."
But Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, said:
"It has added a degree of unpredictability
and volatility into what was already an
unpredictable environment. It ends up just
being a thing that just started eating up
bandwidth."
Even the president found himself caught off guard when he
prematurely tweeted his own absolution hours after
indictments were announced against his former campaign
chairman Paul Manafort and a top deputy, Rick Gates. At
10:25 a.m., Trump felt it safe to boast that the
announcements did not directly reference his campaign.
"Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul
Manafort was part of the campaign," Trump
wrote on Twitter. ". . . Also, there is NO
COLLUSION!"
Minutes later, Mueller's team announced a previously
secret guilty plea of a third Trump campaign adviser,
George Papadopoulos, who worked on foreign policy in a
volunteer capacity. In court papers,
Papadopoulos described in detail his 2016
efforts to arrange contacts with people he
knew to be Russian agents, including one
person who had told him about Russian
"dirt" on Democratic candidate Hillary
Clinton, including "thousands of emails."
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to giving false statements to
federal agents in his initial interviews about the
interactions. He now says that he discussed the Russian
overtures he had received with several other people in the
Trump campaign, including a "senior policy adviser," a
"campaign supervisor" and a "high-ranking campaign
official." Among the campaign officials he emailed were
Manafort, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and
national campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis.
The campaign officials are not identified in court
documents, but some of the emails cited by federal
prosecutors match messages described in August to The
Washington Post by people familiar with their contents.
283
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders
chose not to acknowledge that confession later in the day.
"Today's announcement has nothing to do
with the president, has nothing to do with
the president's campaign or campaign
activity," she said, arguing that the work by
Papadopoulos to coordinate a Russian
meeting with the campaign did not amount
to a campaign effort.
Podesta's decision to leave his firm amounted to the first
collateral damage for Democrats from the Russian
investigation. One of the party's most powerful lobbyists
and effective fundraisers, he is also the brother of Clinton's
2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta.
The Manafort and Gates indictments
described the efforts of "Company B" —
which appears to be Tony Podesta's firm,
the Podesta Group — to help the
government of Ukraine. A principal from
Podesta's firm is described as privately
warning Gates that his talking points on
work on the lobbying contract could be
contradicted by "lots of email traffic."
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) put
out a warning to Trump not to interfere with the ongoing
probe.
"If he does, Congress must respond swiftly,
unequivocally and in a bipartisan way to
ensure that the investigation continues," he
said in a statement.
Republicans, meanwhile, seemed more concerned that the
scandal not distract from the effort to pass tax legislation
before the end of the year. Lobbyist Charlie Black, a
former business partner of Manafort, worried that the focus
on the investigation could do so.
"The agenda of politics is dictated by the
news media most of the time," Black said.
"And the news media will be consumed by
these scandal issues."
Black noted that all of his 65 clients are interested in the
outcome of the tax fight.
Grover Norquist, a conservative activist working on tax
legislation, said the situation recalled moments during the
scandals of the 1990s.
"There was a period of months during
Monica Lewinsky when I could have set my
hair on fire and I would not have gotten on
television," he said, arguing that more a distraction."
debate over taxes would help his side. "It's
.

284
 On November 4th The Antifa Insurgency
Against Donald Trump And His Supporters Will Begin
By Michael Snyder
On October 31st, 2017

Trump/Pence Regime poses to the

world by demanding that this whole
regime be removed from power.

Our actions will reflect the values of respect for all of

humanity and the world we want—in stark contrast to the
hate and bigotry of the Trump/Pence fascist regime.

Our determination to persist and not back down will

compel the whole world to take note. Every force and
faction in the power structure would be forced to respond
to our demand. The cracks and divisions among the
powers already evident today will sharpen and widen. As
we draw more and more people forward to stand up, all of
Are we about to see chaos in the streets in major cities all this could lead to a situation where this illegitimate regime
over America? Antifa and other radical leftist groups are is removed from power.
promising that a series of protests will begin on November
4th that will never end until “the Trump/Pence regime” is That sounds pretty serious to me.
“removed from power”. And as you will see below, Antifa
has openly and publicly embraced violence and the Hopefully they are not able to back up their words with
Department of Homeland Security says that they have actions.
engaged in domestic terrorism. Hopefully these “protests”
will fizzle out after a few weeks, because political I have seen various lists of cities were Antifa protests are
organizations that believe in “the necessary use of planned floating around the Internet, but I felt that it was
violence” have no place in our society. important to go right to the source. According to
refusefascism.org, this is the official list of cities where
Amazingly, there are still some out there that are claiming activists will be gathering on November 4th…
that the radical left is not planning anything for November
4th. The following comes directly from refusefascism.org,  Austin
which is one of the key websites for Antifa and other  Atlanta
radical leftist groups…  Boston
 Chicago
ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017:  Cincinnati
We will gather in the streets and public  Cleveland
squares of cities and towns across this  Honolulu
country, at first many thousands  Indianapolis
declaring that this whole regime is  Los Angeles
illegitimate and that we will not stop  Minneapolis
until our single demand is met: This  New York City
Nightmare Must End: the Trump/Pence  Omak
Regime Must Go!  Philadelphia
 Pittsfield
Our protest must grow day after day and  Portland
night after night—thousands becoming  Salem
hundreds of thousands, and then  San Francisco
millions—determined to act to put a  Seattle
stop to the grave danger that the  Tucson
285
Let us hope that none of these events become violent, but
we have seen violence from Antifa on numerous occasions
since the election, and this is an organization that says that
“the use of force is intrinsic to their political
philosophy”. The following comes from a
startling article in the Hill…
Anti-fascist activists, or “antifa,” increasingly mobilized in
the wake of President Trump’s election, are unapologetic
about what they describe as the necessary use of violence
to combat authoritarianism.
While both experts on the movement and activists within it
emphasize that not everyone who participates in anti-
fascist activism engages in violence,
they say the use of force is intrinsic to
their political philosophy.
Needless to say, the Hill is not exactly a conservative
publication.
At this point everyone knows what Antifa is all about, and
my hope is that Republicans and Democrats will stand
united in denouncing their violent tactics. For example,
just consider what happened at a recent event in
Minnesota…
Hundreds of masked protesters at the University of
Minnesota recently conducted a violent protest against a
speech by conservative activist and YouTube commentator
Lauren Southern.
Fights erupted outside the event, forcing
police to intervene. Members of the
conservative group Collegians for a
Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which
hosted the event, say they were “tagged”
and set upon by masked antifa activists
who spat on them, hit them, shoved
them off bicycles and maced them.
These crazed lunatics actually believe that Donald Trump
is a modern day version of Adolf Hitler, and therefore they
believe that the use of violence is justified in order to
prevent a new “Nazi regime” from taking over America.
Of course that is complete and utter nonsense, and in their
zeal to attack conservatives Antifa is actually becoming
what they say that they hate. If anyone can be
characterized as “brownshirts”, it is the Antifa thugs that
are willing to use violence against those that would dare to
disagree with their radical leftist agenda. According to
Politico, their increasingly violent tactics have caused the
Department of Homeland Security to officially classify
their activities as “domestic terrorist violence”…
286
Federal authorities have been warning
state and local officials since early 2016
that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had
become increasingly confrontational and
dangerous, so much so that the
Department of Homeland Security
formally classified their activities as
“domestic terrorist violence,” according
to interviews and confidential law
enforcement documents obtained by
POLITICO.
Are you starting to understand how dangerous these guys
are?
And there is actually evidence that radical leftists have
been cultivating ties with Islamic terrorists in the Middle
East. The following comes from a report that was
published by the Daily Mail…
A secret FBI investigation of the violent ‘resistance’
movement on college campuses against President Trump
has led to an alarming discovery—the collusion between
American anarchists and foreign terrorists in the Islamic
State and Al qaeda, according to a confidential
‘Informational Report’ by FBI field offices.
‘There is clearly overwhelming evidence
that there are growing ties between U.S.
radicals and the Islamic State, as well as
several [ISIS] offshoots and splinter
groups,’ stated the FBI field report, which
was delivered to Acting Director Andrew
McCabe on July 11, 2017, and which is
being published for the first time in my new
book All Out War: The Plot to Destroy
Trump.
An atmosphere of violence and fear creates an
environment in which many conservatives are afraid to
speak out.
In fact, a survey that was just released discovered that 58
percent of Americans
“believe the political climate prevents them
from sharing their own political beliefs”…
The Cato 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance Survey, a new
national poll of 2,300 U.S. adults, finds that 71%
Americans believe that political correctness has silenced
important discussions our society needs to have. The
consequences are personal—58% of Americans believe the
political climate prevents them from sharing their own
political beliefs.
Democrats are unique, however, in that a slim majority
(53%) do not feel the need to self-censor. Conversely,
strong majorities of Republicans (73%) and independents
(58%) say they keep some political beliefs to themselves.
But this is not what our founders intended. Freedom of
speech is in the Bill of Rights for a reason, because
without it we would be in a world of trouble.
As the radical left becomes more violent, we need to
become bolder than ever. As for me, I will continue to
speak out about what we need to do to turn this country
around…
.
287
No matter how crazy they get, we can never allow Antifa
to intimidate us.
We are in a battle for the future of America, and the fate of
our children and our grandchildren is hanging in the
balance. The radical left must not win, because if they do
they will transform our society into a totalitarian socialist
“utopia” that will look nothing like the nation that our
forefathers originally founded.
 Mueller Shoots, Media Has Orgasm,
But Charges Again Implicate London
Harley Schlanger
October 31, 2017

At the same time, in order to avoid the charge that the

Manafort/Gates indictment has nothing to do with
Mueller’s mandate, to investigate alleged Russian
collusion in the 2016 election, Mueller unsealed the plea
agreement of George Papadopoulos, a short-time foreign
policy “advisor” to the Trump campaign. Various leaked
statements from Trump’s associates indicate that that
Papadopoulos was considered “poison” by the campaign. Mueller’s shot and the accompanying media frenzy
The Manafort indictment does not mention the campaign. occurred as the House Intelligence Committee secured the
bank records of Fusion GPS, the firm which hired MI6’s
Orbis Intelligence and Christopher Steele to peddle trash
Papadopoulos pled guilty on October 5, 2017 to making
for cash on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the
false statements to the FBI about his efforts to set up
Democratic National Committee. The dirty dossier, as
meetings between the Trump campaign and Russia --
meetings which never occurred. Papadopoulos bears a Steele’s work product is called, peddled the lie that Trump
distinctly London pedigree, pointing once again at British was a Manchurian candidate completely controlled by
Putin as a result of sexual deviancies. At the same time, the
meddling in the U.S. elections --specifically British and
FBI will turn over its Christopher Steele file this week to
allied intelligence infiltrations of the Trump campaign --as
the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary
a primary target for serious investigators.
Committee who have been exploring the collusion of the
British, the Clintons, the Obama Administration, and the
FBI in attempting to first wreck Donald Trump’s political
campaign and then his Presidency. In short, the coup was
288
beginning to implode on the eve of Trump’s potentially
world historic trip to China and action was needed. It
came in the form of really old, corrupted news presented as
new and shocking by both Robert Mueller and his band of
media groupies.

The Ukraine money laundering charges against Manafort

first surfaced back in July and August of 2016 and are
believed to originate in opposition research conducted for
Clinton’s campaign involving Ukrainian intelligence
agencies [the corrupt, frequently caught in lies about the
Maidan snipers who all conveniently got away and Odessa
Trades Union Right Sector Nazi pogrom, and MH17 false
flag shoot down involved SBU -- JWS] and other official
NATO channels. The British began pushing for Donald
Trump’s head in 2015 based on his perceived desire for
friendly relations with Russia. Manafort ended up on the
wrong side of the 2014 British/American neo-Nazi coup
against Victor Yanukovych and has been a marked man
ever since. Mueller picked up on an FBI investigation
already underway against Manafort with a grand jury
already hearing evidence in the Eastern District of
Virginia. Since all of Manafort’s lobbying activities were
conducted with Tony Podesta, brother of then Democratic
Party Chairman John Podesta, Mueller has also targeted
Podesta to avoid an inevitable selective prosecution motion
to dismiss. Tony Podesta resigned from this lobbying firm
today to “fight the charges.”

Mueller assigned his protégé, Andrew Weissmann, to

Manafort’s case. Weissmann is known for multiple
incidents of rabid prosecutorial misconduct during the
Enron investigations and for using such tactics as
fabricated indictments against family members to turn
“targets” into willing prosecutorial witnesses. The
indictment reads like a press release, leading with the
charge of “CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE UNITED
STATES” when what is at issue is whether Manafort
illegally avoided taxes, laundered funds by investing them,
289
and willfully violated the registration provisions of the
Foreign Agents Registration Act. Typical of the effort to
pressure Manafort to lie against the President, the
prosecutors sought and the magistrate agreed to $10
million in bail for Manafort and house arrest in lieu of
detention, and a $5 million bail for Gates with house
arrest. This is unusually punitive in a “white collar” case,
particularly since Manafort has known he was going to be
indicted and poses no risk of flight.
that the Russians had thousands of emails of Hillary
Clinton and dirt on her at which point Papadopoulos
started bombarding the Trump campaign with emails about
setting up an official meeting with the Russians and
writing Russian officials who he claimed “were on board
with this.” No such meeting ever occurred.

The account provided however, is perfectly consistent with

a British directed entrapment campaign to ensnare Donald
The Papadopoulos charges are steeped in London
Trump in some sort of Russian scandal [the Russian
connections. They are based on interviews the FBI
Analyst would add here there are many similarities
conducted with Papadopoulos in January and February of
between Papadopoulos story told to the FBI and the claims
2017, that is before the firing of FBI Director Comey and
of 'ex' GCHQ man Matt Tait aka @PwnAlltheThings
before Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel.
regarding now deceased pro-Trump GOP volunteer Peter
Papadopoulos has degrees DePaul University in Chicago,
W. Smith searching for Hillary's hacked emails on the dark
from the University of London and from the London
web, also conveyed to Mueller's prosecutors -- JWS].. It is
School of Economics. He interned at some point at the
also consistent with the dirty British Christopher Steele
rabidly anti-Russian, anti-China and very intelligence
dossier.
community connected Jamestown Foundation [previously
accused by Moscow of being a front for CIA materiel and
According to the plea agreement, Papadopoulos conducted
propaganda support to takfiri terrorists in the Caucasus --
his highly sensitive Russian contacts over Facebook and
JWS] here in the U.S. Following his advanced degrees, he
shutting down his Facebook account after he met with the
was a research associate at the neocon Hudson Institute for
FBI was an effort to obstruct the FBI’s investigation. His
four years.
second crime, alleged false statements, involve a few days
difference between when he became an advisor for the
Following his sojourn at Hudson he moved to London to Trump campaign and how he originally described
work for the British company Energy Stream for four Professor Mifsud to the FBI.
months, followed by work from November 2015 to April
of 2016 as the Director of the Centre for International
Energy and Natural Resource Law and Security, a division
of the London Center for International Law Practice. He
served as a foreign policy advisor to Ben Carson, whose
foreign policy team was overseen in part by former CIA
rogue Dewey Clarridge, of Iran/Contra fame and
“volunteered” for Trump’s foreign policy team as an
advisor in March of 2016.

According to the wild tale told in Papadopoulos’ plea

agreement, bought wholesale by the news media, at the
same time as he began volunteering for Trump he met a
London professor named Joseph Mifsud who he represents
as having deep ties to the Kremlin. Mifsud assured him
.

290
 No Evidence Of RT Manipulating
Youtube During US Election – Google
Published Time: 31 Oct, 2017 10:53 Edited Time: 1 Nov, 2017 05:44
Google says it found no evidence that RT manipulated
video hosting platform YouTube or violated its policies
during the 2016 US election campaign. It comes amid a
frenzy in the US over alleged Russian meddling in the
election and RT’s coverage in particular.
On Monday, Richard Salgado, Google’s director for law
enforcement and information security, shared the results of
the company’s investigation into how Google products
may have been misused to affect the election. The two-
page report falls far short of revealing the smoking gun
that some commentators were hoping for.
Google identified two accounts linked to the Internet
Research Agency, a Russian-based NGO accused by some
US media reports of being a Russian government “troll bot
factory.” The accounts spent a total of $4,700 on Google
platforms during the 2016 election cycle on search and
display ads, the report said. The ads were not targeted at
specific groups based on geography or political
preferences.
On YouTube, Google found 18 channels “likely
associated” with the campaign that published videos in
English and “with content that appeared to be political,”
but not exclusively so. The channels uploaded 1,108 such
videos representing 43 hours of content and totaling
309,000 US views from June 2015 to November 2016, the
report said, noting that a single user may generate multiple
views on a single video. Only 3 percent of the videos
generated more than 5,000 views, Google said. Neither
channel was targeted at the US or any particular part of the
US public. The company has suspended the channels in
question.
291
The report also specifically mentioned the use of YouTube
by RT, which remains the most-viewed international news
network on the platform.
“Some have raised questions about the use
of YouTube by RT, a media service funded
by the Russian government,” the document
said. “Our investigation found no evidence
of manipulation of our platform or policy
violations; RT—and all other state-
sponsored media outlets— remains subject
to our standard rules.”
Commenting on Google’s report, RT’s Editor-in-Chief
Margarita Simonyan said:
“As they said in school, QED [Latin: quod
erat demonstrandum, English: ‘what was to
be shown].”
Earlier, microblogging website Twitter banned the
accounts of RT and another Russian news outlet, Sputnik,
from using the service’s advertising mechanism. RT
criticized the news, saying it was inconsistent with the US-
based company’s multimillion-dollar offer of an exclusive
ad campaign on Twitter to raise the news outlet’s presence
during the 2016 election.
Russian officials say RT is being targeted
as part of a general anti-Russian “witch-
hunt” in the US. Moscow denies any
interference in the US election and says it
was drawn into partisan strife in America
that has nothing to do with Russia.
Executives from Google, Facebook and Twitter are
expected to testify before the US Senate Judiciary
Committee's panel on Crime and Terrorism on
Wednesday, with more hearings scheduled with other
Senate and House committees. The tech giants are to
report to lawmakers on the results of their internal
investigations into alleged use of their online services by
the Russian government to influence the US election
campaign.
Leaks from Facebook and Twitter testimonies reported this
week imply that the scale of such alleged actions, as
identified by the companies, was very small.
 Tech Executives Testify Before Congress
On Russian Activity On Their Platforms
CC0 - US
21:33 31.10.2017(Updated 01:23 01.11.2017)
Executives from tech titans Facebook, Google and Twitter
testify before Congress on alleged Russian interference
into the 2016 presidential election through posting dubious
advertisements on social media.
The ads in question are so few as to be statistically
meaningless:
Facebook, for example, admits that. 0004
percent of social media content on the day
of the election was generated by Russia-
based trolls. However, they are expected
to cooperate with Congress as much
as possible in the hopes of securing
favorable legislation and regulatory policy.
In addition to the ads allegedly discovered on these
platforms, the social media companies are also expected
to discuss "organic content" — posts that are shared
without being paid for.
292
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MI) asked the three
representatives if they would be willing to support the
Honest Ads Act she had co-authored, that would require
social media companies to disclose what the source
of political advertisers are — the same sort of requirements
that exist on political advertisements in traditional media.
Unsurprisingly, none of the companies were willing
to endorse a new regulation on them, insisting that they
could self-regulate political advertisements to avoid
violations of federal election law.
Google Director of Law Enforcement and Information
Security Richard Salgado said during his testimony that
Alphabet Inc. had discovered
"18 channels with approximately 1,100
videos… [that] we suspect are associated
with [Russian election interference]."
However, Salgado added,
only 3 percent of the videos had more
than 5,000 views — and more importantly,
these 1,100 videos constituted only 43 total
hours of content. For comparison, Salgado
said, 400 hours of content are uploaded
to Youtube every minute. Every day,
YouTube users watch 1 billion (yes, with a
b) hours of content.
He also said that RT was a very popular channel on the
platform.
In other words, the objectionable content Google
discovered was a fraction of content available on YouTube
so minuscule that it may as well not exist at all. All the
same, Salgado said, "any misuse of our platforms for
[election interference] can be very serious."
During the question and answer section of the testimony,
Twitter Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett said that
Twitter
 "determined that advertising by [RT] and
seven small accounts was related to the
election and violated either the policies that
existed at the time or that have since been
implemented."
Edgett did not mention, nor did anyone ask him about,
RT's allegation that Twitter approached them during the
election and offered them a multi-million dollar
advertising deal to use Twitter as RT's main election
platform.
"In order to entice RT to agree to the
exclusive elections offer, Twitter promised
a package of perks and bonuses," wrote
RT deputy editor-in-chief Kirill Karnovich-
Valua on Thursday.
"The offer included such things as: closed
beta testing of new tools and products; a
customized emoji-hashtag that would help
RT stand out with special election
coverage; customized analytics and
research solutions; and a dedicated team
of Twitter experts to help with content
curation and media strategy." RT balked
at the cost of what Twitter was selling and
declined the offer.
The most uncomfortable and memorable
moment of the testimony came from Sen.
Jack Kennedy (R-LA), who told the
representatives of the three tech
companies that "your power sometimes
scares me."
He then turned his attention to Facebook General Counsel
Colin Stretch.
"Did China run ads [on Facebook] in the
last election cycle that tried to impact our
election? Did Turkmenistan? How
about North Korea?"
"No Senator," Stretch replied. "I'm not
aware of other foreign actors acting —"
"How can you be aware? You've got five
million advertisers and you're going to tell
.
293
me you're able to trace the origin of all
those advertisements?" Kennedy fired.
He pointed out that someone who wanted to run illicit ads
would probably do so through multiple shell corporations,
and asked how Facebook can parse through "four, five
shell corporations" to determine who has and who hasn't
interfered in the election.
"The commitment that we are making —"
Stretch began, but Kennedy cut him off.
"No sir, I'm not asking about your
commitment. I'm asking about your ability…
I'm trying to get us down from La La Land
here. The truth of the matter is, you have
five million advertisers that change every
month, every minute, probably every
second. You don't have the ability to know
who every one of those advertisers is, do
you?"
The visibly flustered Stretch admitted that Facebook was
not able to see through obfuscations such as shell
companies — but Kennedy was not done.
"Let's suppose your CEO came to you and
said, 'I want to know everything we can find
out about Senator [Lindsey] Graham. I
want to know what movies he likes, I want
to know the bars he goes to. I want to know
who his friends are. I want to know what
schools he went to.' You could do that,
couldn't you?"
Stretch replied that Facebook wouldn't do that,
but Kennedy again asked if Facebook was able to gather
data on its users in that matter.
"I'm saying you have the ability to do that,
don't you?" he asked with an accusatory
point. "You can't put a name and a face
to a piece of data?"
"No Senator, we cannot," Stretch replied.
"That's your testimony under oath?"
"Yes, it is."
 ‘Russian Election Posts’ 0.74% & 0.004% Of Content –
Twitter & Facebook Reveal Size Of ‘Campaign’
Published Time: 31 Oct, 2017 00:17 Edited Time: 1 Nov, 2017 05:44
Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have prepared
their testimonies on the alleged 'Russia-linked' election-
related posts to US lawmakers. Both appear to say the
numbers are under one percent of all election-related posts.
Facebook's written testimony, seen by Reuters and
Bloomberg, claims some 80,000 posts related to the US
election were published by "Russia-based operatives" over
two years.
In the massive flow of Facebook's content,
that amounts to one in 23,000 posts, or
some 0.004 percent. Regardless,
Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch
called such posts a "new threat" to the
social network's "mission of building
community and everything we stand for."
He said the posts were created by "fake
accounts" and are thus "unacceptable."
Falling neatly in line with US lawmakers’ relentless hunt
for alleged "Russian interference" in the 2016 US election,
Stretch will testify that the posts “opened a new
battleground for our company, our industry and our
society.” Some 126 million Americans may have seen the
offending posts over the two-year period, Stretch claims.
Twitter will meanwhile testify that it has "tracked" 2,752
automated accounts to "Russian operatives," according to
an unnamed source familiar with Twitter's prepared
testimony, Reuters reports.
294
This is significantly up from the 201 accounts reported in
September. The 1.4 million tweets by the "Russia-linked"
automated accounts amount to some 0.74 percent of
election coverage on Twitter and underperformed relative
to their volume.
It is not clear whether the culpable accounts include
Atlanta-based African-American rights activist Charlie
Peach, who earlier told RT she was being banned in the
"Russian bot" sweep, or any like her.
Facebook and Twitter have caved in to US lawmakers'
pressure to find a centralized, Moscow-backed campaign
that swayed American voters in the 2016 election, which
saw Republic Donald Trump snatch a narrow win from
Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Previously, Facebook revealed $100,000 worth of vaguely
"Russia-linked" ads related to the election, over half of
which it later admitted were posted after the election was
over.
Twitter recently banned all ads from RT and Sputnik,
citing "election interference." While doing so, however, it
conveniently neglected to tell to lawmakers of its own
multi-million dollar pitch for RT to buy ads during the
election in question.
Twitter's move has prompted a stern rebuke from the
Kremlin, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying it “sets a
precedent of unequal treatment of its customers.” Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said retaliatory
measures could follow.
Russia has firmly and consistently denied any effort to
sway the 2016 US election through social media.
Senior Google, Facebook and Twitter officials are
expected to appear as witnesses at the Senate Judiciary
Committee's panel on Crime and Terrorism Wednesday.
Two more hearings involving Silicon Valley executives
are scheduled: at the Senate Intelligence Committee and
the House Intelligence Committee.
 Trump: Aide At Center Of
Russia Probe ‘Proven To Be A Liar’
By STEPHEN BRAUN And STEVE PEOPLES
November 1, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said
Tuesday that a former campaign aide thrust into the center
of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe “has
already proven to be a liar.”
On Twitter, Trump sought to dismiss George
Papadopoulos, who has provided key evidence in the first
criminal case connecting Trump’s team to alleged
intermediaries for Russia’s government.
Said Trump:
“Few people knew the young, low level
volunteer named George, who has already
proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!”
Papadopoulos was approached by people claiming ties to
Russia and offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of
thousands of emails, according to court documents
unsealed Monday. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to
FBI agents about the conversations and has been
cooperating with investigators, the documents said.
Papadopoulos’ guilty plea and the possibility that he’s
working with Mueller’s team came as an unexpected twist
in the mounting drama surrounding the criminal probe. A
separate welter of charges Mueller announced Monday
against Trump’s ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and
295
his longtime aide Rick Gates do not appear directly related
to their work for Trump.
But Papadopoulos’ case cuts close to the central question
of Mueller’s investigation: Did Russia try to sway the
election? Did Trump’s campaign know?
“The Russians had emails of Clinton,”
Papadopoulos was told by a professor with
ties to Russia during a breakfast meeting at
a London hotel in April. U.S. investigators
said that the following day, Papadopoulos
then emailed a Trump campaign policy
adviser, “Have some interesting messages
coming in from Moscow about a trip when
the time is right.”
The court papers do not name the professor. But a
comparison of conversations cited in the court papers and
emails previously obtained by The Associated Press show
the professor is Joseph Mifsud, honorary director of the
London Academy of Diplomacy. Mifsud did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
Papadopoulos was arrested in July and has been
interviewed repeatedly by authorities, the filing said. After
entering his guilty plea he was ordered not to contact other
Trump officials and prohibited from foreign travel. In one
of the unsealed files, an FBI agent working for Mueller
bluntly hinted that more former Trump associates could
soon be questioned.
Papadopoulos’ lawyer, Thomas M. Breen, based in
Chicago, declined to comment on the guilty plea but noted
that
“we will have the opportunity to comment
on George’s involvement when called upon
by the court at a later date. We look
forward to telling all of the details of
George’s story at that time.”
The incident echoes elements of a June 2016 meeting
involving Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials
at Trump Tower. The president’s son organized that sit
down with a Russian lawyer who was offering negative
information about Clinton.
The White House immediately cast Papadopoulos as a
mere volunteer with little influence during last year’s
campaign.
White House spokeswoman Sarah
Huckabee Sanders said his role was
“extremely limited” and that “no activity was
ever done in an official capacity on behalf
of the campaign.”
Trump named Papadopoulos to his foreign policy advisory
council in March 2016, among a short list of experts amid
growing public pressure on Trump to demonstrate he had a
bench of foreign policy expertise.
During a March 21, 2016 meeting with The Washington
Post editorial board, Trump called Papadopoulos an
“excellent guy.”
Shortly afterward, Trump tweeted a photo of his advisory
council meeting, with Papadopoulos among a handful of
advisers at the president’s table. In his plea filing,
Papadopolous admitted that he told Trump and other top
campaign national security officials during that meeting
that he had made contact with intermediaries for Russia
who said they could set up a meeting between Trump and
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The court filings recount Papadopoulos’ meetings abroad
starting in March 2016, after he’d been named to Trump’s
board. Papadopoulos initially told the investigators the
meetings came before, and later admitted that was untrue.
Papadopoulos also deleted a Facebook post about his
travels, the documents said.
The court filings say he met first with the professor who
boasted of damaging emails and then later with an
.
296
unnamed Russian woman, who claimed to be related to
Putin and sought to arrange a meeting between Trump and
the Russian leader. The professor also introduced
Papadopoulos to a third unnamed person who claimed he
had connections to the Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. The two men then exchanged emails about a
possible meeting between Trump campaign aides and
Russian government officials.
The third man is Ivan Timofeev, according to the emails
obtained by the AP. Timofeev is director of programs at a
Moscow think tank, the Russian International Affairs
Council. In a statement posted in August on the council’s
website, Timofeev acknowledged his 2016 contacts with
Papadopolous, saying his group “requested an official
inquiry concerning Mr. Trump or his team members’
possible visit.” He said the council regularly hosts officials
from the U.S. and that the Trump campaign “initiative was
a matter of routine” for the council.
The court records didn’t specify which emails the Russian
claimed to have.
The timing of the new disclosures about Clinton emails
may be significant because the scope of the Kremlin’s
efforts to hack Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic
National Committee were just beginning to be understood
by March 2016, weeks before Papadopoulos was told of
damaging emails.
It’s unclear how frequently Papadopoulos was in contact
with the campaign officials. Sanders initially said the
foreign policy advisory board convened only once, but the
White House later clarified she was speaking only of
official meetings with Trump in attendance. An official
involved with the group said the group met on a monthly
basis throughout the spring and summer for a total of about
six meetings.
 A Former CIA Director Describes
The Dangers Of 'Trump Unleashed'
John Brennan Praises The Advisers Who Restrain Donald Trump’s
Impulses, Calls Out The President’s “Enablers” Inside The White House,
And Considers The Prospect Of World War III.
Uri Friedman
Nov 1, 2017
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
You sense that the stakes are high, and the circumstances
exceptional, when the former director of the Central
Intelligence Agency issues the kind of rebuke of a sitting
president that John Brennan did on Friday, in an interview
with The Atlantic.
“There’s never been a previous president,
at least in my lifetime and experience, who
had the impulsivity that Mr. Trump
exhibits,” said Brennan, who spent nearly
30 years at the CIA.
Before leading the agency during Barack Obama’s second
term, Brennan served as a high-ranking intelligence
official under George W. Bush and was the architect of
Obama’s drone policies against suspected terrorists. He
left office in a huff as Trump compared intelligence
agencies investigating Russia’s election interference to the
Nazis and bragged about crowd sizes in front of a CIA
memorial to fallen officers. And he hasn’t exactly warmed
to the president since then.
In contrast to his predecessors, Brennan told me, Trump
often “acts and speaks before thinking” and appears to
make national-security decisions based on “what’s in the
best interest of Donald Trump” rather than what’s in the
best interest of the United States.
He is “woefully inexperienced in
international affairs,” Brennan argued, and
297
so far has shown little interest in learning
on the job. His “bullying tendency …
compounds all of the other deficiencies,”
and he does not seem “competent in
international brinkmanship.”
The upshot, according to Brennan, is that whether the
scenario is an imminent terrorist threat or an impromptu
clash in the air above the Korean peninsula,
“Trump unleashed is a dangerous thought.”
That’s why Brennan places so much stock
in the “governors” of the president’s
impulses, including Defense Secretary
James Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman
Joe Dunford, and why he’s so disturbed by
the “enablers” of Trump’s “bad instincts,”
who on occasion have included Chief of
Staff John Kelly and National Security
Adviser H.R. McMaster. In making political
statements about the failed policies of the
previous administration, McMaster, an
active-duty general, “does a disservice to
the uniform,” Brennan said.
“For many years, the United States was
loath to initiate” a conflict with North Korea,
Brennan noted. “I don’t know what Mr.
Trump is capable of deciding or doing.”
Below is a condensed and edited transcript of our
conversation.
Uri Friedman: Is Bob Corker right? Is the president leading the
country toward a world war?
John Brennan: In terms of what both [Republican Senators] Bob
Corker and Jeff Flake have said quite publicly, I certainly share a
lot of their concerns about the actions of Mr. Trump and how they
are not advancing the interests of U.S. national security on the
global stage. When I look at some of the [president’s] tweets and
comments, I do believe that they are irresponsible, even
reckless.
A couple of weeks after Mr. Trump talked about the “fire and fury”
that would be unleashed [against North Korea over its nuclear-
weapons program], like the world has never seen, Kim Jong Un
issued a personal response, which was rather unprecedented.
Now what we have are leaders of two countries who have a lot of
personal stake and political face vested in this issue. It is not
helpful to engage in these rhetorical broadsides publicly because
it makes each side less able to climb down from that tension
while still maintaining face. I don’t see either Mr. Trump or Kim
Jong Un saying, “OK, you win.” It’s not in their DNA.
This is a very complex issue that requires a very deft touch,
diplomatically and publicly, and I have not seen anything out of
Mr. Trump that indicates to me either that he understands the
issues, or that he is competent in international brinkmanship. A
lot of what we see is his traditional methods of trying to bully and
intimidate his opponents. That is not going to work well when it
comes to these nettlesome international problems.
Friedman: At a recent talk at Fordham, you thanked your “lucky
stars” that [Defense Secretary] Jim Mattis and [White House
Chief of Staff] John Kelly and [Joint Chiefs Chairman Joe]
Dunford are around the president. You argued that they serve as
“governors” of some of his “instincts.” Senator Corker has said
something similar—that people around Trump are helping
“contain” him and fend off “chaos.” Is it fair to conclude, then, that
these foreign-policy advisers are protecting the United States
from the president of the United States?
Brennan: People like Jim Mattis and Joe Dunford, who are part
of the defense establishment, who are very experienced, very
deliberate, very thoughtful—it’s critically important that they
continue to explain to the president and to others just how fraught
some avenues are, because they have seen war up close and
personal. And if there were to be war on the [Korean] peninsula,
it would be unlike what we have seen before. It would be
horrendous.
There is a delicate balance between being a governor and a
restrainer, and being an enabler. And I believe there are some
individuals around the president who are rather enabling of some
of his bad tendencies and bad instincts. It is the duty of advisers
to provide their experience and expertise, but always stop far
short of being enablers or, even worse, sycophants. They need
to make sure that they don’t lose sight of their north star and their
professional responsibilities and their ethical standards as they
try to do what they can to keep our national security on an even
keel.
Friedman: Is there anyone in particular you have in mind?
Brennan: I know and admire and respect John Kelly. And I think
that John Kelly—I won’t speak for him, but knowing him as I do—
looking back on the comments that he made in the press briefing
room [criticizing the Democratic congresswoman involved in a
298
controversy over Trump’s call to the widow of a U.S. soldier killed
in Niger], I am confident that he wished he could have another
chance at that—that that wasn’t handled as well as it could be.
There were a number of people who were disappointed in some
of his comments. I was as well. That doesn’t mean I admire him
less. It just means that he needs to be mindful that he needs to
carry out his duties with the same credibility, integrity, and
professionalism that were the hallmarks of his career.
The same thing is true of H.R. McMaster, who I don’t know well.
He still wears the uniform of a three-star general. Quite frankly, I
think there have been times when General McMaster has made
comments that were really of a political nature. I was surprised
that a three-star lieutenant general would criticize the actions of a
previous commander in chief [in Barack Obama]. General
McMaster can try to make arguments and points to support Mr.
Trump’s policies. That’s exactly what the national security adviser
should be doing. But then to fall in with others, to criticize and
then compare this administration's actions with the weaknesses,
the problems, and the failures of previous ones—I think he does
a disservice to the uniform. He has to be mindful that he still
wears that uniform as an active-duty general. He could do a
better job of balancing the obligations that he has as a military
officer with his national security adviser responsibilities.
Friedman: [Are you suggesting] that the president can’t be left to
his own devices—or, if he were, that it would be a national-
security concern? And, if so, is that alarming? Or—you served
under six presidents—is it true that every president needs
advisers and can’t be left completely to their own devices?
Brennan: There’s never been a previous president, at least in
my lifetime and experience, who had the impulsivity that Mr.
Trump exhibits. He frequently will tweet or say something or act
upon his gut instincts, which apparently served him well in
business. And it clearly served him well as far as the campaign.
But he is woefully inexperienced in international affairs.
His approach is to tear down that which came before him and to
criticize those who came before him without understanding the
reason why certain policies were formulated and implemented.
So his modus operandi is to do things in a very spontaneous
fashion. And when you’re talking about international security
issues, that could have tragic consequences, both in the near
term as well as over the longer term.
In my experience with other presidents, they recognized the
sacred obligations that they had as president. Before acting or
speaking, they would internalize what the implications were and
what the likely outcomes and reactions were going to be. Mr.
Trump does not do that. I think he acts and speaks before
thinking, a lot of times, about what the effects and impact are.
Friedman: [Are your reservations about Trump] primarily about
differences with the specific policies he’s pursued? Are they more
about the manner in which he’s pursued them? Or is it about his
fitness to command more fundamentally?
Brennan: It’s a combination of concerns and factors. There are
his traits, his personal qualities that are a concern. There is the
lack of deliberate thinking that’s a concern. There is a lack of
understanding and knowledge that’s a concern. And then there is
this bullying tendency that compounds all of the other
deficiencies.
Friedman: Are there certain actions that you think Trump would
have taken had the “governors” [of his instincts] not been
governing?
Brennan: He probably would have fully scuttled the [Iran nuclear
deal] and not pushed it over to Congress, although I think both
the governors as well as his political advisers saw that as a better
choice because then he can blame others for it, which is his
modus operandi. I think his initial, very negative statements about
NATO would have continued to prevail if it wasn’t for individuals
like a Jim Mattis and a Joe Dunford and others who explained to
him exactly why Article 5 is so important. I think he probably
would have embarked upon a foolhardy improvement in relations
with Mr. Putin without any conditions or smart negotiation if it
wasn’t for the hue and cry that has existed as well as
congressional pressure.
Friedman: But sometimes a president’s impulses and instincts
are what matters, ultimately, right? Aren’t there moments in a
president’s job when advisers can only do so much?
Brennan: Absolutely. The judgment of any president is going to
be crucial because a lot of times there will be recommendations
and options, and there will be disagreements, and the president’s
the one who has to decide. A lot of times there’s a time factor
and he needs to make a decision quickly. This is where all those
other features of Mr. Trump come into play because he doesn’t
have the experience, he doesn’t have the expertise, and I don’t
get the impression that he really tries to learn about these issues.
Now I’m not in the Oval [Office]. But from everything I have heard
him say and do, he hasn’t shown me that he’s a learning
president.
The presidents that I worked for in the past, they would absorb
tremendous amounts of information, both in terms of reading it as
well as briefings. They would process it. They would look at it
through the prism of what’s in the best interest of U.S. national
security. And it’s my impression that Mr. Trump looks at these
decisions through a prism of what’s in the best interest of Donald
Trump. Clearly Mr. Trump has demonstrated a fair amount of
self-absorption and self-promotion.
With the presidents I served, I was able to witness how they used
intelligence, took into account the recommendations of their
advisers, and then charted a course that they thought was in the
best interests of the United States. Even with those presidential
decisions that I disagreed with in the past, such as going [to war
in] Iraq, I felt that President George W. Bush did that because he
truly believed that it was in the best interest of the United States
to address the issue of Saddam Hussein. I think he was
misserved, misled by those in the White House who had this
299
preconceived policy agenda. But he didn’t do it because he
thought it was going to be in George W. Bush’s interests. I think
there are some very legitimate questions that have been raised
about why Mr. Trump is doing some of these things.
Friedman: Are there scenarios you worry about where the
weaknesses you’ve identified with President Trump would have
an effect on national security?
Brennan: Obviously on the terrorism front—if something is
brewing and there is a very short period of time to be able to
make a decision that’s going to have consequences, [involving]
either action or inaction. Those are tough decisions for the
president.
The ones that I’ve seen, over my years, that really rely on a
president’s deft touch as well as leadership skills is when there is
an unexpected crisis or issue. For example, there have been
times when U.S. aircraft have been approached by foreign
aircraft and forced down. We had an incident with China a
number of years ago. And sometimes if tensions in a region are
at a hair-trigger, actions are taken that are rooted in the
heightened tension but not in a policy decision on the part of a
foreign government.
So if there were some type of unintentional clash between forces,
whether it be in the [Persian] Gulf or near the [Korean] Peninsula,
with the North Koreans or the Iranians, it’s at that time when the
president needs to be the one who is going to have a calming
presence but also a very commanding presence—to decide what
we need to do immediately, what we need to do in order to
address the situation effectively, but not to overplay your hand,
which could lead to an escalation of tensions and conflict and
bloodshed and war.
I am certainly hoping that if there were some clash that took
place at a tactical level, that the Joe Dunfords and Jim Mattises
and commanders, and [Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson and
others, will be making sure that the president has a full
understanding of what happened, but also counsel[ing] restraint.
Because a lot of times the early information is not 100-percent
accurate, and overreacting to those initial reports and trying to
show muscularity in a retaliatory way could make a manageable
situation much more dangerous. That’s the scenario that I think a
lot of people, like a Bob Corker, are concerned about. Trump
unleashed is a dangerous thought.
Friedman: At the Fordham talk, you estimated the chances of
military conflict [between the U.S. and North Korea at] 20 to 25
percent. What’s behind your thinking?
Brennan: My view is that the prospects for some type of military
clash are greater today than they were over the last several
decades because of the heightened tension and war of words.
It’s not a scientific assessment. Whether it be along the
[Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea], or along
the coasts, or in the air, there is potential for an inadvertent
military engagement that, if several North Koreans or South
Koreans were killed, could be the bullet that felled Archduke
Ferdinand [to spark] the First World War.
I don’t see that as the likely way forward. I’m hoping that rational
heads will prevail. I don’t believe that Kim Jong Un is suicidal. I
have a pretty good sense that North Korea does not want to
initiate a major military conflict. And for many years, the United
300
States was loath to initiate [a conflict]. I don’t know what Mr.
Trump is capable of deciding or doing. One of the reasons for my
percentage was not knowing what is going to drive him. The
president’s Article II [war-making] authorities are pretty strong.
He could decide to do something as a demonstration of U.S.
military capability, which could be the first trip wire that could lead
to a more serious conflict.
 How To Steal A Billion-Dollar
American Election With A Pocketful Of Rubles
Robert Bridge
Published Time: 31 Oct, 2017 16:10 Edited Time: 1 Nov, 2017 10:50

For the next two days, the titans of social media will
explain to stony-faced members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee's Panel on Crime and Terrorism exactly how
Russia purchased the 45th President of the United States
for just pennies on the dollar.
Although Russia jumped on the democratic bandwagon
rather late in the game, it appears that Russian political
technologists are already light-years ahead of the wolf
pack when it comes to the election process, which - let’s
be honest - has always been a tainted affair, even in fairy-
tale Western capitals.
Consider Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, a veritable global
warehouse of friends, photos and likes that the free world
apparently can’t live without. After all, how else would we
know what our friends had for dinner last night? But more
to the point. Beginning on October 31 - apparently to
achieve maximum Boo! effect - company executives will
have to explain, with perfectly straight faces, that 'Russia-
linked' election-related posts (whatever that means)
comprise less than one percent of all such posts.

While US lobbyists are cunning enough to hedge their bets
on both horses in every race, or join some shady Super
PACs to get maximum bang for the buck, nobody has been
able to determine - with absolute, rock-solid certainty - the
outcome of any political contest.
That is, until now.
In other words, out of Facebook's massive influx of ad
content, ‘Russia-linked’ election posts amount to one in
23,000 posts, or some 0.004 percent of overall content. It's
difficult to fathom that such a negligible influence could
have the slightest impact on the billion-dollar,
barnstorming US elections. This should teach them to
never underestimate Russian resourcefulness!

At this point, the more incredulous readers may wish to

have a seat because the following news will send spasms
of shock and awe to the very core of your democratic
being.

Russia, the erstwhile ‘evil empire’ that only recently shook

off the dusty cobwebs of communism, has mastered the
democratic game of thrones with such impeccable
precision that it is now able to buy any political candidate
for about the going price of a German sports car, or a
Russia’s ability to steer the outcome of the 2016 US
Spanish villa - take your choice, it's a consumer paradise.
election becomes even more fantastic when we realize that
Despite considerable efforts to conceal the secret from
more than half of the ads were posted on the social media
annoying interlopers, the proverbial cat is out of the bag.
platform after the election was over. Yes, that's right, when

301
the legendary fat woman was already singing. The social
media giant also admitted that “25 percent of the ads were
never shown to anyone.”
Needless to say, Russia is now the envy of every lobbyist
and campaign manager on K Street, and that may explain
why the US refuses to provide a shred of evidence that
pulls back the curtain on this “Russian collusion.” This
information is just too damn valuable and could wreck the
billion-dollar lobbying industry overnight. Eureka! Russia
has found a way to take the unpredictability out of US
elections, and save a lot of corporate dollars at the same
time!
In an effort to deny Russia its victory parade, however,
Facebook would only say the accounts were “likely
operated out of Russia.” That statement is lamentable.
After all, having spent so much time and effort devising
such dirt-cheap and ingenious methods of manipulating the
electoral process, would it be expecting too much to come
out and acknowledge Russia’s rightful place in the rogue’s
gallery of political chicanery? Alas, this appears to be the
case.
With disturbing predictability, Russia is written off as a
basket case every time it tries to do something remotely
positive - from hosting the Olympics, to intervening
against terrorists. But now that Russia has finally found its
true calling – buying Western leaders for a fraction of the
going price - nobody wants to acknowledge the debt! To
paraphrase the journalist Greg Palast, 'is this the best
democracy money can buy?' Certainly not!
Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch called Russia’s
drop in the proverbial bucket a "new threat,” which, to be
perfectly honest and humble, is probably about the same
paltry amount one would expect to find from Lithuania,
Libya or Latvia, although nobody ventured to study the
cash flow emanating from those countries into the lily-
white US political system, nor many others. The obvious
question is: why?
Because quite simply we are talking about ‘Russian
influence’ and who could deny the dark and dangerous
connotations that delicious-sounding phrase conjures up?
302
‘Russian influence.’ Ah, yes, the way it rolls off the tongue
has an almost hypnotic effect and is enough to make an
American Neocon want to bomb something, anything.
Indeed, as far as a political marketing tool, ‘Russian
influence’ is second to none.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
There is also the question of Russia’s minuscule yet
muscular presence on Twitter, which Donald Trump used
with tremendous effect during his presidential campaign.
In fact, he admitted he would not have ascended to the
Oval Office without it.
“Tweeting is like a typewriter – when I put it
out, you put it immediately on your show,”
he told the Fox Business Network channel.
“When somebody says something about
me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing and I
take care of it. The other way, I would
never get the word out.”
And millions of other Twitterati feel exactly the same way.
Bing, bing, bing! Yet somehow only Russia had the brains
to steal an entire presidential election with the help of the
platform. Again, at unbelievably low prices.
Twitter probably won’t relieve the jittery
nerves of the Russian inquisition any time
soon, despite a September report
that stated: “Based on our findings thus far,
RT spent $274,100 on US ads in 2016. In
that year, the @RT_com, @RT_America,
and @ActualidadRT accounts promoted
1,823 Tweets that definitely or potentially
targeted the US market."
Donald Trump probably tweets that many messages before
lunch.
In any case, despite these very slim findings, which is
nothing more suspicious than the free market at work,
Twitter banned all ads from RT and Sputnik, citing
"election interference." While doing so, however, it failed
to inform US lawmakers of its own multi-million dollar
sales pitch for RT to buy ads during the election in
question. Ah, those annoying details.
Google, meanwhile, said it found no evidence RT
manipulated video hosting platform YouTube or violated
its policies during the 2016 US election campaign. That is
certainly not the Russian-made smoking gun that so many
had been hoping for.
RT, which is the most-viewed global news network on the
platform, actually won rave reviews:
“Some have raised questions about the use
of YouTube by RT, a media service funded
by the Russian government,” the document
said. “Our investigation found no evidence
of manipulation of our platform or policy
violations; RT—and all other state-
303
sponsored media outlets— remains subject
to our standard rules.”
Neverthless, many US politicians will be watching the
McCarthy-like show trials with great interest, determined
to learn how Russia was able to serve as the American
‘king-maker’ in the US political system, placing the crown
on the head of a very unlikely candidate, Donald Trump, a
real estate developer, for crying out loud.
In any case, it is very doubtful that the assembled US
Senators, brought together by a whirlwind of suspicion
created out of thin air, will learn anything at all from the
deliberations, aside from whatever their vivid imaginations
may conjure up.
After all, what else can we expect on Halloween besides
more Russophobic-inspired phantoms?
 Google Uncovers Just 2 Suspect Ad
Accounts In Probe Of Election Interference
© REUTERS/ Dado Ruvic - US
00:13 01.11.2017
Google said that it had reviewed all advertisements dating back to
June 2015 that had "even the loosest connection to Russia" in
addition to the two suspected accounts they found.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Google's thorough
investigation of possible Russia-linked advertising on its
platforms in the 2016 US election uncovered only two
suspect ad accounts that spent just $4,700, the company's
Senior Counsel Richard Salgado said in sworn testimony
to the US Congress on Tuesday.
"On our advertising platforms, we ultimately
found two accounts that appeared to be
engaged in activity associated with known
or suspected government-backed entities.
The two accounts spent roughly $4,700
in connection with the 2016 US presidential
election," Salgado said in written testimony
to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee
on Crime and Terrorism.
In addition to the two suspected accounts, the company
also reviewed all advertisements dating back to June 2015
that had "even the loosest connection to Russia," Salgado
said.
The advertisements under review included all of those
with Russian IP addresses or billing addresses, or those
that used Russian currency, he added.
304
"We have seen no evidence to show that
any of these ads are connected to this
effort" to influence the election, Salgado
said.
Google also found only a limited number of YouTube and
Gmail accounts that it said could possibly be linked
to Russia's alleged effort to sway the US vote, Salgado
said.
"On YouTube, we found 18 channels
with approximately 1,100 videos that were
uploaded by individuals who we suspect
are associated with the effort and that
contained political content," he said.
He added, however, that nearly all the
videos had low view counts, with only 3
percent of them — or 33 videos in total —
getting more than 5,000 views.
Similarly, Google found only a "limited
number of Gmail accounts" that may have
been opened for the sole purpose
of creating social media profiles, Salgado
said.
The company credits its own safeguards for the "relatively
limited amount" of suspect activity uncovered on its
platforms, he added.
Representatives of Google, Twitter and Facebook are due
to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee later
on Tuesday as part of the Congressional investigations
into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Russia vehemently denies interfering in the US election,
calling the allegations absurd.
 Day Seven: John McCain Continues
To Dodge Questions On Role In Trump Hoax Dossier
By Aaron Klein
1 Nov 2017
(New York) Sen. John McCain has still
not responded to questions raised in
light of the disclosure last Tuesday that
the Hillary Clinton campaign and the
Democratic National Committee (DNC)
helped fund research utilized in the
infamous, largely discredited 35-page
dossier on President Donald Trump.
In December, it was McCain who notoriously passed the
controversial dossier produced by the Washington firm
Fusion GPS to then FBI Director James Comey, whose
agency reportedly utilized the dossier as a partial basis for
its probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election.
McCain’s office did not respond to repeated Breitbart
News phone and email requests over the course of last
week and this week seeking comment on whether the
Arizona senator was aware that the material he passed to
the FBI was paid for by the DNC and Clinton’s campaign.
McCain’s office also did not respond to requests for
information on how he first obtained the dossier, which is
filled with discredited charges.
A spokesperson for McCain confirmed by telephone that
the Breitbart News requests were received.
The Washington Post last Tuesday reported that in April
2016, attorney Marc E. Elias and his law firm, Perkins
305
Coie, retained Fusion GPS to conduct the questionable
research on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and the
DNC. Through Perkins Coie, Clinton’s campaign and the
DNC continued to fund Fusion GPS until October 2016,
days before Election Day, the Post reported.
Fusion GPS went on to hire former intelligence agent
Christopher Steele to do the purported research. Steele
later conceded in court documents that part of his work
still needed to be verified.
Last week, the Washington Free Beacon confirmed it
originally retained Fusion GPS to conduct opposition
research on numerous GOP candidates, including Trump.
Free Beacon Chairman Michael Goldfarb served as deputy
communications director on McCain’s 2008 presidential
campaign.
The Free Beacon denied any involvement with the dossier
or Steele.
“During the 2016 election cycle we retained
Fusion GPS to provide research on
multiple candidates in the Republican
presidential primary, just as we retained
other firms to assist in our research into
Hillary Clinton,” wrote Goldfarb in a joint
statement with the site’s editor-in-chief,
Matthew Continetti.
They continued:
“The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or
connection to the Steele dossier, did not
pay for the dossier, and never had contact
with, knowledge of, or provided payment
for any work performed by Christopher
Steele.”
On January 10, CNN was first to report, based on leaked
information, that the contents of the dossier were presented
during classified briefings one week earlier to then-
President Obama and President-elect Trump.
Just after CNN’s January 10 report on the classified
briefings about the dossier, BuzzFeed published the
dossier’s full unverified contents.
Earlier this month, McCain denied providing the dossier to
BuzzFeed and said that he only gave the material to the
FBI. “I gave it to no one except for the director of the FBI.
I don’t know why you’re digging this up now,” McCain
told the Daily Caller during what the news website
described as a testy exchange.
It is not immediately clear how McCain obtained the
dossier in the first place.
A January 11 statement from McCain attempted to explain
why he provided the documents to the FBI but did not
mention how he came to possess the dossier or whether he
knew who funded it.
“Upon examination of the contents, and
unable to make a judgment about their
accuracy, I delivered the information to the
director of the FBI,” McCain said at the
time. “That has been the extent of my
contact with the FBI or any other
government agency regarding this issue.”
Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to
Moscow, said McCain first consulted him about the claims
inside the dossier at a security conference in Canada
shortly after last November’s presidential election. Wood
stated that McCain had obtained the documents from the
senator’s own sources.
“I told him I was aware of what was in the
report but I had not read it myself, that it
might be true, it might be untrue. I had no
means of judging really,” Wood further told
BBC Radio 4 in January.
In March, Vanity Fair raised questions about the alleged
involvement of David J. Kramer, a former State
Department official, in helping to obtain the dossier
directly from Steele. The issue was also raised in a lawsuit
filed against Steele by one of the individuals named in the
dossier.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that in private interviews with
Congressional investigators prior to the Post’s report
revealing Perkins Coie’s reported payment to Fusion GPS,
former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and
former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz both
denied that they were aware of any arrangement to fund
Fusion GPS’s opposition research. CNN reported that
Elias was seated next to Podesta during the private
interview.
306
That report prompted former CIA Director Leon Panetta
to advocate for a Senate Intelligence Committee
investigation of both the Clinton campaign and the
DNC regarding whether they had any knowledge of the
payment to Fusion GPS to produce the dossier.
“Well, it certainly makes the situation very
awkward,” Panetta said of Elias’s alleged
involvement. “If you’re testifying and saying
you have no knowledge, and the attorney
sitting next to you is one of those that knew
what was involved here, I think it does raise
an issue that the committee is going to
have to look at and determine just exactly
who knew what.”
The dossier contains wild and unproven claims that the
Russians had information regarding Trump and sordid
sexual acts, including the widely mocked claim that Trump
hired prostitutes and had them urinate on a hotel room bed.
It also claimed there was an exchange of information
between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the
Russian government.
Those allegations remain unsubstantiated following
numerous public hearings. Indeed, former CIA Director
John Brennan made clear in testimony last May that after
viewing all of the evidence that was available to him on
the Russia probe he was not aware of any collusion
between Russia and members of Trump’s 2016
presidential campaign.
Dossier was reportedly basis for Obama
administration moves
According to the BBC, the dossier served as a “roadmap”
for the FBI’s investigation into claims of coordination
between Moscow and members of Trump’s presidential
campaign during the Obama administration.
In April, CNN reported that the dossier served as part of
the FBI’s justification for seeking the FISA court’s
reported approval to clandestinely monitor the
communications of Carter Page, the American oil industry
investor who was tangentially and briefly associated with
Trump’s presidential campaign.
Senior Republican members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee have reportedly requested that the FBI and
Department of Justice turn over applications for any
warrants to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens
associated with the investigation into alleged Russia
interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In testimony last month, Comey repeatedly refused to
answer questions about his agency’s ties to the dossier.
In testimony last month to the U.S. Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, Comey admitted he pushed
back against a request from President Donald Trump to
possibly investigate the origins of “salacious material” that
the agency possessed in the course of its investigation into
alleged Russian interference.
Dossier discredited
Major questions have been raised as to the veracity of the
dossier, large sections of which have been discredited.
Citing a “Kremlin insider,” the dossier, which misspelled
the name of a Russian diplomat, claimed that Trump
lawyer Michael Cohen held “secret meetings” with
Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016.
That charge unraveled after Cohen revealed he had never
traveled to Prague, calling the story “totally fake, totally
inaccurate.” The Atlantic confirmed Cohen’s whereabouts
in New York and California during the period the dossier
claimed that Cohen was in Prague. Cohen reportedly
produced his passport showing he had not traveled to
Prague.
During testimony in May, the FBI’s Comey confirmed that
the basis for the intelligence community’s assessment that
Russia allegedly wanted Trump in office was not because
the billionaire was, as Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) claimed
during a hearing, “ensnared in” Russia’s “web of
patronage” – just as the dossier alleged. Instead, the FBI
chief provided two primary reasons for Russia’s alleged
favoring of Trump over Clinton during the 2016
presidential race.
One reason, according to Comey, was that Putin “hated”
Clinton and would have favored any Republican opponent.
The second reason, Comey explained, was that Putin made
an assessment that it would be easier to make a deal with a
businessman than someone from the political class.
Comey’s statements are a far cry from the
conspiracies fueled by the dossier alleging Putin held
blackmail information over the billionaire.
Citing current and former government officials, the New
Yorker reported the dossier prompted skepticism among
intelligence community members, with the publication
quoting one member saying it was a “nutty” piece of
evidence to submit to a U.S. president.
Steele’s work has been questioned by former acting CIA
Director Michael Morell, who currently works at the
Hillary Clinton-tied Beacon Global Strategies LLC.
.
307
NBC News reported on Morell’s questions about Steele’s
credibility:
Morell, who was in line to become CIA
director if Clinton won, said he had seen no
evidence that Trump associates
cooperated with Russians. He also raised
questions about the dossier written by a
former British intelligence officer, which
alleged a conspiracy between the Trump
campaign and Russia. …
Morell pointed out that former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper said on Meet the Press on
March 5 that he had seen no evidence of a conspiracy
when he left office January 20.
“That’s a pretty strong statement by
General Clapper,” Morell said.
Regarding Steele’s dossier, Morell stated,
“Unless you know the sources, and unless
you know how a particular source acquired
a particular piece of information, you can’t
judge the information — you just can’t.”
Morell charged the dossier
“doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.”
“I had two questions when I first read it.
One was, How did Chris talk to these
sources? I have subsequently learned that
he used intermediaries.”
Morell continued:
And then I asked myself, why did these
guys provide this information, what was
their motivation? And I subsequently
learned that he paid them. That the
intermediaries paid the sources and the
intermediaries got the money from Chris.
And that kind of worries me a little bit
because if you’re paying somebody,
particularly former FSB [Russian
intelligence] officers, they are going to tell
you truth and innuendo and rumor, and
they’re going to call you up and say, “Hey,
let’s have another meeting, I have more
information for you,” because they want to
get paid some more.
I think you’ve got to take all that into consideration when
you consider the dossier.
 A Big Question In Washington:
How Has Papadopoulos Aided Investigators?
The Scope Of His Cooperation Would Suggest Whether He Provided
Special Counsel Mueller With A Valuable Avenue For Information
From The Trump Camp
By Erica Orden
Nov. 1, 2017 5:30 A.M.

otherwise surreptitiously recording anyone in Mr. Trump’s

orbit, according to court documents and analyses by legal
experts.

That is because the conditions that were set on Mr.

Papadopoulos following his arrest in July prevented him
from contacting people associated with the Trump
campaign, and those conditions appeared to remain in
place through at least early October.

Mr. Papadopoulos was “directed not to have any contact,

direct or indirect, with individuals related to the campaign
or to any of the conduct set forth in the complaint,”
George Papadopoulos, in an undated image posted on his LinkedIn prosecutor Andrew Goldstein told Judge Randolph Moss at
profile. Photo: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Mr. Papadopoulos’s plea agreement hearing in early
October, according to a transcript.
Among the questions roiling Washington in the wake of
charges against three former Trump advisers unsealed this
Mr. Goldstein said a list of the relevant individuals had
week is this: How has George Papadopoulos aided
been provided to Mr. Papadopoulos and his counsel.
investigators?
Prosecutors didn’t explain the reasons for prohibiting his
contact with people associated with the Trump campaign.
Mr. Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy adviser to President
Donald Trump’s campaign, pleaded guilty in early October
Mr. Papadopoulos’s lawyer, Thomas Breen, indicated to
to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his
the court in the October hearing that those conditions had
meetings with two individuals with ties to Russia,
continued and were set to remain going forward, saying,
according to a plea agreement unveiled this week.

Mr. Papadopoulos has made “efforts to cooperate” with the “We’ve honored the request that was
entered earlier, and I don’t anticipate any
government, according to the plea documents, and since
contact with those individuals.”
his arrest in July he has met with investigators “on
numerous occasions to provide information and answer
questions.” The sole modification requested by Mr. Goldstein at the
October hearing with regard to the terms of Mr.
Papadopoulos’s release was loosening restrictions on his
In a July motion to seal his case, prosecutors told the court
travel. Though it is possible those conditions could have
that “public disclosure...would significantly undermine his
been further modified under seal, neither prosecutors nor
ability to serve as a proactive cooperator.”
Mr. Papadopoulos’ attorneys gave any indication of that
during court proceedings.
The scope of his cooperation could be important, because
it would suggest whether he provided Special Counsel
Given the limits on his contact, “there are pretty narrow
Robert Mueller with a valuable avenue for gathering
windows about what he could have been tasked to do,”
information from inside the Trump camp.
said Ed Kim, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S.
attorney’s office.
But Mr. Papadopoulos’s cooperation with the federal
government is unlikely to have included wearing a wire or
308
It also is unclear, former prosecutors said, whether Mr.
Papadopoulos has been formally signed on as a cooperator.
His plea deal refers in several instances to his “efforts to
cooperate” and says the government has agreed to bring
those efforts to the court’s attention at sentencing, but it
doesn’t specify that the government will file a motion that
309
would request that the court reduce his sentence, a
common condition in cooperation agreements.
Most such agreements also specify that the prosecutor’s
office bring the defendant’s cooperation to the attention of
other prosecuting offices, and Mr. Papadopoulos’s plea
deal doesn’t include such a provision.
 Fake News: Acosta Quips Trump ‘Has The
World Record For Injecting Politics’ After An Attack
By Curtis Houck
November 1, 2017 3:55 PM EDT
Whether he was joking or not, CNN senior White House
correspondent Jim Acosta made a fool of himself on
Wednesday afternoon, spreading fake news that President
Trump “now has the world record for injecting politics
into the aftermath of a terror attack” for suggesting
changes to immigration policy after Tuesday’s Manhattan
terror attack.
Turns out, as we’ll see, the news media and particularly
CNN have egg on their faces if they want to make that
statement, whether it’s U.S. terror attacks in Boston, Fort
Hood, Orlando, or San Bernardino.
The liberal showman was teed up by
afternoon CNN Newsroom host Brooke
Baldwin, who lamented Trump’s “stunning
remarks...in response to this attack” and
how “we’re not even really 24 hours —
barely 24 hours in, and the President is
already pushing Congress for several
major changes.”
Acosta took Baldwin’s setup and put forth his own snide
remarks [emphasis mine]:
I think President Trump, Brooke, now
has the world record for injecting
politics into the aftermath of a terror
attack. That is exactly what has
happened in the last 12 hours or so as
the President has been tweeting about
this and if you look at the comments he
made at the beginning of his cabinet
meeting, in addition to regarding the U.S.
Justice system as a joke and a laughing
310
stock, he also called about — or called for,
I should say, sweeping changes to the
nation's immigration system saying that we
should get rid of this diversity lottery
system that has been in place for almost
two decades. Keep in mind when the
President blames the Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats
for this, this was a program put in place
by Democrats and Republicans and
there was an effort in 2013 by the so-called
Gang of Eight on Capitol Hill in the Senate
that tried to do away with it. Republicans
and Democrats. So the President is
playing politics with this[.]
Acosta then aired a clips from earlier from Trump but also
Schumer, who engaged in some sudden respect by praising
then-President George W. Bush’s response to 9/11. Before
going back to Baldwin, Acosta lamented how the Trump
team wanted
“to wait when it comes to legislative
discussion about going after gun
control” following the Las Vegas shooting.
“[B]ut when it comes to what happened
in New York City, when it's a terror
attack involving someone coming in
from outside of the country, President
immediately wants to have a
conversation about immigration. So just
sort of a night and day, a tale of two
Trumps when it comes to the response
of these two attacks,” he concluded.
Now, let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? First,
here’s some NewsBusters headlines from the first hours
after the Islamic terror attack on Fort Hood:
 CBS & NBC Fail to ID Hasan as Muslim; ABC's
Raddatz Relays: 'I Wish His Name was Smith'
 NBC Analyst Unsure Ft. Hood Shooting Was Terrorism
 CNN Zeroes-In on 'Right-Wing' Backlash Against
Muslims From Pajamas Media
 CBS’s Schieffer Blames Army for Ft. Hood Shooting
 CNN Misquotes Ft. Hood Private to Cast Doubt on
Cries of 'Allahu Akbar'
Not convinced that Jim Acosta is a shameless fool? Let’s
move forward to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Less
than an hour after the first reports came in, New York
Times columnist Nicholas Kristof connected the
explosions to Republicans while MSNBC’s Luke Russert
wondered if the act was perpetrated by a home-grown
terrorist (instead of, as we would learn later, Islamic
terrorists).
Chris Matthews also went down that route, speculating that
“normally” such acts “tend to be on the far right” and
especially because it occurred on Tax Day.
Going forward a few years, how did the liberal media
initially react to the Islamic terror attack in San
Bernardino, California? If Jim Acosta wants to talk about
world records, his own employer has a better shot at that
title based on how they behaved on December 2, 2015.
Barely a few hours into the incident, CNN
law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes
predicted that the shooting was carried out
by “an anti-government domestic militia
group” despite his admission that he had
“no information” to support it.
“If it's county employees having some
type of a banquet there, that takes on
more of a domestic militia group, an
anti-government domestic militia group
wanting to attack the government than it
does international terrorism where
they're usually on suicide mission,”
Feuntes proclaimed.
Later that day on CNN Tonight, criminologist and guest
Casey Jordan blamed the shooting on not terrorist Syed
Farook and his wife but his own coworkers.
Jordan hypothesized that Farook could have been a
“disgruntled employee” triggered by the holiday party
that same day:
They can have Arabic or Middle Eastern names as well,
but the key is that from the beginning everything that was
reported about him, going into this conference room where
there was a holiday party which may have been offensive
to him.
Lastly, there was the June 2016 Islamic terror attack on the
gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando. Well, faux Republican and
ABC useful stooge Matthew Dowd blamed the 2016
election rhetoric and guns on the attack before we even
knew how many people had died inside the nightclub.
Also that morning, NBC’s Tom Brokaw lamented that
“everything seems to get settled by a gun” while NBC
Nightly News anchor Lester Holt bemoaned how such acts
311
are as frequent as hurricanes due to a lack of gun control,
leaving innocent lives on a “hamster wheel” of death if
gun control isn’t passed.
To make sure that CNN wasn’t left out, OutFront host Erin
Burnett touted Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson’s
pleas for gun control as the “correct” viewpoint to have
after this act of radical Islamic terror.
So, if Jim Acosta wants to lecture the President about
playing politics, the CNN showman should examine the
work of his employer and the rest of the liberal media first.
Acosta’s shenanigans were brought to you
by CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
advertisers Best Western, Liberty Mutual,
Norton by Symantec, and T-Mobile.
Here’s the relevant transcript from November 1's CNN
Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin:
CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
November 1, 2017
2:07 p.m. Eastern
BROOKE BALDWIN: I do want to get to the President’s stunning
remarks, though, in response to this attack, including calling the
U.S. Justice system a joke. So, let's go to our senior White
House correspondent, Jim Acosta. And, Jim, this story started
breaking at the end of my show yesterday, we’re not even really
24 hours — barely 24 hours in, and the President is already
pushing Congress for several major changes.
JIM ACOSTA: Right. I think President Trump, Brooke, now has
the world record for injecting politics into the aftermath of a terror
attack. That is exactly what has happened in the last 12 hours or
so as the President has been tweeting about this and if you look
at the comments he made at the beginning of his cabinet
meeting, in addition to regarding the U.S. Justice system as a
joke and a laughing stock, he also called about — or called for, I
should say, sweeping changes to the nation's immigration
system saying that we should get rid of this diversity lottery
system that has been in place for almost two decades. Keep in
mind when the President blames the Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer and Democrats for this, this was a program put
in place by Democrats and Republicans and there was an effort
in 2013 by the so-called Gang of Eight on Capitol Hill in the day saying how can we work together. All President Trump does
Senate that tried to do away with it. Republicans and Democrats. is take advantage, horrible advantage of a tragedy and try to
So the President is playing politics with this and here's a bit what politicize and divide. It doesn't work with New Yorkers. It doesn't
he had to say when he was talking to his reporters just a short work with Americans. And, in fact, if he really wanted to do
while ago. something, the way we can stop terrorism is anti-terrorism
funding to help our New York Police Department and all of our
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I want to immediately work with police departments. He cut that in the budget he proposed.
Congress on the diversity lottery program, on terminating it,
getting rid of it. [SCREEN WIPE] We want people that are going
to keep our country safe. We don't want lotteries where the
wrong people are in the lotteries and guess what, who are the
suckers that get those people?

ACOSTA: Now, the President says he wants to change over to a

merit based immigration system. That is, of course, the same
immigration that policy adviser Steven Miller was talking about at
the White House a couple of months ago. Brooke, I've talked to
Republican sources up on Capitol Hill who say there is just no
appetite for that right now. Keep in mind, immigration changes
have been talked about for several weeks now as part of that fix
to relieve the fears of those dreamers that are caught in limbo
ACOSTA: And one other thing we should point out, Brooke, and
right now. There’s really just no unity in other party right now,
you know this because you covered what happened in Las
certainly not among both parties what to do about immigration
Vegas very closely, in the aftermath of Las Vegas, the President
right now in this country. But Senator Chuck Schumer who was
said we need to wait when it comes to this legislative discussion
under attack by the President earlier this morning, he held a
about going after gun control, talking about gun safety laws. The
press conference, called to reporters and said the president
President wanted to wait in that instance, but when it comes to
needs to stop tweeting and start leading. Here's what he had to
what happened in New York City, when it's a terror attack
say.
involving someone coming in from outside of the country,
President immediately wants to have a conversation about
DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (N.Y.): New immigration. So just sort of a night and day, a tale of two Trumps
Yorkers and all of us compare President Bush right after 9/11 when it comes to the response of these two attacks. Brooke?
and President Trump right after this horrible terrorist attack.
President Bush united us. He had us in the White House the next
BALDWIN: Tale of two reactions. Two responses.
.

312
 THANK YOU, Chuck Schumer! Keep THIS Up And
Donald Trump Wins In 2020, Easily
By Greg P.
Posted At 11:15 Am On November 1, 2017

After attempting to politicize every tragedy involving a

gun, Sen. Chuck Schumer is angry at President Donald
Trump for politicizing yesterday’s terror attack allegedly
perpetrated by a Muslim terrorist in the U.S. thanks to the
Diversity Visa lottery program:

Schumer not only hit back at the president on Twitter, but

with a news release, too:

Flashback:

And then he went nuclear on the Senate floor:

313
Not only did he politicize Vegas, but he said it was a good
thing to do:

But others don’t really care about Schumer’s hypocrisy:

Keep it up, Chucky. This will guarantee Trump a win in

2020:

And that’s our point: It’s always one-sided:

Even some in the media get it:

Bingo.

Editor’s note: This post has been updated.

***

Related:

314
 .

315
 Nancy Pelosi To CBS' Corden:
GOP Worse Than ‘Darth Vader’
By Kristine Marsh
November 1, 2017 3:07 PM EDT
Democrat congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (CA) appeared on
CBS’ The Late Late Show early Wednesday morning,
where host James Corden took Pelosi to a British pub for
his “Pub Politics” segment to drink beer and discuss
politics. Corden encouraged the Democratic leader to share
insider details about the Mueller Russia investigation and
what it was like working with Republicans.
At one point, Corden tried to get Pelosi to “say something
nice” about various Republicans, but was seemingly only
using the opportunity to mock the GOP himself.
Corden, who is British, joked around with Pelosi about
British food before diving straight into politics. He egged
Pelosi on about the Russia investigation, urging her to spill
the juicy details she must have about Trump being
investigated by the FBI’s Robert Mueller:
CORDEN: Talk to me about this Russia
investigation.
PELOSI: The Trump-Russia investigation.
CORDEN: That's what you think we should
all be calling it.
PELOSI: Yeah.
CORDEN: The Trump-Russia investigation.
PELOSI: That's what it is.
CORDEN: Let me ask you, is there stuff
that you know about it that you can't tell
me that if you did tell me would blow my
mind?
PELOSI: Well, I can't confirm or deny
even that.
316
CORDEN: Just blink, blink if you know
stuff.
Pelosi laughs and smiles, then appears to blink as she starts
to say,
“I cannot confirm or deny” again.
Corden grins widely and points at Pelosi as if he caught
her blinking to confirm she knew something that the media
hadn’t already reported.
Corden goes on to question Pelosi, framing every question
as a sky-is-falling scenario:
CORDEN: Do you think the political
divide in America is the greatest you've
seen it the 30 years you have been in
politics?
CORDEN: How do you feel about the state
of politics at the moment? Do you worry
we're going to end up with a situation
where America only elects celebrities?
Do you worry about that, as someone
who devoted their life to politics?
After playing darts, Corden ends the friendly interview by
asking Pelosi to play a “game” with him, where he holds
up a picture of a member of the Republican party, and she
has to say one nice thing about each person.
CORDEN: Up first, this guy. Say one nice
thing about Paul Ryan
PELOSI: [smiles and stays silent]
CORDEN: [Laughs]
PELOSI: ...I'm trying to do my best.
That was how most the remaining interview went, with
Pelosi struggling to come up with anything nice to say and
Corden cracking up with laughter, because, as we all
know, Republicans are so terrible that it's hard to come up
with even one redeemable trait.
Pelosi had the worst time, of course, with President
Trump.

CORDEN: Okay. Time for the big dog.
[holds up picture of Trump] Is there one
nice thing you can say about Donald
Trump?
PELOSI: Flag pin.
CORDEN: I don't know that that counts.
That's not about Donald Trump. He
probably didn’t even put that on himself. Is
there one nice thing you can say about
Donald Trump?
PELOSI: I hope so. I hope I can. [keeps
looking intently at photo]
CORDEN: But not today?
PELOSI: [keeps staring intently at
photo, nodding head] President. He's
president. What would you say?
CORDEN: Is there really nothing? You
couldn't think of one nice thing to say about
him?
.
317
PELOSI: He's nice to me.
CORDEN: Is he?
PELOSI: Yeah.
CORDEN: Is he respectful?
PELOSI: Yeah, he's respectful.
Corden ended the game by saying he had “one final
member of the Republican party” for Pelosi. He then holds
up a photo of the villain Darth Vader from Star Wars.
Pelosi chuckles and immediately quips,
“Even the party has gone beyond Darth
Vader.”
As if to one up her, Corden replies back:
“Darth Vader? I thought it was Dick
Cheney!” as she laughs and he wrapped
up the interview, thanking her for coming
on the show.
Corden appears to be trying to better his ratings by joining
the other late-night hosts on the Trump-bashing
bandwagon. In the last few months he’s attacked
Republicans, sang anti-Trump songs, and commiserated
with his Democrat guests over the Trump presidency.
 Trick Or Treat: One Year Later,
Is Trump A Blessing Or A Curse To The Deep State?
John W. Whitehead
November 1, 2017
“Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you
have to stoop in this country to be
President? … We’ve come to a point where
every four years this national fever rises up
— this hunger for the Saviour, the White
Knight, the Man on Horseback — and
whoever wins becomes so immensely
powerful … that when you vote for
President today you’re talking about giving
a man dictatorial power for four years…
The whole framework of the presidency is
getting out of hand. It’s come to the point
where you almost can’t run unless you can
cause people to salivate and whip each
other with big sticks. You almost have to be
a rock star to get the kind of fever you need
to survive in American politics.”
—Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalist
Here’s the question I pose to you: has Donald Trump been
a blessing or a curse to the architects of the American
police state?
One thing is for sure: a year into his presidency, Trump
hasn’t done much to improve the lot of the American
people.
The predators of the police state are still wreaking havoc
on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The
government still doesn’t listen to the citizenry, it still
refuses to abide by the Constitution, which is our rule of
law, and it still treats the citizenry as a source of funding
and little else. Police officers are still shooting unarmed
citizens and their household pets. Government agents—
including local police—are still being armed to the teeth
and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated
318
government agencies are still fleecing taxpayers.
Government technicians are still spying on our emails and
phone calls. Government contractors are still making a
killing by waging endless wars abroad.
In other words, the American police state is still alive and
well and flourishing.
Nothing has changed.
Rather than draining the corrupt swamps of
Washington, as he repeatedly promised, Trump and his
brand of reality TV politics have merely redirected our
attention.
Trust me, the swamps are still stagnant with corruption.
Indeed, we are still the unwitting victims of a system so
corrupt that those who stand up for the rule of law and
aspire to transparency in government are in the minority.
This corruption is so vast it spans all branches of
government—from the power-hungry agencies under the
executive branch and the corporate puppets within the
legislative branch to a judiciary that is, more often than
not, elitist and biased towards government entities and
corporations.
We are still ruled by an elite class of individuals who are
completely out of touch with the travails of the average
American.
We are still viewed as relatively expendable in the eyes of
government: faceless numbers of individuals who serve
one purpose, which is to keep the government machine
running through our labor and our tax dollars. Those in
power aren’t losing any sleep over the indignities we are
being made to suffer or the possible risks to our health. All
they seem to care about are power and control.
We are still being made to suffer countless abuses at the
government’s hands.
We still have little protection against standing armies
(domestic and military), invasive surveillance, marauding
SWAT teams, an overwhelming government arsenal of
assault vehicles and firepower, and a barrage of laws that
criminalize everything from vegetable gardens to
lemonade stands.
In the name of national security, we’re still being subjected
to government agencies such as the NSA, FBI and others
listening in on our phone calls, reading our mail,
monitoring our emails, and carrying out warrantless “black
bag” searches of our homes. Adding to the abuse, we still
have to deal with surveillance cameras mounted on street
corners and in traffic lights, weather satellites co-opted for
use as spy cameras from space, and thermal sensory
imaging devices that can detect heat and movement
through the walls of our homes. That doesn’t even begin to
touch on the many ways in which our Fourth Amendment
rights are still being trampled upon by militarized police
and SWAT teams empowered to act as laws unto
themselves.
In other words, despite Trump (or because of him),
freedom—or what’s left of it—is still being threatened
from every direction.
Trump has done nothing to wrest control of the
government from the Deep State, that shadowy elite group
of powerbrokers and corporations who call the shots in
Washington.
Trump has done nothing to prevent the government from
continuing to plunder and steal from the American
taxpayer. In fact, his administration has paved the way
for even more theft in the form of civil asset forfeiture.
Trump has failed to end the government’s endless wars. To
the contrary, he has fallen in line with the military
industrial complex.
Most of all, Trump has proven to be as deaf, dumb and
blind as every president before him when it comes to the
plight of the citizenry.
The new boss really is just the same as the old boss.
We’re still on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control
of our country and our lives.
The Deep State is winning.
Get ready.
We’re just a few short years away from the dystopian
future depicted in the film V for Vendetta, which is no
future at all.
Written and produced by the Wachowskis, V for
Vendetta (2005) provides a powerful visual commentary
on how totalitarian governments such as our own exploit
fear and use mass surveillance, censorship, terrorism, and
militarized tactics to control, oppress and enslave.
319
The year is 2027 and the country is ruled by a totalitarian
corporate state where concentration camps (jails, private
prisons and detention facilities) have been established to
house political prisoners and others deemed to be enemies
of the state. Executions of undesirables (extremists,
troublemakers and the like) are common, while other
enemies of the state are made to “disappear.” The
television networks are controlled by the government with
the purpose of perpetuating the regime. And most of the
population is hooked into an entertainment mode and are
clueless.
Enter V, a vigilante in a Guy Fawkes mask, who rails
against the people’s loss of freedom at the hands of a
fascist government. Says V:
Where once you had the freedom to object,
to think and speak as you saw fit, you now
have censors and systems of surveillance
coercing your conformity and soliciting your
submission. How did this happen? Who’s
to blame? Well certainly there are those
more responsible than others, and they will
be held accountable, but again truth be
told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you
need only look into a mirror. I know why
you did it. I know you were afraid. Who
wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There
were a myriad of problems which conspired
to corrupt your reason and rob you of your
common sense. Fear got the best of you,
and in your panic, you turned to the now
high chancellor… He promised you order,
he promised you peace, and all he
demanded in return was your silent,
obedient consent.
Sounds painfully familiar, doesn’t it?
We, too, have relinquished control over the most intimate
aspects of our lives to government officials who, while
they may occupy seats of authority, are neither wiser,
smarter, more in tune with our needs, more knowledgeable
about our problems, nor more aware of what is really in
our best interests.
Yet having bought into the false notion that the
government knows best and can ensure not only our safety
but our happiness and will take care of us from cradle to
grave, we have allowed ourselves to be bridled and turned
into slaves at the bidding of a government that cares little
for our freedoms or our happiness.
The lesson is this: once a free people allows the
government to make inroads into their freedoms or uses
those same freedoms as bargaining chips for security, it
quickly becomes a slippery slope to outright tyranny.
As V remarks,
“Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of
oppressors have accepted the
responsibility over our lives that we should
have accepted for ourselves. By doing so,
they took our power. By doing nothing, we
gave it away. We’ve seen where their way
leads, through camps and wars, towards
the slaughterhouse.”
In other words, it makes no difference whether it’s a
Democrat or a Republican at the helm, because the
bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now
embodies the same philosophy of authoritarian
government, whose priority is to remain in power.
When our own government no longer sees us as human
beings with dignity and worth but as things to be
manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by
police, conned into believing it has our best interests at
heart, mistreated, and then jails us if we dare step out of
line, punishes us unjustly without remorse, and refuses to
own up to its failings, we are no longer operating under a
constitutional republic.
Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny
at the hands of a psychopathic government.
So where does that leave us?
In V for Vendetta, it takes a desperate act of terrorism (V
blows up the seat of government on the fifth of November)
for the people to finally mobilize and stand up to the
government’s tyranny.
This is what happens when a parasitical government
muzzles the citizenry, fences them in, herds them, brands
them, whips them into submission, forces them to ante up
the sweat of their brows while giving them little in return,
and then provides them with little to no outlet for voicing
their discontent: people get desperate, citizens lose hope,
and lawful, nonviolent resistance gives way to unlawful,
violent resistance.
As John F. Kennedy warned,
“Those who make peaceful revolution
impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable.”
Do not wait to act until there is no alternative but violence.
As director James McTeighe observed about the tyrannical
regime in V for Vendetta,
320
“It really showed what can happen when
society is ruled by government, rather than
the government being run as a voice of the
people. I don’t think it’s such a big leap to
say things like that can happen when
leaders stop listening to the people.”
What will it take for the government to start listening to
the people again?
We’ve got to make them hear us using every nonviolent
means available to us: picket, protest, march, boycott,
speak up, sound off and reclaim control over the narrative
about what is really going on in this country.
Mind you, the government doesn’t want to hear us. It
doesn’t even want us to speak. In fact, it’s done a
diabolically good job of establishing roadblocks to prevent
us from exercising our First Amendment right to speech
and assembly and protest.
Still we must persist.
As author Erich Fromm warned in his book On
Disobedience and Other Essays,
“At this point in history, the capacity to
doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all
that stands between a future for mankind
and the end of civilization.”
In other words, stop worshipping false idols. Stop waiting
for Trump to drain the swamps, or some whistleblower to
topple the tyrants, or some other political savior to swoop
in and fix all that’s wrong with this country. Stop allowing
yourselves to be drawn into divisive party politics. Stop
thinking of yourselves as members of a particular political
party, as opposed to citizens of the United States. Most of
all, stop looking away from the injustices and cruelties and
endless acts of tyranny that have become hallmarks of
American police state.
As war journalist Chris Hedges concluded,
“Not having to make moral choice frees
you from a great deal of anxiety. It frees
you from responsibility. And it assures that
you will always be wrapped in the embrace
of the powerful as long as, of course, you
will do or dance to the tune the powers
play… when you do what is right, you often
have to understand that you are not going
to be lauded and praised for it. Making a
moral decision always entails risks,
certainly to one’s career and to one’s
standing in the community.”
Remember, remember the fifth of November.
Why should we remember the fifth of November?
Because it commemorates a day in history when a
desperate vigilante tried to bring about a violent
revolution.
Trust me, no one wants a violent revolution.
321
Americans speak reverently of how our founders mounted
a revolution to secure our freedoms, but our platitudes
gloss over the terrible toll it demanded of them: families
torn apart, lives lost and years of misery and hardship.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War
on the American People, the moral choice before us is
clear: it is the choice between tyranny and freedom,
dictatorship and autonomy, peaceful slavery and dangerous
freedom, and manufactured pipedreams of what America
used to be versus the gritty reality of what she is today.
 NBC & ABC Ignore Russian Effort
To Undermine Trump, CBS Gives Seconds
By Kyle Drennen
November 1, 2017 12:33 PM EDT
While the broadcast networks all eagerly hyped social
media executives being hauled before Congress on
Tuesday to testify about Russian interference in the 2016
election, only CBS covered a revelation from the hearing
that Russia sought to undermine Donald Trump’s
legitimacy as president after the campaign was over.
“Facebook’s attorney said those
Russian ads and posts did not stop
after the election. In fact, they just
changed their focus and were aimed at
sowing discord in the country and
raising doubts about President Trump’s
legitimacy,” correspondent Nancy Cordes
reported at the end of a full report on the
hearing for Wednesday’s CBS This
Morning.
She added:
“They say that this is a sign that these
trolls were more intent on creating
chaos in the United States than they
were on focusing on one particular
candidate.”
One would think such news would be the headline of any
coverage about the congressional testimony. However,
Cordes only managed 27 seconds of air time to share the
information with viewers. The reporter also offered a full
report on Tuesday’s CBS Evening News, but skipped any
mention of Trump being a target of the Russian smear
campaign.
322
On Tuesday, The Hill reported a specific example of how
Russian-backed groups worked to undermine Trump
immediately after the election. A left-wing protest against
the then-President-elect was attended by thousands of
demonstrators outside Trump Tower on November 12,
2016 and was “organized by the Facebook page for
BlackMattersUS, a Russian-linked group that sought to
capitalize on racial tensions between black and white
Americans.”
At least CBS noted the fact that the President was a target
of Russian propaganda, NBC and ABC didn’t bother to
include that detail in their coverage of the hearing.
Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News had a full report on the
testimony and Wednesday’s Today show offered a 25-
second news brief on how “officials from Facebook and
Google and Twitter took a lashing from lawmakers over
Russia’s involvement in last year’s presidential election.”
ABC’s World News Tonight on Tuesday only featured a
seconds-long news brief on the topic, while ABC’s Good
Morning America ignored the story completely.
Here is a full transcript of Cordes’s November 1 report:
7:13 AM ET
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Lawyers for social media companies say
Russia continued to spread false information online even after
the 2016 election. A Senate Judiciary subcommittee yesterday
questioned representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google,
with lawmakers wanting to know how Russia-backed propaganda
spread unnoticed to millions of Americans. Nancy Cordes is
inside the hearing room, where the Senate this morning will be
hearing from the Senate Intelligence Committee, and they’ll be
asking questions as well. Nancy, good morning.
NANCY CORDES: Good morning. That’s right, the executives
from those three social media giants will face more tough
questions today about how exactly they are tackling this problem
of Russian ads and fake news that plagued the 2016 election.
Yesterday, those executives from Twitter, Facebook, and Google
told Senators that an internet troll farm based in St. Petersburg,
Russia set up 120 Facebook pages, where it posted more than
80,000 pieces of content over two and a half years.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Big Tech’s Russia Problem; Social
Media Execs Testify About False Information]
And here's what happened next, all that material was delivered
directly to the news feeds of approximately 29 million American
users, who then shared it with millions more, not knowing that all
of this information was actually coming from Russia.
323
Minnesota Democrat Al Franken wanted to know why such
sophisticated tech companies didn’t spot the problems sooner.
SEN. AL FRANKEN [D-MN]: You can’t put together Rubels with a
political ad and go like, “Hmm, those two data points spell out
something bad.”?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN [SOCIAL MEDIA EXECUTIVE]: In
hindsight, it’s one we missed.
FRANKEN: Okay, okay. Yeah.
CORDES: Facebook’s attorney said those Russian ads and
posts did not stop after the election. In fact, they just changed
their focus and were aimed at sowing discord in the country and
raising doubts about President Trump’s legitimacy. They say that
this is a sign that these trolls were more intent on creating chaos
in the United States than they were on focusing on one particular
candidate.
CHARLIE ROSE: Thanks, Nancy.
 Trump Appoints Zionist
Zealot To Top Civil Rights Post
By Stephen Lendman - Stephenlendman.Org
11-1-2017

Kenneth Marcus will head the Education Department’s He’s “more concerned with promoting anti-
Office of Civil Rights. Palestinian politics” than dealing with
legitimate examples of anti-Semitism and
Formerly, he was staff director at the US Commission on
hate crimes.
Civil Rights under GW Bush.
He opposes speech, media and academic freedom relating
He founded and heads the Louis D. Brandeis Center for
to honest criticism of Israeli practices.
Human Rights Under Law, a Washington-based NGO,
seeking “to advance the civil and human rights of the He’s a Zionist zealot like other deplorable Trump
Jewish people and to promote justice for all,” it claims. administration officials. Criticizing Israel is the third rail of
US politics.
It shamefully calls anti-Semitism and “anti-Israelism” on
university campuses the “leading civil and human rights Markus will fit in splendidly with other administration
challenge facing North American Jewry.” extremists - a deplorable choice for any civil rights
position.
It’s silent about longstanding Israeli high crimes of war
and against humanity, its ruthless persecution of illegally A Final Comment
occupied Palestinians, and its own Arab citizens.
A September Stanford University study titled “Safe and on
It supports Israeli policies at the expense of equity and the Sidelines” showed claims about campuses as hot spots
justice. Marcus is well-known for “excessive litigation of anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment are baseless,
against Palestine solidarity activists,” Mondoweiss saying:
explained.
“Students feel safe on campus. None of our
He once boasted about instilling “fear” into activists interviewees characterized their campus
critical of Israeli practices. He’s militantly against BDS as anti-semitic.”
activism, the most effective initiative in holding Israel
“They acknowledge the presence of anti-
accountable for its high crimes.
semitism, but they neither feel threatened
Markus “crusad(es) against campus nor targeted by it.”
Palestine solidarity activism - weaponizing
When students do feel threatened, the feeling of threat
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights
derives generally from campus activism related to the tone
Act…prohibiting discrimination on the basis
of debate about the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
of race, color and national origin in federal
fund-assisted organizations, ie universities, “Most students we interviewed clearly
ie, federal fund-assisted organizations, i.e. differentiated between what they
universities,” Mondoweiss explained. understood to be the relatively rare
expressions of true anti-semitism from what
Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry
they understood as legitimate expressions
said for years, he used the Brandeis Center as a “vehicle by
of political perspective.”
which the Civil Rights Division of the DOE has heard
these Title VI complaints.” “Students reject the conflation of Jewish
and Israel. They chafe…that as Jews,
He litigated against activist students for Palestine justice,
(they’re obligated) to support Israeli
notably ones featuring BDS-supporting speakers on
policies.”
campus.
They object to the notion that all Jews should be Zionists.
He shamefully calls honorable activism for Palestinian
They admit Israeli policies often conflict with their
rights and justifiable criticism of Israel anti-Semitism, a
political values.
disgraceful perversion of truth.
Zionist zealots like Markus disgracefully consider
His Brandeis Center mission is “immuniz(ing) pro-Israeli
legitimate criticism of Israel anti-Semitism.
students from criticism and punishing Palestine
advocates,” said Mondoweiss, adding:
.
324
 Latest New York Times
Editorial Board Ravings
By Stephen Lendman - stephenlendman.org
11-1-2017
Its members disgrace themselves with disturbing
regularity, their latest today, praising special counsel
Robert Mueller’s witch-hunt investigation.
After months of time and money wasted, the best he could
do was levy charges related to lobbying for Ukraine and
lying to the FBI - unrelated to Trump and Russia, nothing
proving or suggesting complicity between them to harm
Hillary.
No evidence will surface no matter how
long investigations continue - not by
Mueller or House and Senate committees.
The whole ugly business is a deplorable disinformation
campaign to denigrate Trump for the wrong reasons and
vilify Russia, especially Vladimir Putin.
He was falsely accused by Washington’s
intelligence community of ordering an
influence campaign against Hillary - no
evidence presented proving it because
none exists.
Claims about Russian meddling in last year’s presidential
election are spurious - the NYT one of the leading
proliferators with outrageous remarks like the following:
“…Russia(’s) government assaulted
American sovereignty in 2016 in an effort to
get Mr. Trump elected.”
FALSE!!
The Times:
“These days, the most serious attacks on
American governance are coming not from
abroad, but from Mr. Trump’s aides and his
allies in the right-wing media and
Congress.”
The Times downplayed the Clinton Foundation 2010
uranium deal with Russia when Hillary was secretary of
state - using her public position for self-enrichment.
The controversial uranium deal involved Canadian
company Uranium One, a majority-owned Rosatom
subsidiary, Russia’s atomic energy agency.
Shortly after the deal was announced, Bill Clinton was
paid $500,000 from a Russian investment bank for a
Moscow speech.
.
325
Under US law, uranium is a strategic asset. Any deals
involving it must be approved by seven US cabinet
members, including the secretaries of state and treasury.
Judicial Watch (JW) FOIA litigation revealed
“over 200 conflicts-of-interest rulings that
led to $48 million for the Clintons during
(Hillary’s) tenure as secretary of state.”
According to JD president Tom Fitton, the
“cash and secrecy on this Russian uranium
deal (alone) looks corrupt and criminal.”
Months of FBI investigations into the matter whitewashed
what happened, absolving Hillary of wrongdoing, instead
of recommending racketeering charges against her.
The Times called the matter “irrelevant,”
adding “efforts at obfuscation and
misdirection would be laughable, but they
are linked to a very real and dangerous
move by Trump allies throughout right-wing
media and the government to shut down
the Russia investigation for good.”
It never should have been initiated by Congress or Mueller
because no Russian meddling in America’s political
process occurred.
Claims otherwise are Big Lies. Lack of
corroborating evidence proves it - baseless
accusations alone, proliferated by media
scoundrels like the Times, a lead offender.
It called ending Mueller’s (witch-hunt) work
“loony,” adding “Americans have known for
a long time (that) Trump is presenting a
profound danger to security of the nation
and the stability of the world order.”
Washington’s debauched bipartisan system bears full
responsibility for that accusation, Trump a mere front man,
taking orders from a higher power.
Mueller is part of the dirty system, earlier as FBI head,
now as special counsel, subverting the rule of law in both
capacities.
 Another House Dem Files
Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump
By Tyler Durden
Nov 1, 2017 2:57 PM
The grand jury indictments of former Trump campaign
executive Paul Manafort and his longtime deputy Rick
Gates (as well a billionaire Tom Steyer's World Series Ad
pushing for Trump Impeachment) have apparently
emboldened another progressive House Democrat to file
articles of impeach against Trump,
as murmurs about bringing the bill to a
floor vote grow steadily louder despite
Nancy Pelosi’s desperate insistence
that they would risk politicizing the
Mueller probe and damaging the Dems
during the 2018 midterms.
This time, it’s Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who’s leading
the charge. Gutierrez, who told the Hill he's planning to
file the articles but didn't specify a timeline, is the third
House Dem to file articles of impeachment, joining Trump
antagonists Brad Sherman (Calif.) and Al Green (Texas)
who both filed the articles earlier this year. While none of
the proposals are likely to gain traction, Green has taken
his the furthest by pushing - unsuccessfully- last month to
bring it to the floor for a vote.
By introducing the articles, which also followed the
revelation that former Trump policy adviser George
Papadopoulos had turned state’s witness over the summer,
the Hill says support for a group of renegade Democrats to
defy Pelosi and bring the bill to the floor is growing.
As a reminder, here's what an
impeachment would look like, courtesy
of Statista.
However, Gutiérrez, whom the Hill identified as one of
Trump’s sharpest critics,
326
declined to specify what grounds the
articles will cite, saying only that the
Democrats are working with
constitutional scholars to solidify their
case.
Though it’s not unreasonable to expect that the recent
Mueller probe developments will be invoked, even though
Manafort and Gates’s criminal behavior had no apparent
connection to the campaign.
“I assure you we will not leave you
lacking for reason,” he said.
It’s also unclear which Democrats will join Gutiérrez in
the effort, though an aide said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
might jump on the bandwagon. Cohen in August
announced his intent to introduce impeachment articles,
citing Trump’s response to a deadly attack in
Charlottesville, but never followed through.
Democratic leaders have sought throughout the year to
discourage impeachment efforts against Trump, fearing it
could politicize the ongoing investigations into Russian
hacking of the 2016 election and potential collusion
between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Behind House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), top Democrats
are awaiting the outcome of those probes, particularly the
one being conducted by Robert Mueller, the special
prosecutor appointed by the Justice Department in May.
“I’m in no rush to be first, but I will say
this: We have to – we have to bring it to
the floor,” Green said.
Green acknowledged that some Democrats might be
agitated by the aggressive impeachment push while the
Mueller investigation continues. But he’s growing
impatient, warning that “history won’t be kind” to those
lawmakers who sit idle amid the swirl of controversies
surrounding Trump.
Of course the Democrats - never ones to skimp on the
sanctimony - tried to frame the impeachment vote as a
battle to wind up on the "right side" of history.
 “I can’t let my record show this,” Green
said. “The people who will probably
judge us, probably haven’t been born.”
Gutiérrez seems to agree, and he’s glad to have a growing
coalition to help him make the case.
“I appreciate what single members have
done,” Gutiérrez said. “I think it’s time to do
a group.”
.
327
Assuming lawmakers somehow manage to bring the vote
to the floor - which is incredibly unlikely considering
Republicans outnumber Democrats by 45 lawmakers - the
question would then become: Would the impeachment
proceedings help the Democrats’ cause of retaking
Congress during the upcoming midterm elections? Or
would it wreck the Democrats’ credibility in the eyes of
the swing voters they’re hoping to court?
 Mainstream Media Blames Russian Ads
On Facebook For Election Results: The Stats Are In
The Daily Sheeple
November 1, 2017
If you’ve even looked at the news for a small portion of
time in the past few weeks, you’ve likely seen some article
from a mainstream media outlet claiming Russian ads on
Facebook caused Hillary Clinton to lose the election. But
the facts don’t really support that assumption.
Russian information troll farm the Internet Research
Agency, the agency being blamed for placing ads on social
media to “influence the election,” spend $46,000 on their
“brainwashing” campaign. Does that seem like a lot of
money? Because that’s a mere 0.05 percent as much as
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s campaigns spent
combined in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential
election.
Combined, Trump and Clinton spent $81 million on
Facebook ads alone designed to “influence the election”
and earn votes. Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch
revealed these figures today during the Senate Intelligence
Committee’s hearing with Facebook, Twitter, and Google
about Russian election interference. But their monetary
contributions obviously paled in comparison to the amount
of money the candidates themselves spend.
To put the whole situation into context, the mainstream
media is latching onto the Russian narrative and refusing
.
328
to let go. Without counting PACs, the top campaigns spent
1,760 times more on election ads than the group of
“Russian meddlers.” The IRA ad buy was incredibly small,
even minuscule by comparison. This aligns with Stretch’s
main talking point that Russian propaganda content was
a tiny fraction of the content and ads seen on Facebook.
This revelation could put more focus on organically posted
propaganda – like pretty much anything the mainstream
media dishes out.
Facebook said earlier that the Russians still reached 126
million Facebook users, as well as 20 million Instagram
users.
But Facebook, Twitter, and Google all
confirmed that their investigations have
found no evidence that the Russians
uploaded voter registration contact info
in order to individually target voters
with ads.
Most Americans are so weak minded they honestly can’t
even see that the media has been brainwashing them for
their entire lives.
It’s highly unlikely that any ad on social
media had a major effect on those who
voted. Most knew who they were going to
vote for, and if they didn’t, chose the “right
letter” behind the name of the candidate.
Now because the media’s choice didn’t win, we face the
harsh reality of potential censorship. Watching the 2016
election when Americans were forced to choose between
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was enough
punishment for the average citizen.
 Ex-British Spy Who Wrote Trump 'Golden Showers'
Dossier Got $163,000 For His Work For Dirty
Tricks Firm Hillary Hired
 Christopher Steele Was The Former MI6 Operative Hired By Washington 'Research Firm' Fusion
GPS To Look Into Trump In Russia
 He Came Up With Discredited Claims Trump Ordered Prostitutes In A Moscow Hotel Room To
Urinate On A Bed Once Slept On By President Obama In
 Now Bill For 35-Page Work Is Revealed: Steele's 'Intelligence Company' Got $168,000 From Fusion
GPS, D.C. Firm Has Admitted
 Hillary Clinton's Campaign Lawyer Was Then Billed By Fusion GPS For Its 'Opposition
Research'
By Reuters
Published: 17:00 EST, 1 November 2017 | Updated: 16:25 EST, 2 November 2017

A Washington research firm paid a former British spy's

company $168,000 for work on a dossier outlining
Russian financial and personal links to Donald Trump's
2016 election campaign, the U.S. firm said in a statement
on Wednesday.

Although it was public knowledge that Fusion GPS paid

for the work, the amount had not been disclosed. Fusion
GPS hired former MI6 officer Christopher Steele to collect
information about Trump and his advisers.

Fusion GPS' statement said it had told Congress about how
$168,000 was paid last year to Orbis Business Intelligence,
Steele's company.
Paymistress: Hillary Clinton's campaign formed over $1.02 million to
Fusion GPS, run by ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson
The money paid to Orbis was taken from $1.02 million it
received in fees and expenses from the Perkins Coie law
firm, the statement said.

The law firm represented the Democratic National

Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign,
although initial research by Fusion into Trump and other
Republican primary candidates was commissioned by a
conservative website.

Steele's reports are central to investigations by a special

In the money: Ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele's company got
$168,000 for its 35-page work which included the claims about
degrading sexual practices by the now president
counsel and congressional committees into U.S.
intelligence agency allegations that Russia tried to help
Trump's campaign.
Russia had repeatedly denied the allegations. Trump
denies any collusion with Moscow officials, calling the
probes a witch hunt.

In an Oct. 29 message posted on Twitter, President Trump

said the dossier had cost as much as $12 million, without
providing evidence.
329
 'Never seen such Republican ANGER
& UNITY as I have concerning the
lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake
Dossier (now $12,000,000?),....' Trump
tweeted.

Sources familiar with Steele's work said he began working

for Fusion GPS in May 2016 and stopped with the
election.

Earlier, a Washington-based conservative website backed

by a wealthy Republican donor, the Washington Free
Beacon, hired Fusion to conduct research on Trump and
other Republican candidates.
.

330
 "He's F**Ked": Trump Blames Kushner For Mueller
Probe As West Wing "Fears Impeachment", VF Reports
By Tyler Durden
Nov 1, 2017 9:15 PM
In a new bombshell report, Vanity Fair says that for the
first time since the Mueller investigation began earlier this
year, key Trump allies in the West Wing are starting to
worry that the notion of an impeachment might be slightly
more than just a Democratic pipe dream. As former aide
Sam Nunberg said, Mueller's indictment of Paul Manafort
has sparked concerns in the White House that Mueller has
every intention of parsing through every Trump/Kushner
financial dealing until he uncovers something
incriminating.
Until now, Robert Mueller has haunted Donald Trump’s
White House as a hovering, mostly unseen menace. But by
securing indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and
a surprise guilty plea from foreign policy adviser George
Papadopoulos, Mueller announced loudly that the Russia
investigation poses an existential threat to the president.
“Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells
me: Mueller is going to go over every
financial dealing of Jared Kushner and
the Trump Organization,” said former
Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg.
“Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You
can’t go any lower. He’s fucked.”
The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of
what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to
conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the
president.
For the first time since the investigation
began, the prospect of impeachment is
331
being considered as a realistic outcome
and not just a liberal fever dream.
According to a source, advisers in the West Wing are on
edge and doing whatever they can not to be ensnared.
One person close to Dina Powell and
Gary Cohn said they’re making sure to
leave rooms if the subject of Russia
comes up.
While he has refrained so far from publicly criticizing
Special Counsel Mueller, Vanity Fair says the President is
growing increasingly frustrated and privately lashing out at
his own legal team and even son-in-law Jared Kushner,
who some around Trump have described as the
"worst political adviser in the White
House in modern history."
Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating
situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private
to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to
have no end in sight.
“Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one
person who’s been briefed on Trump’s
thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair
criticism. Clinton hasn’t gotten anything
like this. And what about Tony Podesta?
Trump is like, When is that going to
end?”
According to two sources, Trump has complained to
advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe
progress this far. Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday,
Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions,
specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey,
that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source
briefed on the call. When Roger Stone recently told Trump
that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, Trump
agreed, according to someone familiar with the
conversation.
“Jared is the worst political adviser in
the White House in modern history,”
 Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly
what everyone says behind the scenes
at Fox News, in conservative media, and
the Senate and Congress.”
Focusing on the Kushner angle, Trump is reportedly
increasingly blaming his son-in-law for his role in
decisions that led to the appointment of special counsel
Robert Mueller. In a call Tuesday to former White House
chief strategist Stephen Bannon, Trump put blame on
Kushner for the part he took in choices to fire former
national security adviser Michael Flynn and former FBI
director James Comey, Vanity Fair reported.
Roger Stone also recently said Kushner wasn't giving
Trump good advice — a sentiment which Trump
reportedly agreed with, according to someone familiar
with the conversation. Sam Nunberg, a former campaign
aide to President Trump who was fired, echoed the
statement.
"Jared is the worst political adviser in
the White House in modern history,”
Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly
what everyone says behind the scenes
at Fox News, in conservative media, and
the Senate and Congress."
Meanwhile, former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is
apparently also increasingly concerned that the
establishment GOP might jump at the opportunity to
"fuck over Trump" by supporting
impeachment proceedings.
Among other things, Bannon has proposed that Trump hire
a more aggressive head lawyer and go on the offensive to
"defund Mueller’s investigation or limit
its scope."
But these soft-power approaches are being criticized by
Trump allies including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone,
who both believe establishment Republicans are waiting
for a chance to impeach Trump.
“The establishment has proven time and
time again they will fuck Trump over,” a
Bannon ally told me.
.
332
In a series of phone calls with Trump on
Monday and Tuesday, Bannon told the
president to shake up the legal team by
installing an aggressive lawyer above
Cobb,
according to two sources briefed on the call. Bannon has
also discussed ways to pressure Congress to defund
Mueller’s investigation or limit its scope.
“Mueller shouldn’t be allowed to be a
clean shot on goal,” a Bannon confidant
told me. “He must be contested and
checked. Right now he has unchecked
power.”
Bannon’s sense of urgency is being
fueled by his belief that Trump’s hold on
power is slipping.
The collapse of Obamacare repeal, and the dimming
chances that tax reform will pass soon—many Trump
allies are deeply pessimistic about its prospects—have
created the political climate for establishment Republicans
to turn on Trump. Two weeks ago, according to a source,
Bannon did a spitball analysis of the
Cabinet to see which members would
remain loyal to Trump in the event the
25th Amendment were invoked, thereby
triggering a vote to remove the
president from office. Bannon recently
told people he’s not sure if Trump would
survive such a vote. “One thing Steve
wants Trump to do is take this more
seriously,” the Bannon confidant told me.
“Stop joking around. Stop tweeting.”
So what comes next: is the end nigh for the Trump
administration, torn apart by internal strife and intrigue,
especially if it fails to pass tax reform, or will the
administration simply slam Vanity Fair's reporting - as
Bannon did three weeks ago after the publication reported
that the former chief strategist had lost faith in Trump's
ability to complete his current term - and press on (with or
without Kushner)? And how will Mueller's probe impact
any/all of this? We look forward to the answer, knowing
that no matter the final outcome, stocks will simply keep
grinding to new, record highs.
 Twitter Admits It Buried "Podesta Email",
DNC Tweets Ahead Of The Presidential Election
By Tyler Durden
Nov 2, 2017 5:40 AM

It was approximately one year ago, when
angry tweeters alleged that Jack Dorsey et
al., were purposefully censoring and
"suppressing" certain content on Twitter,
namely anything to do with the leaked
DNC and John Podesta emails, as well
as hashtags critical of Hillary Clinton while
"shadow-banning" pro-Donald Trump
content.
We can now confirm that at least one part of the above was
true, because during today's Senate hearing,
publication of thousands of emails from the
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s
Gmail account.
The core of the hashtag was propagated
by Wikileaks, whose account sent out a
series of 118 original Tweets containing
variants on the hashtag #PodestaEmails
referencing the daily installments of the
emails released on the Wikileaks
website.

Twitter admitted it "buried", which is In the two months preceding the election,
another word for censored, significant around 57,000 users posted
portions of tweets related to hacked approximately 426,000 unique Tweets
emails from the Democratic National containing variations of the
Committee and Clinton campaign chair #PodestaEmails hashtag.
John Podesta in the months heading into
the 2016 presidential campaign. Approximately one quarter (25%) of
those Tweets received internal tags
from our automation detection systems
that hid them from searches.

As described in greater detail below, our

systems detected and hid just under
half (48%) of the Tweets relating to
variants of another notable hashtag,
#DNCLeak, which concerned the
disclosure of leaked emails from the
Democratic National Committee.

As Daily Caller's Peter Hasson reports,

Twitter’s systems hid 48 percent of
tweets using the #DNCLeak hashtag and
25 percent of tweets using
#PodestaEmails,
Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett said in his written
testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Before the election, we also detected

and took action on activity relating to
hashtags that have since been reported as
manifestations of efforts to interfere with
the 2016 election. For example, our
automated spam detection systems And yet, this glaring act of censorship was not aimed at the
helped mitigate the impact of automated sources of the alleged propaganda, but the content:
Tweets promoting the #PodestaEmails
hashtag, which originated with Wikileaks’
333
 Just 2% of the tweets using the #DNCLeak
hashtag came from “potentially Russian-
linked accounts,” Edgett said.
He also explained that Twitter hid the tweets as
“part of our general efforts at the time to
fight automation and spam on our
platform across all areas.”
...And Hillary still lost?
Just over a year ago, on the same day that Donald Trump's
"grab them by the pussy tape" was released, WikiLeaks
dumped over 30,000 hacked Podesta emails, which were
damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton,
throughout the election. A prior Wikileaks of DNC emails,
.
334
which revealed party officials secretly aided Hillary
Clinton during her primary battle against Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders , eventually cost then-DNC Chairwoman
Debbie Wasserman Shultz her job. The leaks also exposed
supposedly "neutral" journalists as pro-Clinton partisans.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russian
operatives were behind the original hacking of both the
DNC and Podesta emails, which were part of Russian
influence operations meant to disrupt the American
electoral system.
* * *
A question emerges:
Did Jack Dorsey, with his arbitrary decision
to censor specific content damaging to
Democrats, interfere with the election, and
a funnier question:
If Hillary lost with Twitter censoring anti-
Hillary content, what would the outcome
have been if Twitter actually respected
the First Amendment?
 Nunes: Dems Suddenly Very Interested In Viewing DOJ
Dossier Docs They Didn't Want Subpoenaed
By Debra Heine
November 2, 2017
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, Fox News, 11/01/2017, via YouTube.
Investigators from the House Intelligence Committee were
finally able to get a peek at classified documents related
to the controversial anti-Trump dossier behind closed
doors at the Justice Department this week, Fox News
reported. The committee's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes
(R-CA), subpoenaed the FBI and the Justice Depart-
ment over two months ago for documents relating to the
Russia dossier.
Nunes told Fox News that in a bizarre turn of events,
Democrats from the committee, who had argued all year
that there was no need for a subpoena, were the first ones
to show up at the DOJ on Tuesday to view the documents.
Republican investigators have been trying to find out how
much, if at all, federal law enforcement officers relied on
the "dodgy dossier" that was compiled by the opposition
research firm Fusion GPS and funded by the Clinton
campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and
possibly Obama for America in 2016.
"I want to know whether the nation's
premier law enforcement agency relied on
a document that looks like the National
Enquirer prepared it," Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-
S.C.), a member of the committee, put it
last week.
According to Nunes, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the
committee's ranking member, attended the session at the
Justice Department, along with two staffers for House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Two other
Democratic committee staffers also reportedly attended.
Just two Republican committee staffers attended.
"When my investigators got there, there
were four other staff from the other side of
335
the aisle, including a member of Congress -
- the ranking member from our committee
[Schiff]," Nunes told Fox News' Sandra
Smith, who was filling in for Martha
MacCallum on The Story Wednesday
evening.
"Here's the bizarre part of it," He added.
"They didn't support the subpoena. They
said there was no reason to see this
documentation -- so I don't know why they
would run down there and be the first
people to view the information."
Asked what he thinks the significance of that is, Nunes
answered:
"It tells me that they're very, very nervous
about this dossier, who paid for it, and what
we Republicans are going to find out about
it. And I'm sure that they want to know
about this so they can figure out what
narrative they're going to create to try to
get us off the scent of what actually
happened here."
As far as the oft-repeated charge that Republicans began
the work on the Steele dossier, Nunes said, "We've seen no
evidence of that." (The conservative website Washington
Free Beacon did hire Fusion GPS to look into Trump's
financial dealings, but that was done before the research
firm hired Steele and began looking into Team Trump's
Russia connections.)
Nunes said that the media, the Democrats, and even the
executive branch have tried to obstruct his investigation
into the genesis of the dossier.
 Let's Help Our Media Friends
By Walter E. Williams
November 2, 2017 2:23 PM EDT
I am not nearly so coldhearted and unsympathetic toward
the mainstream media as some of my conservative friends,
such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity,
Tucker Carlson, Chris Plante and Ann Coulter. In fact, my
heart goes out to them. As evidence of the same, if I had
President Donald Trump's ear, I'd urge him to declare this
coming Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, a day of remembrance and
order that flags be flown at half-staff on all federal
buildings. Why? It will be the anniversary of what must
have been a most traumatic day for mainstream media
people and the political pundits they interviewed. I am not
a psychologist; however, I did take several courses in
psychology and sociology as an undergraduate. Thus, I
have enough training to analyze the continuing trauma
resulting from last year's presidential election.
Days before the election, ABC News anchor George
Stephanopoulos gleefully asked his guests about it. All
except one predicted an Electoral College and popular vote
landslide for Hillary Clinton. On one MSNBC talk show,
the panelists predicted a historic defeat for Donald Trump.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow confidently and laughingly
made predictions about Trump's trouncing defeat at the
hands of Clinton. Not to be left out, there were
Republicans who confidently predicted that Trump
wouldn't even win the party's nomination, much less the
presidency.
There were many other highly confident election
predictions of Trump's defeat all over the internet and in
the media, both national and international. Take the gleeful
discussion between Maddow and Chris Matthews just prior
to the election. It would have to be pure torture to make
them watch their pre-election broadcasts.
Then, as election returns began to come in, showing
Trump becoming the next president, there were many
instances of emotional crackups. If you check out the
internet, you will find dozens of instances featuring people
crying and screaming and cursing the election results.
336
Some colleges responded to Trump's victory by having
cry-ins and primal screams. Some provided their students
with therapy dogs, coloring books, Play-Doh and videos of
playful kittens and puppies, as well as serving snacks such
as tea and chocolate. Some college administrators
encouraged or allowed faculty to cancel or postpone exams
because of the election results.
Certain people have come up with a name for the ongoing
liberal response to Clinton's defeat. They call it Trump
Derangement Syndrome. I might point out that it's not
only leftist Democrats who are in a tizzy over the election
results but also quite a few establishment Republicans.
Evidence of continuing Trump derangement syndrome can
be found in the calls for his impeachment by members of
Congress such as Maxine Waters, Al Green and Brad
Sherman. There is a treatment for TDS. Instead of
watching MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, NBC News and CBS
News, one can turn to Fox News Channel and watch Bret
Baier, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. For newspapers,
pick up The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times or
the Washington Examiner. Try listening to Rush
Limbaugh's and Mark Levin's radio shows. By no means
do I recommend that liberals go cold turkey on the
mainstream media. They should start out by listening to
conservative media for only about five minutes per day to
avoid shock. I am normally against any kind of insurance
for a pre-existing medical condition, but I'd make an
exception for TDS.
Finally, when I think of some of the wacky presidential
predictions, my mind immediately turns to 1997, when the
comet Hale-Bopp appeared. Art Bell's paranormal radio
talk show, "Coast to Coast AM," claimed that a spacecraft
was following the comet. That inspired 39 members of a
San Diego cult named Heaven's Gate, who believed that
their souls could escape the doomed Earth on the
spacecraft, to kill themselves. Unfortunately for the
predictors of Clinton's landslide win over Trump, they
haven't been spared the embarrassment of being wrong.
 ABC / CBS / NBC / CNN / MSNBC / PBS
Drop The Ball On Clinton / Uranium / Russia Scandal
By Geoffrey Dickens
November 2, 2017 11:04 AM EDT
Beginning on October 17, The Hill broke new stories on
the Clinton/Russia/Uranium scandal that deserved
extensive coverage. And while Fox News Channel has
thoroughly covered the breaking developments they’ve
been, unfortunately, the exception and not the rule in TV
news.
From October 17 through November 2 The Big Three
(ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have devoted a piddly 4
minutes and 38 seconds to the new findings. CBS
delivered a pathetic 2 minutes, 34 seconds, followed by
ABC at a scant 2 minutes, 4 seconds. Astoundingly, NBC
News has failed to devote a single second to any of the
most recent charges.
And prior to the October 17 findings the network evening
shows had only spent a miserly 3 minutes and 1 second on
the Clinton Foundation scandal in more than two years.
While CNN, MSNBC and PBS did offer some coverage of
the scandal, they mostly did so in a dismissive manner as
to snidely alert their viewers that Trump was out with a
tweet on an old story that is meant to distract from his
alleged Russia-collusion scandal.
The following is a breakdown of the worst coverage of the
latest Clinton/Uranium/Russia scandal developments:
ABC, CBS, NBC
Bribery, bullying of an informant and a Russian spy ring:
The Clinton/Russia/Uranium scandal has
all the ingredients of a juicy spy thriller, but
so far the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS)
337
networks have shied away from the key
developments in the case:
On October 18, The Hill reported that a key FBI informant
involved in the investigation of the
Clinton/Russia/Uranium scandal was threatened by the
Obama administration and warned not to publicly disclose
details.
On October 22, The Hill’s John Solomon and Alison
Spann reported the nugget that
“A female Russian spy posing as an
American accountant....used a false
identity to burrow her way into the employ
of a major Democratic donor in hopes of
gaining intelligence on Hillary Clinton’s
department.”
Not only were these tantalizing wrinkles in the scandal
blacked out network anchors, reporters and analysts
seemed intent on knocking the entire story down, on the
few occasions they bothered to mention it. On the October
29 edition of ABC’s This Week, political analyst Matthew
Dowd noted the “uranium deal, whole story...has been
debunked...all along the way.” CBS’s Face the Nation, on
October 29, invited on the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus
to call the Trump’s call to look into the uranium scandal
part of a “absolutely frantic effort to distract attention”
from accusations of Trump-Russia collusion.
MSNBC
When MSNBC brought up the uranium scandal it was
usually to dismiss the case as old news. For example, on
October 19, MSNBC’s Brian Williams finally mentioned
the words “Russia,” “uranium” and “Clinton” in the same
segment BUT it was only to dismiss President Donald
Trump’s criticism of the media’s failure to cover this
week’s new revelations in the growing scandal.
Williams began his segment on The llth Hour program, by
playing a clip of the President’s blast against the liberal
media and then recited a Trump tweet:
“Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help
and Obama Administration knowledge, is
the biggest story that Fake Media doesn’t
want to follow.”
However, instead of telling his viewers about the important
news from that week (like the fact that an FBI informant
was threatened by the Obama administration), he brought
on McClatchy White House correspondent Anita Kumar to
dismiss the story as old news that they’ve already covered.
After Williams asked Kumar to “explain to our viewers
why they’re gonna hear more on this Russia – this uranium
scandal.” Kumar responded:
“I have to say that he is wrong about one
thing. We covered a lot about uranium
during the campaign. This is a deal that
took place during the Obama
administration when Secretary Clinton was
Secretary of State and the administration
approved of it. But what he has forgotten is
that we wrote tons of stories about this
when she was a candidate for president.
She is not president. So, things aren’t –
you know – they’re not being covered as
heavily any more.”
Kumar added
“We are gonna hear about it because
Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the
Senate judiciary committee says he wants
to look into this issue because a
newspaper, The Hill, wrote about issues
with that deal many years ago. They wrote
about how there were all sorts of kickbacks
and bribery and that sort of thing.”
That’s it. Just a vague reference to “kickbacks and
bribery.”
338
CNN
Repeatedly, one CNN host and correspondent after another
shot down the uranium scandal developments.
CNN anchor Don Lemon, on the October 24 CNN Tonight,
dismissed the new uranium scandal developments as a
“shiny object” meant to distract as seen in this exchange:
DON LEMON: Do you think this is a shiny
object that they're trying to divert attention
away from the Russia investigation into
possible collusion or interfering in the
election?
CORRESPONDENT BRIAN FALLON:
Totally, Don. I think it’s of a piece with other
moves that you saw congressional
Republicans undertake today. Reopening
an investigation into a seven-year-old deal
that sold uranium in the Russian
government in 2010.
On the October 25 edition of Anderson Cooper 360,
CNN’s Tom Foreman offered a report on the Clinton-
Russia-uranium scandal, and then Cooper turned to the
pundits for analysis – or, as you might expect, for two
Clinton defenders to dismiss it all as irrelevant old news.
Foreman cited the new investigative reporting in The Hill
newspaper, and Bloomberg’s Joshua Green just pretended
it was never published:
“This is all old news. I actually wrote about
the story and how it came to be in my book
published three, four months ago. I mean,
all of this stuff came out years ago.”
On the October 27 edition of The Situation Room, anchor
Wolf Blitzer and White House correspondent Jim Acosta
also batted down the uranium scandal:
WOLF BLITZER: But let’s begin with
apparent moves to discredit the entire
Russia investigation. Up first, our senior
White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
Jim, seems like the White House is
deploying a smoke screen of distractions.
 JIM ACOSTA: It may be a Moscow
misdirection, Wolf. The White House now
appears to be putting its full weight behind
an effort to investigate Hillary Clinton for
any possible role in a uranium business
deal involving the Russians that happened
during the Obama administration. The
president is accusing Hillary Clinton of
collusion with the Russians without any
evidence.
And on the October 29 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources,
the host Brian Stelter managed to attack The Hill and Fox
News as he huffed:
“Defending President Trump can be hard to
do. So, some of his allies in the media don’t
even bother to try. Instead they change the
subject. This is a campaign of
confusion....Here is how the campaign of
confusion works. First, The Hill newspaper
revived a relatively old story about Russian
efforts to gain influence in the American
uranium industry during the Obama
administration. Fox became fixated on this
story and the messaging was clear, the
Russian investigations were recast as a
scandal for Clinton and the Dems.”
PBS
So far, PBS NewsHour has talked about the latest uranium
allegations on JUST two of their programs. On the October
30 edition of PBS’s NewsHour correspondent William
Brangham ran interference for Hillary Clinton:
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, let’s break this
down. First, Secretary Clinton didn’t have
the authority to approve the deal. Several
different U.S. agencies had to sign off on
the deal, all of which did. There is no
evidence that Clinton was informed or
involved in the sale at all. Second, the
uranium never left the country. It’s not legal
to export uranium produced in U.S. mines.
The Clinton Foundation did receive $145
million in contributions from individuals
connected to Uranium One, beginning at
least a year before the sale. And, in 2010,
the year of the sale, former President Bill
.
339
Clinton received $500,000 from a Russian
bank for a speech he gave in Moscow. For
now, those all have been deemed legal
transactions. But, still, today, Mr. Trump
once again stoked these stories on Twitter.
Then on November1 Chris Buskirk, the editor of American
Greatness, managed to get in a quick reference: “I think
that a lot of attention needs to be paid to Robert Mueller
and to Rod Rosenstein, for that matter, too. I mean these
are two people who I think the more we dig into their
records, particularly when you look at something like
Uranium One, they’re deeply compromised.”
For more on MRC’s coverage of the Clinton/
Uranium/Russia scandal please visit the following blogs:
 Jen Rubin Slams 'Disgraceful' Gillespie, 'Conservative
Media' Spreading 'Nonsense' on Clinton
 Clinton’s Cover: Nets Ignore FBI Lifting Gag Order on
Informant
 Bozell, Conservative Leaders Demand Media Cover
Clinton/Russia Uranium Deal; ‘The Censorship Must
End’
 FBI Informant in Uranium Scandal Cleared to Testify,
Nets Refuse to Report
 CNN's Paul Begala, Joshua Green Use Clinton
Playbook in Denying Uranium Scandal
 CNN Panel Dismisses GOP Push on Clinton/Russia As
'Distraction' from Trump
 Bias: 1,000 Minutes for Trump/Russia 'Collusion' vs. 20
Seconds for Hillary/Russia Scandal
 Bozell Excoriates Liberal Media’s ‘Scandalous’
‘Censorship’ of Clinton/Russia Uranium Deal
 MRC President Bozell Blasts Network Censorship of
Clinton-Uranium Scandal
 Russian Spy Tried to Infiltrate Hillary’s Circle, Nets
Censor
 Brian Williams Finally Mentions
Clinton/Russia/Uranium Scandal, Only To Dismiss It
 Of Course: CNN Ends Uranium Deal Blackout....with
19-Second Footnote
 Obama Admin ‘Threatened’ FBI Informant in
Russia/Uranium/Clinton Scandal, Nets Censor
 Networks Censor Latest Bombshell on
Russia/Uranium/Clinton Scandal
 New Evidence in Russia/Uranium/Clinton Foundation
Scandal, Will Nets Report?
 MSNBC’s Chuck Todd
Demands Dossier Facts and Rejects Them
By Nicholas Fondacaro
November 2, 2017 12:47 AM EDT
Things got very heated Wednesday evening in a taped
interview between former Trump campaign chairman Cory
Lewandowski and MTP Daily moderator Chuck Todd
when the MSNBC host refused to hear the facts behind the
Clinton-DNC connection to the Russians.
“If you're going to speak in facts, at least
speak in facts,” Todd shouted, but he just
didn’t want to hear them.
In their interview, which was taped on Tuesday, Todd
wanted to know if Lewandowski believed Russia tried to
influence the U.S. election. Of course, Lewandowski
answered in the affirmative and made the case that they
were trying to cause havoc in the election through avenues
like the infamous dossier funded by the Clinton campaign
and the Democratic National Committee.
“I know you're trying to twist this around
there and you focus there, but I'm
talking about everything we've learned,”
Todd shot back. “Do you acknowledge
that the Russians were trying everything
they could to defeat Hillary Clinton?”
Lewandowski argued that if the Russians were working
solely to sink Clinton’s campaign, then why did the
campaign spend tons of money on a firm which hired a
British spy that was working with Russian agents?
“There never has been a payment from the
Trump campaign or the RNC to anybody
attempting to coordinate with Russia to get
information. That's only come from the
Democrats,” he explained.
340
Todd appeared to go off the deep end and suggest the
whole idea of Clinton and the Dems financing the dossier
was concocted by President Trump:
You ever heard of a campaign getting
opposition research and then deciding not
to use it? You have to make the
assumption that this was all -- this grand
conspiracy that Hillary Clinton did to get
caught and somehow lose the election, it
just -- that part of it is, is a head-scratcher
here. To your story as to what you and the
President are trying to paint here.
Todd’s line of questioning regarding the campaign’s use of
the dossier or lack thereof sounds like he doubts the parties
involved were actually connected to the dossier. But it
wasn’t Trump that reported it, it was The Washington
Post back on October 24.
“The Hillary Clinton campaign and the
Democratic National Committee helped
fund research that resulted in a now-
famous dossier,” they said in the very first
sentence.
And if we’ve learned anything from the Russian contrived
Facebook ads, it’s that they were aggressively playing both
sides against each other. It had been shown that Russian
trolls were creating Facebook groups and events
promoting left-wing and right-wing causes and designed to
inflame both sides of the political aisle.
When Lewandowski mentioned that they paid millions of
dollars for the dossier, Todd flipped.
“It's a fact the lawyer, that the attorney
and the law firm that represented the
Clinton campaign in the DNC paid some
money, but you're creating a dollar
figure here, that is not a provable fact
yet.”
But that’s because the lawyer had been lying to the press
(something he should care about) about paying for it to
begin with. They’re now facing an FEC complaint because
they didn’t properly account for the dossier.
 TODD: Cory.

LEWANDOWSKI: No, no, Chuck. There never has been a

payment--

TODD: I understand.

LEWANDOWSKI: --from the Trump campaign or the RNC to

anybody attempting to coordinate with Russia to get information.
That's only come from the Democrats.

TODD: You ever heard of a campaign getting opposition

But the reason that Todd and the rest of the liberal media research and then deciding not to use it? I mean, you understand
dismissed the fact that Clinton and the DNC were working that –
(even though intermediaries) with foreign agents was that
they didn’t want their anti-Trump narrative to be negated.
LEWANDOWSKI: Of course.
When it was first discovered that Donald Trump Jr. met
TODD: -- for the conspiracy you're putting together, you have to
with a Russia lawyer in Trump Tower to get dirt on
make the assumption that this was all -- this grand conspiracy
Clinton the media exploded with claims of “treason.” On
that Hillary Clinton did to get caught and somehow lose the
the day the Don Jr. news first broke, the Big Three
election, it just -- that part of it is, is a head-scratcher here. To
Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) dedicated over 31
your story as to what you and the President are trying to paint
minutes on the story. But when The Washington Post
here.
exposed Clinton and the DNC as the dossier’s backers,
they spent six and half minutes downplaying it.
LEWANDOWSKI: Chuck, I'm laying out the facts. That the
Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee paid
Transcript below:
multiples of millions of dollars to a former MI6 special agent to
obtain information from Russia.
MSNBC
MTP Daily
TODD: Wait. That's not an established fact. Cory, that is not an
November 1, 2017
established fact. It's a fact the lawyer, that the attorney and the
5:18:21 PM Eastern
law firm that represented the Clinton campaign in the DNC paid
some money, but you're creating a dollar figure here, that is not a
(…) provable fact yet. If you're going to speak in facts, at least speak
in facts.
CHUCK TODD: I know you're trying to twist this around there and
you focus there, but I'm talking about everything we've learned. (…)
John Podesta's e-mails and the things that came out of there,
and the DNC hack. Do you acknowledge that the Russians were
trying everything they could to defeat Hillary Clinton?

CORY LEWANDOWSKI: Chuck, I don't think that's the case at

all. If that was the case, why would the DNC and why would the
Podesta team be paying this MI6 agent millions of dollars, like $9
million to go get Russia information to provide a false dossier so
they could go after Donald Trump and, look, granted, it came out
after the election. But that was a direct payment. The only
payment we have seen so far from anybody directly tied to
Russia was paid--

341
 Here’s How Much The DNC
And Clinton Campaign Paid For ‘Trump Dossier’
BY USAFEATURESMEDIA
Posted ON November 2, 2017
The Clinton campaign and the DNC were not the first to
hire Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on President Donald J.
Trump
(National Sentinel) Political Hit Job: The campaign of
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee
reportedly paid $1 million collectively for the so-called
“Trump dossier,” a collection of unsubstantiated and
salacious claims that some Republicans believe was used
by the FBI to justify surveillance warrants on the Trump
campaign.
Fusion GPS, the Washington, D.C.-based firm, made the
disclosures to the House Intelligence Committee last week,
according to Reuters.
The firm, founded by three former Wall Street Journal
reporters, also told the panel that of the $1.02 million it
received from Democrats, it paid former British spy
Christopher Steele $168,000 for his work on writing the
35-page document.
The Daily Caller noted further:
Steele, a former British intelligence officer,
was hired by Fusion GPS last June. His 35-
page dossier, chock full of allegations of
collusion between the Trump campaign
and Russian government, has been used
by the FBI as part of its investigation into
Russian interference in the presidential
election.
.
342
The payments to Fusion GPS for the
dossier were made by Perkins Coie, the
law firm that represents the Clinton
campaign and DNC. Perkins Coie partner
Marc Elias, who served as general counsel
for both entities, was the bagman for the
project, The Washington Post reported last
week.
Perkins Coie acknowledged its role in the
dossier last week, as the House
Intelligence Committee ramped up
pressure on Fusion GPS’s bank to release
the firm’s bank records.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC were not the first to
hire Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on President Donald J.
Trump. In Oct. 2015, the firm was hired by The
Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded
by billionaire megadonor Paul Singer.
Singer, a vocal critic of Trump, backed Sen. Marco Rubio
of Florida for president.
That said, the Free Beacon, which disclosed its
involvement with Fusion to the House panel on Friday,
noted that none of its opposition research made it into the
dossier.
The web site asked Fusion to end its research into Trump
after he won the Indiana primary in May 2016, on his way
to winning the GOP nomination later that summer.\
“The Daily Caller was told by
knowledgeable sources that The Free
Beacon continued paying Fusion as part of
other research until January, when
BuzzFeed News published Steele’s
dossier,” the site reported.
 WSJ's WH Reporter Bashes Trump
For Not Calling For Execution Of Already-Dead
Las Vegas Shooter
By Chris Reeves
November 2, 2017 6:28 PM EDT
Yes, you are reading the headline
correctly.
On Thursday’s Deadline: White House, Wall Street
Journal White House reporter Eli Stokols was very upset
that President Trump called for the death penalty to be
imposed on the terrorist who just killed eight people in
New York City because – wait for it – Trump didn’t also
call for the execution of the Las Vegas mass shooter.
No one bothered to tell Eli that Vegas
shooter Stephen Paddock already killed
himself.
As if that wasn’t enough, Stokols also took the opportunity
to claim that the President’s supporters are animated by
“bloodthirst” and “ethnocentric nationalism” for wanting
the Uzbek terrorist dead.
Host Nicolle Wallace and the rest of the guest panel led off
the show by diving straight into the topic of Trump’s
public support for executing Sayfullo Saipov. For the most
part, they stuck to criticizing Trump’s off-the-cuff attitude
when slinging out tweets and how the President’s specific
comments about the NYC terrorist might hinder his
prosecution. However, when Wallace turned the
conversation to Stokols, the WSJ reporter couldn’t help but
psychoanalyze Trump and his supporters as violent,
bloodthirsty racists and Islamophobes:
WALLACE: Eli, I guess I'm always
surprised, and I probably shouldn't be
anymore, but I'm always surprised when a
343
new norm is obliterated. And I asked
Jeremy Bash this question yesterday: Is
this response to the attack a norm that
was violated but that his supporters will
love or is this one where he's actually
jeopardized the case?
ELI STOKOLS: I think it's both. And I think,
you know, when you look at what he's
doing, there is a consistency in his
response to these kind of situations, to
terrorism when the terrorism appears to be
carried out by somebody who’s from an
Arab country, Muslim country, not from the
United States. This is the rhetoric that we
heard all throughout the campaign: the
bloodthirst, the aggression, the
retribution. Those are things that his
supporters really like. Now that he's
president, it is problematic, as Pete pointed
out. The fact that these are subtle legalities
basically tells you that these never once
occurred to the President because he was,
as Phil pointed out, just answering a
question. And everything is done kind of
rapid fire, in the moment, just read and
react. That's all improvisational. But it does
-- the unifying thread is the sort of
broader politics of Donald Trump, the
ethnocentric nationalism. He did not
react this way when a white person shot
dozens of people in Las Vegas. He did
not come and say: well, we have to do
an immediate policy change; we need to
give this guy the death penalty.
Wow. Well, in spite of the media constantly saying that
Trump is an idiot, we now know that at least he doesn’t
believe in killing people that are already dead.
The Wall Street Journal really needs to better police the
people that it has in important positions like the White
House press pool if it wants people to take its journalism
seriously.
Earlier today, GQ magazine writer Jay Willis ran a
headline story lamenting the same point as Stokols, namely
asking why Trump didn’t want the death penalty for the
Las Vegas shooter, but did want it for the NYC terrorist.
GQ was forced to correct the article with an editor’s note
some time before Stokols made his comments.
See below for a transcript with more context for Stokols's
statements:
4:07 PM EST
NICOLLE WALLACE: I mean, Steve Schmidt, there's an
obliviousness to the fact that he sits atop of the federal
government, a federal government whose justice system he
described yesterday as a laughing stock and a joke.
STEVE SCHMIDT: Well, the comments are revelatory in two
regards. First, it just shows his total lack of rigor in making any
pronouncements. This is someone who revels in his
unpreparedness. It's an improvisational act. There's no thought
that goes into anything that comes out of his mouth from the
callousness displayed towards Puerto Ricans, La David
Johnson's widow, across the board. And secondly, what it shows,
I think, is a real contempt and a real lack of -- a real ignorance for
the concept of the rule of law. And you see it over and over
again: his denigration of the federal judiciary, the Comey firing.
We're a nation of laws and we've never had a situation where the
President of the United States has such pronounced and
profound indifference to the concept of the rule of law. So his
comments, though not surprising, are inappropriate, as they
almost always are.
WALLACE: Eli, I guess I'm always surprised, and I probably
shouldn't be anymore, but I'm always surprised when a new norm
is obliterated. And I asked Jeremy Bash this question yesterday:
Is this response to the attack a norm that was violated but that
his supporters will love or is this one where he's actually
jeopardized the case?
344
ELI STOKOLS: I think it's both. And I think, you know, when you
look at what he's doing, there is a consistency in his response to
these kind of situations, to terrorism when the terrorism appears
to be carried out by somebody who’s from an Arab country,
Muslim country, not from the United States. This is the rhetoric
that we heard all throughout the campaign: the bloodthirst, the
aggression, the retribution. Those are things that his supporters
really like. Now that he's president, it is problematic, as Pete
pointed out. The fact that these are subtle legalities basically tells
you that these never once occurred to the President because he
was, as Phil pointed out, just answering a question. And
everything is done kind of rapid fire, in the moment, just read and
react. That's all improvisational. But it does -- the unifying thread
is the sort of broader politics of Donald Trump, the ethnocentric
nationalism. He did not react this way when a white person shot
dozens of people in Las Vegas. He did not come and say: well,
we have to do an immediate policy change; we need to give this
guy the death penalty. He did not call for this after Charlottesville
when the criminal here did the exact same thing as the person in
this case–driving a vehicle into a crowd.
EUGENE ROBINSON: [interjecting] Yeah.
STOKOLS: You step back from all this and you view it in the
context of his broader political appeal, it's not surprising at all.
ROBINSON: Exactly. You shouldn't be surprised. You know,-
WALLACE: [joking, interrupting] I’m working, I’m in therapy. I’m
on, like, step seven. [laughing]
ROBINSON: -norm after norm after norm, I mean, come on!
[laughs] I thought we had progressed further than this, okay?
We've just been set back. Uh, no. This is who he is. As Steve
said, he's improvisational. As Eli said, he is obsessed with
projecting this image of strength. Now, people who are obsessed
with projecting an image of strength are generally insecure and
feel inadequate in some way. But that be be [sic] that as it may,
that is who it is. That’s who he is, and he's President of the
United States right now. So he says totally inappropriate things.
And he -- I mean, for the President to jump into the middle of a
criminal prosecution is not done, but, yeah it is.
WALLACE: Right.
(...)
 Is Kim Jong Un A Terrorist?
Trump Considers Putting North Korea
Back On Terror List
By Harriet Sinclair
11/2/17 At 6:23 PM
The Trump administration would consider reinstating
North Korea on the list of countries considered to be state
sponsors of terrorism.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Thursday
the relisting of North Korea "is an option that’s under
consideration. The president’s Cabinet is looking at this as
part of the overall strategy on North Korea,” according
to The Hill.
“You’ll hear more about that soon, I
think,” McMaster added.
North Korea had been on the list from 1988 until its
removal in 2008 by President George W. Bush, despite the
former president adding North Korea along with Iran and
President Saddam Hussein's Iraq as part of the so-called
"Axis of Evil," a label that was later expanded to include
Syria, Cuba and Muammar Gaddafi's Libya.
.
345
The decision to remove North Korea from the list—which
currently has just three other countries on it including Iran,
Syria and Sudan—came as the Bush administration
attempted to encourage the isolated nation to cease its
nuclear ambitions.
McMaster’s comments emerged as tensions between the
U.S. and North Korea have become increasingly
strained—with a fiery rhetoric coming from President
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un over the past few
months.
The national security adviser also cited the assassination of
Kim’s half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, who was poisoned in
Malaysia last February with a prohibited substance
classified by the United Nations as a "weapon of mass
destruction."
“A regime who murders someone in a
public airport using nerve agent—that’s
clearly an act of terrorism,” McMaster said,
hinting to the administration’s current
feeling on the future terror designation of
North Korea.
However, the decision to classify a country as a state
sponsor of terrorism must come following evidence
reviewed by the secretary of state that shows a country has
backed terrorism.
Thus far, the State Department has refused to indicate
whether it will pursue such a designation against North
Korea.
 ‘Fantasyland Nonsense Talk’; MSNBC’s Schmidt,
Wallace Lose It When Guest Mentions Uranium One
By Curtis Houck
November 2, 2017 7:19 PM EDT
Buckle up, everyone. On Thursday’s Deadline: White
House, the MSNBC show descended into chaos as liberal
Republicans Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace lost their
minds in shouting down former Vice President Pence aide
Marc Lotter when he warned against speculation into the
Mueller probe and brought up the dossier and Uranium
One stories.
Among other insults, Lotter was accused of
spreading “propaganda” and participating
in “an absolute, premeditated
misinformation campaign designed to
spin and mislead the American people”
with the Clinton-Russian uranium deal and
Fusion GPS dossier stories promulgated by
Fox News.
The first fight took place over the Mueller probe when
Wallace pressed Lotter about George Papadopoulos and
what she already decided was evidence of collusion
between the Trump campaign and Russian (even though
she hasn’t seen it.).
Lotter stated that “we don't know what
Bob Mueller knows” and, even with
Monday’s indictments, “there has been no
evidence of any kind of collusion
between the Trump campaign and
Russia.”
Immediately, Wallace got angry and defensive, acting as
though she’s being fed information by Mueller and sharing
it on background and off the record with viewers:
WALLACE: Why do you keep saying that?
How do you know?
346
LOTTER: Has there been any evidence? I
mean, we’re supposed to be dealing in
[INAUDIBLE] here. Facts, not speculation.
This didn’t sit well with the failed McCain campaign aide.
In response, Wallace wanted to know if Lotter trusted
Mueller to do his job and when Lotter stated that he trusted
the legal “process to play out,” that was deemed
unacceptable:
WALLACE: Bob Mueller is invest — but
why are you so eager to get ahead of Bob.
Do you trust Bob Mueller?
LOTTER: I'm not going to make a judgment
on Bob Mueller. The former FBI director is
—
WALLACE: You don’t know if you can trust
Bob Mueller? He’s the former FBI director
after 9/11. He prevented — are you —
LOTTER: He will make his determination.
WALLACE: — yes or no. Do you trust Bob
Mueller?
LOTTER: I would trust the process to play
out the way it's meant to be played out.
Right now, we have no —
WALLACE: Why can't you say you trust a
former FBI director who worked for
Republicans and Democrats who kept this
country safe after the worst terror attacks
on our soil?
LOTTER: It’s not my —
WALLACE: You can't say you trust Bob
Mueller?
LOTTER: It’s not my job to come here and
say who I trust and don’t trust.
WALLACE: You can't say that? I hope
they're paying you a lot of money.
Yeesh. If anyone wants to lecture a guest about being a
sellout, Wallace is one of the last people in the news media
to be making that claim. Not to be left out, fellow McCain
campaign flack and MSNBC liberal GOPer Schmidt
jumped in.
Schmidt argued that it’s already a done deal that the
Trump campaign and Russia colluded during the election.
This, of course, was without any direct evidence. Schmidt
cited the indictment of former campaign chairman Paul
Manafort, but Lotter correctly shot back that Manafort’s
charges have nothing to do with the campaign.
Schmidt continued:
Donald Trump Jr. met at the invitation of
Russian nationals in an e-mail that was
titled, you know, essentially from the
Russian government to get dirt on the
Democratic nominee for president of the
United States. And from the Vice
President...in every instance, from the Vice
President to the Attorney General to the
press secretary, the press secretaries,
every single person around this
administration, when asked a direct
question about contacts with the Russians,
on this issue, has lied about it. 100% of the
time and the lie has unraveled.
The temper tantrum continued when Schmidt argued
against discussion of Uranium One and the Trump dossier
because it’s proof Lotter is
“engaged and involved in here is an
absolute, premeditated misinformation
campaign designed to spin and mislead
the American people.”
“This whole charge of collusion with
regard to the Democrats is complete
and total fantasyland nonsense talk that
is propagated on Fox News, propagated
in the conservative media and you're
not — you’re not being honest about it
in the representations that you're
making,” Schmidt bewailed.
Hmm. It’s like Schmidt doesn’t think people can care
about more than one thing at once, all taking the Mueller
probe, the Trump dossier, and Uranium one stories
seriously.
Lotter started responding to Schmidt’s unhinged
conniption, but he only made it so far before Wallace and
Schmidt went bananas:
LOTTER: Steve, here are the facts that we
know that started with The Washington
Post. I think you've probably heard of them.
Not Fox News. It started with the Clinton
campaign paying hundreds of thousands of
dollars if not millions of dollars to Fusion
GPS which went out and hired a foreign
operative who Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton's
347
former spokesperson says, I would have
gone out and helped him if I could have.
They went on and then worked with
Kremlin-tied connections to provide
misinformation about then candidate, later
President-elect of the United States and to
make matters worse, the Hillary Clinton
campaign, through their operatives,
peddled this trash —
WALLACE: Marc, I will —
LOTTER: — to the American people
starting last summer —
SCHMIDT: Nonsense!
LOTTER: — through the fall.
SCHMIDT: Just nonsense!
WALLACE: Marc, hey, hey —
SCHMIDT: Nonsense!
What’s noteworthy here is Schmidt and Wallace did
nothing to refute Lotter except engage in name-calling and
shouting. Such behavior can win some people over, but not
everyone.
For example,
Wallace told Lotter that she “will call
some friends at Fox and try to get you a
booking but we’re not going to peddle”
his supposed garbage.
She then demanded that he accept the premise that
collusion occurred and, when Lotter, didn’t take the bait,
she again dove into the gutter:
WALLACE: You are being madly
defensive. You are about to jump through
the camera and punch Steve Schmidt in
the neck.
LOTTER: Well, when I get called — when I
get called being untrustworthy, I’ll fight
back.
ALLACE: Why can't you say it's possible
collusion took place? It's probably going to
end up that they tried and were
incompetent colluders. But what we’re — if
it's not a crime, why are you guys — why is
it such a raw nerve for you guys?
Lotter countered with what he referred to as a double
standard between the Mueller probe and what the Clinton
campaign and DNC did on the Trump dossier. Wallace
flashed pure pettiness by telling him that she would
 “send an e-mail over friends at Fox and
you can peddle your propaganda
there.”
She could have stopped when she replied that her show has
covered Uranium One in the past, but such civility was
nowhere to be found on the set of this MSNBC show.
Here’s the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Deadline:
White House on November 2:
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
November 2, 2017
4:29 p.m. Eastern
STEVE SCHMIDT: Well, I want to address something very
directly that Marc said that there's no evidence of collusion. Of
course, that's not true. The chairman of the campaign, now under
indictment, Paul Manafort.
MARC LOTTER: For nothing that had do to with —
SCHMIDT: Donald Trump — Donald Trump Jr. and Jared
Kushner
LOTTER: That was back in — that was history.
SCHMIDT: — don't interrupt me. I'm talking.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Marc, Marc, let Steve —
SCHMIDT: Donald Trump Jr. met at the invitation of Russian
nationals in an e-mail that was titled, you know, essentially from
the Russian government to get dirt on the Democratic nominee
for president of the United States. And from the Vice President —
LOTTER: And Hillary Clinton paid —
WALLACE: Hang on. Hang on, Mark. We'll let you respond. We'll
let you respond.
SCHMIDT: — in every instance, from the Vice President to the
Attorney General to the press secretary, the press secretaries,
348
every single person around this administration, when asked a
direct question about contacts with the Russians, on this issue,
has lied about it. 100% of the time and the lie has unraveled. And
with regard to the uranium deal in the dossier, I think that what
you’re engaged and involved in here is an absolute, premeditated
misinformation campaign designed to spin and mislead the
American people. This whole charge of collusion with regard to
the Democrats is complete and total fantasyland nonsense talk
that is propagated on Fox News, propagated in the conservative
media —
LOTTER: It started in The Washington Post.
SCHMIDT: — and you're not — you’re not being honest about it
in the representations that you're making.
(....)
WALLACE: I will call some friends at Fox and try to get you a
booking but we’re not going to peddle — that's not true and all
we’re asking — listen. We appreciate that you come here and
speak on behalf of Donald Trump, but why can't you say that we
don't know if — I mean, we know there was attempted collusion
and, if it's not a crime, why are you so defensive about it?
LOTTER: I’m not being defensive. You are accusing me of lying.
WALLACE: You are being madly defensive. You are about to
jump through the camera and punch Steve Schmidt in the neck.
LOTTER: Well, when I get called — when I get called being
untrustworthy, I’ll fight back.
WALLACE: Why can't you say it's possible collusion took place?
It's probably going to end up that they tried and were
incompetent colluders. But what we’re — if it's not a crime, why
are you guys — why is it such a raw nerve for you guys?
LOTTER: Well, here’s the question. Here's the double standard.
So you talk about these issues here which you say amount to
collusion, but the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic
National Committee go out and pay for this and peddle it and
that's just opposition research.
WALLACE: Well, you don't know that we haven't covered that LOTTER: It’s considered opposition research and brushed away.
story. Ken Dilanian is with us and we have covered Uranium
One. WALLACE: I'll send an e-mail over friends at Fox and you can
peddle your propaganda there.

349
 Hillary's DNC Coup: Clinton Took Over The Democratic
Party Months Before She Ran In Astonishing Move That
Rigged Entire System In Her Favor, Reveals Ex
Party Boss Donna Brazile
 Donna Brazile Took Over The DNC When Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Stepped Down Following
The Release Of Leaked Internal Emails
 She Conducted Her Own Review After Emails Showed Aides Tipping The Scales In Favor Of Hillary
Clinton During Bernie Sanders' Primary Challenge
 She Now Reveals She Uncovered A Joint Fundraising Agreement That Gave Clinton Virtual Control
Over The DNC Just Four Months After She Announced Her Run
 Money Diverted From State Parties In 'Unethical' Arrangement
 She Told Sanders: 'I've Completed My Review Of The DNC And I Did Find The Cancer'
 She Has Written A Book, 'Hacks: The Inside Story Of The Break-Ins And Breakdowns That Put
Donald Trump In The White House'
By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor For Dailymail.Com
Published: 10:53 EST, 2 November 2017 | Updated: 18:37 EST, 2 November 2017

Hillary Clinton's campaign seized control of the
Democratic National Committee months before she won
her party's nomination, diverted resources away from
struggling state parties, and allowed the national party to
accumulate a mountain of debt, writes former DNC
interim chair Donna Brazile.
the party—she let Clinton's headquarters in
Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn't have
to inform the party officers how bad the
situation was,' Brazile writes in an essay in
Politico magazine.

Brazile has written a tell-all article about the dysfunction

and mismanagement she uncovered at the organization she
was brought in to run after hacked emails revealed efforts
by party insiders to tilt the scales toward Clinton.

Brazile, who was herself thrown into controversy when it

was revealed she passed on debate questions to the Clinton
camp, unloads on her predecessor, Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, and discloses a smoking gun
document in the form of a fundraising agreement that sent
resources to the Clinton camp.

Astonishingly, Elizabeth Warren - who campaigned with

Clinton - said she believed Brazile.
Asked on CNN by Jake Tapper: 'Do you
agree with notion that it was rigged' she
answered simply: 'Yes.'
Former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile has written a
scorching book about the Clinton camp's virtual takeover
of the party before she got the Democratic nomination
Brazile only learned of the party's financial troubles in July
after she was named interim chair after Wasserman
Schultz stepped down, in a call with CFO Gary Gensler.
'What?' I screamed. 'I am an officer of the
party and they've been telling us everything
is fine and they were raising money with no
problems,' she writes that she told him.

'Debbie was not a good manager. She One culprit was President Obama, who failed to refill party
hadn't been very interested in controlling coffers after his 2012 win.

350
 before the Washington Post broke the
news,' she writes.

When the Hillary Victory Fund organized big donors

fundraisers who cut checks that were to go to state parties,
the funds came back to her won Brooklyn headquarters.

Hillary Clinton on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Credit:

Comedy Central/The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Brazile says she called rival Bernie Sanders had told him
she had discovered 'cancer' in the organization

Former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile writes in a new book that
Hillary Clinton virtually took overthe DNC just four months after
she announced her run, before she even got the nomination
'Obama left the party $24 million in debt—
$15 million in bank debt and more than $8
million owed to vendors after the 2012
campaign and had been paying that off
very slowly. Obama's campaign was not
scheduled to pay it off until 2016,' Brazile
writes.

Clinton's fundraising took care of the remaining debt - then Brazile blasts Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida,
put the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral until there is who stepped down as chair during the campaign following
a nominee, on 'an allowance.' the release of hacked emails

Gensler laid out the state of affairs in a phone call. 'He 'Money in the battleground states usually
described the party as fully under the control of Hillary's stayed in that state, but all the other states
campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the funneled that money directly to the DNC,
Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, which quickly transferred the money to
giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, Brooklyn,' according to Brazile.
while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising
clearing house,' according to Brazile. States 'kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million
they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers
She says Wasserman Schultz ignored her board of Hillary's campaign was holding,' according to Brazile.
directors, including on the bombshell development that
Russia hacked the DNC's emails. The party was burning through up to $4 million each
month.
'She seemed to make decisions on her own
and let us know at the last minute what she
had decided, as she had done when she
told us about the hacking only minutes
351
 'When I got back from a vacation in
Martha's Vineyard, I at last found the
document that described it all:
The Joint Fund-Raising Agreement
between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund,
and Hillary for America,' according to
Brazile.

In exchange for its fundraising,

'Hillary would control the party's finances,

strategy, and all the money raised. Her
campaign had the right of refusal of who
would be the party communications
director, and it would make final decisions She said she was searching for evidence of 'internal
on all the other staff,' according to Brazile. corruption' before she found the agreement. It wasn't
illegal, 'but it sure looked unethical,' she writes.

She writes that she called Sanders to tell him what she'd
found.

'Hello, senator. I've completed my review of

the DNC and I did find the cancer,' she
says she told him. 'But I will not kill the
patient.'

She says she urged Sanders to urge his supporters to back

Clinton anyway, and says she told him she had concerns
about Clinton holding together the Obama coalition.

'When I hung up the call to Bernie, I started

Brazile describes a joint fundraising agreement between to cry, not out of guilt, but out of anger. We
Clinton and the DNC as a smoking gun would go forward. We had to,' she writes.

352
 Bannon Says Trump Unable
To Survive Impeachment Vote - Reports
© Ap Photo/ Pablo Martinez Monsivais - Us
14:48 02.11.2017(Updated 14:49 02.11.2017)
While, according to a poll, support for Donald Trump's
impeachment has risen among US citizens, former White
House strategist Stephen Bannon has commented on
Trump's chances of surviving an impeachment vote.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Former White House strategist
Stephen Bannon believes that US President Donald Trump
most likely would not be able to keep his post in the event
of an impeachment vote, if it took place, the magazine
Vanity Fair reported.
According to the magazine, citing sources, Bannon had
conducted a study, on which members of the government
would remain loyal to Trump, if the 25th amendment
to the US Constitution (on early termination of the
president's duties) were applied. Bannon and ex-adviser
to Trump's campaign headquarters, Roger Stone, believe
that the representatives of the Republican Party "are
waiting for a chance to impose a Trump impeachment," the
report said.
"One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take this more
seriously. Stop joking around. Stop tweeting," a source
close to Bannon said, as quoted by the publication.
.
353
According to the publication's sources, Bannon told Trump
during telephone calls on Monday and Tuesday that the
president needed to install an assertive lawyer to stand
above his lawyer Ty Cobb, who is in charge of managing
issues related to the ongoing investigations into alleged
Russian interference in the election and possible collusion
by Moscow with the Trump campaign. Also, Bannon
discussed two methods of putting pressure on Congress,
in order to deprive US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation of financing or limit its scope.
The US Congress is currently investigating Russia's
alleged meddling in last year's US presidential election.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been
carrying out a similar investigation. A number of hearings
regarding the issue have been held in Congress,
but intelligence service officials have not provided any
evidence, claiming that the information is confidential.
Russia denies meddling in the 2016 US election, calling
the accusations absurd.
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his
campaign deputy and former business associate Richard
Gates were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts,
including the violation of the law on foreign agents and
money laundering. The prosecution believes that
during the term of Victor Yanukovych, as President
of Ukraine, Manafort and Gates engaged in a multi-million
dollar lobbying campaign in the United States on behalf
of Yanukovych and his government.
In summer, two Democratic Congressmen, Brad Sherman
and Al Green, called for impeaching Trump because he
had allegedly obstructed justice during the investigation
of the "ties" of his presidential campaign to Russia. On
Tuesday, a fresh poll revealed US voters' support
for impeaching Donald Trump had reached a record high
of 49 percent.
 Nets Refuse To Acknowledge Revelation
That Dem Primary Was ‘Rigged’ For Clinton
By Nicholas Fondacaro
November 2, 2017 9:26 PM EDT

against insurgent candidate Bernie

Sanders.”

In an essay for Politico on Thursday, former interim

Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile
dropped a bombshell on the DNC and the Hillary Clinton
campaign. In the piece, which was an excerpt from her Reading from Brazile’s account of her internal
upcoming book, Brazile exposed how “the DNC was investigation, Rosen quoted the section on
rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary”
through a shady and ethically questionable financial
“the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement
arrangement. Even though it seemed like a plot in House of
between the DNC, the Hillary Victory
Cards, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC)
Fund, and Hillary for America”:
had a complete blackout of any mention of the news
during their evening broadcasts.
“The agreement,” Brazile writes, “signed by Amy Dacey,
the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook of the
The reason the networks wanted to keep Brazile’s findings
Clinton campaign with a copy to the general counsel Marc
secret was simple: They didn’t want to ruin their narrative
Elias specified that in exchange for raising money and
that Clinton was a pure angel who was a victim of Donald
investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party's
Trump and Russian collusion. But in recent weeks, it had
finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign
come out that Clinton had the DNC in her pocket and they
had the right of refusal of who would be the Party
both were funneling money to Fusion GPS and
communications director and it would make final decisions
Christopher Steele so they could work with Russian agents
on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to
to get dirt on Donald Trump.
consult with the campaign about all other staffing,
budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
For the Spanish-language networks, NBC-owned
Telemundo followed the example and omitted Brazile
The agreement was essentially for Clinton to buy out the
from their broadcast. In stark contrast, Univision was the
DNC and take it over as an arm of her campaign. The ink
only one to mention the Brazile revelation and dedicated
was dry a mere four months after she announced her
two minutes and 30 seconds to it.
presidency and not even a year before she finally put
Sanders away. It’s worth noting that even with the DNC
“The former head of the Democratic rigged in her favor, Clinton had an extraordinarily hard
National Committee skewers Hillary time locking up the nomination for herself.
Clinton in a new book about the 2016
election,” announced Fox News Anchor
Rosen reached out to the Clinton campaign for comment,
Bret Baier during Special Report. “As Chief
but as would be expected they declined to say anything.
Washington Correspondent reports
But when they reached out to the DNC chair at the time,
James Rosen reports, Donna Brazile
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told them she
now charges the system was rigged
was proud of her work there.

354
And while Brazile claimed to have found no other instance
of the Party being tilted in Clinton’s favor, she did omit
how she pasted Hillary Clinton questions for the CNN
debate.
“But in an essay for Time magazine last
May, Brazile belatedly acknowledged
having done so and called it a mistake
she will regret forever,” Rosen recalled.
What we’ve learned over the last couple weeks was that
Clinton was doing everything to ensure her entitled
victory, even the unethical and dirty. And the networks
showed the lengths they would go through to keep her as
clean as possible.
Transcript below:
Fox News Channel
Special Report
November 2, 2017
6:19:51 PM Eastern
BRET BAIER: The former head of the Democratic National
Committee skewers Hillary Clinton in a new book about the 2016
election. As Chief Washington Correspondent reports James
Rosen reports, Donna Brazile now charges the system was
rigged against insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders.
[Cuts to video]
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER 1: We wanted to try to get reaction
on the Donna Brazile revelations this morning Mr. Sanders.
JAMES ROSEN: Bernie Sanders had no comment on Donna
Brazile, former interim Democratic National Committee chair,
whose forthcoming memoir alleges in an excerpt in Politico that
under her predecessor, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman
Schultz, quote: “The DNC was rigging the system to throw the
primary to Hillary.”
HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you for the great convention we've
had.
ROSEN: Brazile reports that the Clinton campaign raised $10
million to retire 80 percent of the Party’s bank debt, but exacted a
steep price:
“The agreement,” Brazile writes, “signed by Amy Dacey, the
former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook of the Clinton
.
355
campaign with a copy to the general counsel Marc Elias specified
that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC,
Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the
money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who
would be the Party communications director and it would make
final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required
to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting,
data, analytics, and mailings. This victory fund agreement had
been signed in August of 2015, just four months after Hillary
announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially
had the nomination.”
JOE TRIPPI: There are lots of things shocking about it. One, the
financial condition of the DNC. Two, the way the DNC then had
to rely on the Clinton campaign for the money and the resources
to continue even operating.
ROSEN: In a statement, Wasserman Schultz told Fox News
she's proud of her work at DNC and urged Democrats to remain
focused on a Progressive agenda.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER 2: Madam Secretary, any response
to what Donna Brazile is saying?
ROSEN: The Clinton campaign did not respond to our query, nor
would the Federal Elections Commission disclose whether it's
investigating Brazile's allegations. Brazile said she search for
other evidence of a rigged primary and found none.
(…)
Yet, the excerpt neglects to mention that Brazile used her dual
role as a CNN commentator to steer CNN debate questions to
Clinton in advance. For months Brazile denied having done so.
MEGYN KELLY: Where did you get it?
DONNA BRAZILE: You know, as a Christian woman, I
understand persecution but I will not sit here and be persecuted
because your information is totally false.
[Cuts back to live]
ROSEN: But in an essay for Time magazine last May, Brazile
belatedly acknowledged having done so and called it a mistake
she will regret forever. The DNC’s new leadership told reporters
they restructured the Party’s fund-raising and are now committed
to electing Democrats every year in every zip code.
I Would Have Beaten Bernie But 'Crooked Hillary' STOLE
The Nomination Insists Trump As He Says FBI Must 'Do
What Is Right' And Investigate Her Following Bombshell
Revelation She Won Nomination By
Hijacking Democratic Party
 President Donald Trump Is Alleging Hillary Clinton And The Democratic National Committee
Violated Campaign Finance And Money Laundering Laws
 He Tweeted That Clinton 'Stole' The Democratic Primary From Bernie Sanders
 He Wrote That 'Everybody' Is Asking Why The Justice Department Isn't Probing Clinton
 Says Clinton 'Stole' The Primary Election
 Said He Was 'Disappointed' In The Justice Department
 Trump Believes Clinton Broke A Joint Fundraising Agreement Signed In 2015
 Donna Brazile Took Over The DNC In 2016 And Conducted Her Own Review
 It Showed Aides Managed To Tip The Scales In Favor Of Hillary Clinton During Bernie Sanders'
Primary Challenge
 Brazile Reveals She Uncovered A Joint Fundraising Agreement That Gave Clinton Virtual Control
Over The DNC Just Four Months After She Announced Her Run
 Brazile Said Said Agreement 'Was Not Illegal, But It Sure Looked Unethical'
 She Has Written A Book, 'Hacks: The Inside Story Of The Break-Ins And Breakdowns That Put
Donald Trump In The White House'
By Geoff Earle, Depty U.S. Political Editor For Dailymail.Com
Published: 22:31 Edt, 2 November 2017 | Updated: 11:07 Edt, 3 November 2017

President Donald Trump stoked intra-party Democratic

tensions as he took off for a trip to Asia – accusing The president posted the accusations after his plane had
'Crooked' Hillary Clinton of 'cheating' and stealing her taken off from Joint Base Andrews for Hawaii.
primary win over Sen. Bernie Sanders and urged a
criminal probe

He picked up on sensational charges in a new book by a

leading Democratic operative – and leaned on his own
Justice Department to probe his election rival even as his
own campaign remains under investigation for Russia ties.

'I always felt I would be running and

winning against Bernie Sanders, not
Crooked H, without cheating, I was right,'
Trump tweeted late Friday morning as he
began his trip.
'Bernie Sanders supporters have every
right to be apoplectic of the complete theft
of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!' Trump has accused his 2016 opponent of having stolen her
Trump wrote. primary victory from Sanders, a Vermont senator – as he
repeatedly encouraged the FBI to investigate.
'She stole the election from Bernie. So
that’s what you want to take a look at,' said
President Trump 'Honestly they should be looking at the
Democrats,' he said of his own Justice
Department, after acknowledging Thursday
356
 it was wise not his role to interfere in the
judicial process.

Trump alleged that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic

National Committee violated campaign finance and money
laundering laws in the run up to the 2016 Presidential
Election and the primaries that proceeded it.

Trump called for the FBI and Justice to 'do what is right
and proper'

'I'm really not involved with the Justice

The president accused his 2016 rival of 'cheating'
Department. I'd like to let it run itself. But
honestly they should be looking at the
Democrats. They should be looking at
Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They
should be looking at a lot of things. And a
lot of people are disappinted in the Justice
Department, including me,' Trump said.

He was referring to Democratic power lobbyist Tony

Podesta, who stepped down from his firm after reports the
firm did work for a Ukrainian political party that wasn't
properly disclosed.

Trump said Sanders supporters had the right to be Trump tweeted Friday morning that 'everybody' is asking
'apoplectic' why the FBI wasn't investigating his primary rival.

He amped up his attack Friday morning shortly before

beginning his trip to Asia, while pushing back the latest
developments in the Russia probe, including claims by two
former campaign aides that he entertained a proposal
during a March 2016 security meeting with aides to meet
with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

'All I can tell you is this. There was no

collusion,' Trump told reporters. 'You want
to look at Hillary Clinton and you want to
look at the new book that was just put out
by Donna Brazile, where she basically
bought the DNC and she stole the election
from Bernie. So that’s what you want to
take a look at. President Trump believes Hillary Clinton broke a joint
fundraising agreement signed in 2015

Although he didn't explicitly repeat his campaign call to

'lock her up,' he went back to his favorite 2016 moniker,
labeling her 'Crooked Hillary,' following stunning
disclosures by former Democratic Party interim chair
Donna Brazile that Clinton siphoned money out of the
party and effectively took it over months before she
captured her party's nomination.
Trump wrote that 'everybody' is asking about the DOJ and
'Crooked' Hillary Clinton 'Everybody is asking why the Justice
Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all
He referenced a stunning new book by Donna Brazile of the dishonesty going on with Crooked

357
 Hillary & the Dems,' Trump wrote in the first
tweet in a series Friday morning.
'New Donna B book says she paid for and
stole the Dem Primary. What about the
deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the
Server, plus, plus...People are angry. At
some point the Justice Department, and
the FBI, must do what is right and proper.
The American public deserves it!' Trump
said.
The tweet was in response to an explosive piece by former
Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna
Brazile in her upcoming book.
Brazile alleges that she found 'proof' the 2016 Democratic
primary was rigged in Clinton's favor. She notes, however,
that she believes no laws were violated.
The fundraising agreement, signed in August 2015 during
the primary process, was unusual for an open seat.

Then Trump brought back another of his famous insults, Months later, Clinton's chief challenger, independent
this time for Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator who got Senator Bernie Sanders, signed his own agreement with
edged out by Clinton. the party.

Just Thursday, Trump had seemed to acknowledge that it
wasn't his place to tell the Justice Department whom to
investigate.
In the piece, Brazile alleges that before Clinton became the
Democratic nominee, her campaign signed a joint
fundraising agreement with the DNC and Hillary Victory
Fund, in which her campaign would finance the DNC in
exchange for oversight from the Clinton campaign.

Usually, the nominee doesn't take over fundraising until

after they have accepted the nomination.

'This is real collusion and dishonesty,'

Trump says.

Speaking on Fox News on Thursday night, the President

said that he felt sorry for Bernie Sanders who lost the
Democratic primary to Mrs. Clinton.

''I think it's a major story. It's illegal and it's

'The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked really very unfair to Bernie Sanders. I got a
Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from lot of his votes when he thrown out, but I
Crazy Bernie!' Trump wrote Friday
thought it was terrible,' Mr. Trump said.
'But you know the saddest thing, because
I'm the president of the United States I am
not supposed to be involved with the
Justice Department. I am not supposed to
be involved with the FBI,' Trump told
WMAL's Larry O'Connor.
'I'm not supposed to be doing the kinds of
things I would love to be doing and I'm very
frustrated by it,' the president
acknowledged.

On Thursday, Trump tweeted,

'Donna Brazile just stated the DNC

RIGGED the system to illegally steal the
Primary from Bernie Sanders. Bought and
paid for by Crooked H....' In a late-night Tweet, President Trump alleged Hillary
Clinton and the Democratic National Committee violated
'This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major campaign finance and money laundering laws in the 2016
violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Election
Money Laundering - where is our Justice
Department?' the President continued in a
second Tweet.
358
 situation was,' Brazile writes in an essay in
Politico magazine.

Brazile has written a tell-all article about the dysfunction

and mismanagement she uncovered at the organization she
was brought in to run after hacked emails revealed efforts
by party insiders to tilt the scales toward Clinton.
Brazile only learned of the party's financial troubles in July
Brazile, who was herself thrown into controversy when it after she was named interim chair after Wasserman
was revealed she passed on debate questions to the Clinton Schultz stepped down, in a call with CFO Gary Gensler.
camp, unloads on her predecessor, Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, and discloses a smoking gun
'What?' I screamed. 'I am an officer of the
document in the form of a fundraising agreement that sent
party and they've been telling us everything
resources to the Clinton camp.
is fine and they were raising money with no
problems,' she writes that she told him.
Astonishingly, Elizabeth Warren - who campaigned with
Clinton - said she believed Brazile.
One culprit was President Obama, who failed to refill party
coffers after his 2012 win.
Asked on CNN by Jake Tapper:

'Do you agree with notion that it was rigged'

she answered simply:
'Yes.'
'This is a real problem but what we've got
to do its to hold this party accountable,' she
said.

Brazille alleges that Hillary Clinton's campaign seized

control of the Democratic National Committee months
before she won her party's nomination.
Hillary Clinton on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Credit:
Comedy Central/The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
It resulted in diverting resources away from struggling
state parties, and allowed the national party to accumulate
a mountain of debt, writes former DNC interim chair Former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile writes in a new
Donna Brazile. book that Hillary Clinton virtually took overthe DNC just
four months after she announced her run, before she even
got the nomination
Former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile has written a
scorching book about the Clinton camp's virtual takeover
of the party before she got the Democratic nomination 'Obama left the party $24 million in debt—
$15 million in bank debt and more than $8
million owed to vendors after the 2012
'Debbie was not a good manager. She
campaign and had been paying that off
hadn't been very interested in controlling very slowly. Obama's campaign was not
the party—she let Clinton's headquarters in scheduled to pay it off until 2016,' Brazile
Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn't have
writes.
to inform the party officers how bad the

359
Clinton's fundraising took care of the remaining debt - then
put the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral until there is
a nominee, on 'an allowance.'
Gensler laid out the state of affairs in a phone call. 'He
described the party as fully under the control of Hillary's
campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the
Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support,
giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses,
while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising
clearing house,' according to Brazile.
She says Wasserman Schultz ignored her board of
directors, including on the bombshell development that
Russia hacked the DNC's emails.
'She seemed to make decisions on her own
and let us know at the last minute what she
had decided, as she had done when she
told us about the hacking only minutes
before the Washington Post broke the
news,' she writes.
When the Hillary Victory Fund organized big donors
fundraisers who cut checks that were to go to state parties,
the funds came back to her won Brooklyn headquarters.
Brazile says she called rival Bernie Sanders had told him
she had discovered 'cancer' in the organization
360
Brazile blasts Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida,
who stepped down as chair during the campaign following
the release of hacked emails
'Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that
state, but all the other states funneled that money directly
to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to
Brooklyn,' according to Brazile.
States 'kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million
they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers
Hillary's campaign was holding,' according to Brazile.
The party was burning through up to $4 million each
month.
'When I got back from a vacation in Martha's Vineyard, I
at last found the document that described it all: the Joint
Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary
Victory Fund, and Hillary for America,' according to
Brazile.
In exchange for its fundraising, 'Hillary would control the
party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her
campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the
party communications director, and it would make final
decisions on all the other staff,' according to Brazile.
Brazile describes a joint fundraising agreement between
Clinton and the DNC as a smoking gun
 She writes that she called Sanders to tell him what she'd
found. 'Hello, senator. I've completed my review of the
DNC and I did find the cancer,' she says she told him. 'But
I will not kill the patient.'

She says she urged Sanders to urge his supporters to back

Clinton anyway, and says she told him she had concerns
about Clinton holding together the Obama coalition.

'When I hung up the call to Bernie, I started to cry, not out

of guilt, but out of anger. We would go forward. We had
to,' she writes.

She said she was searching for evidence of 'internal

corruption' before she found the agreement. It wasn't
illegal, 'but it sure looked unethical,' she writes.

361
 11-Minute Trump Twitter
Outage Prompts Company Investigation
Fox News
November 3, 2017

"We are conducting a full internal review,"

the company said in a statement about the
approximately 11-minute outage.

It was unclear how a “customer support” worker had

obtained clearance to deactivate such a high-profile
account. The president has tweeted more than 36,000 times
and has nearly 42 million Twitter followers.

President Trump blamed his 11-minute Twitter account

outage on Thursday on a "rogue employee."

"My Twitter account was taken down for 11

minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the
word must finally be getting out-and having
an impact," Trump tweeted early Friday
morning.
When reports first surfaced about the outage, Twitter
officials initially blamed “human error.”

Shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday, social media reports

surfaced that Trump’s personal account,
@realDonaldTrump, was unavailable, providing the error
message that the user "does not exist." The account was
restored by 7:03 p.m.

Twitter launched an internal investigation Thursday after a

But about two hours later, the company
"customer support" employee, reportedly working his or
said the deactivation "was done by a
her last day with the company, briefly deactivated the
Twitter customer support employee who
highly viewed account of the president.
did this on the employee's last day."

The company has in the past suspended other accounts for

violating its terms and conditions. The company has
resisted calls from those opposed to the president to delete
his account.

A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately

respond to requests for comment.

362
 "Great Tax Cut rollout today. The lobbyists
are storming Capital [sic] Hill, but the
Republicans will hold strong and do what is
right for America!"

The Washington Post pointed out that Trump credited

social media for its role in getting him elected.

He told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo that,

Trump did not immediately address the outage after his
account was reactivated. Instead, he tweeted about the “You have to keep people interested.”
GOP tax plan.
.

363
 Rosie O’Donnell Admits: ‘I Spend
90% Of My Hours Tweeting Hatred’ At Trump
By Corinne Weaver
November 3, 2017 12:03 PM EDT

Rosie O’Donnell’s best route to getting publicity is by

bashing Trump. But late night talk shows can’t wait to hear
her rant and rave.
So when she came on Late Night With Seth Meyers on
November 3 to promote her new show, she steered the
conversation away from herself and onto talking about
President Trump, skillfully. Rosie told Meyers,
“You see, I’m a little edgy. I spend like
pretty much 90% of my waking hours
tweeting hatred towards this
administration.”
And of course, Seth Meyers played into it.
O’Donnell really put her mental state on display when she
described her phone call to her therapist the night of the
election. She said she called her therapist and said,
“That night, I was like listen you wench, I
am here and I have NO XANAX!”
O’Donnell literally screamed the last two words on air.
But still, O’Donnell’s not the crazy one. Trump is.
According to her, O’Donnell’s accusations on The View
made Trump “batshit crazy.” Meyers replied, “And uh, he
stayed that way.”

O’Donnell also shared her plans to get a “Bob Mueller

After she mentioned the Trump administration, he said,
“I want to ask you about this because that
is a two-way street, because Donald Trump
has been mad at you for a very long time.”
Thus began an angry, teeth-clenched narrative of how
Rosie O’Donnell called Trump out on The View years ago:
“So then I said, you know, some facts that I
just went on Wiki, that were easily
accessible, since this campaign began, that
he is bankrupt four times, that he got all his
money from his father, and that he
notoriously cheats private contractors out
of their money.”
.
tattoo….right over my heart.” She launched into a song of
praise about Mueller and his indictment of Manafort,
saying, Mueller “looks to me like Superman. Like Captain
America, like justice has finally arrived back on our shores
and we are going to right ourselves again!” Meyers told
Rosie she should serve Trump indictment papers, to
which O’Donnell replied, “I have put in that request by
tweet.”
O’Donnell’s twitter feed is full of the sort of insane
material that can’t be taken seriously. She tweeted in May
that “desperate times call for desperate measures,” and
hinted that if Trump was impeached then somehow
Merrick Garland would be put in the Supreme Court.

364
 “You Can’t Go Any Lower” – Inside
West Wing Trump Apoplectic As Allies Fear Impeachment
After Monday’s Indictments, The President Blamed Jared Kushner
In A Call To Steve Bannon, While Others Are Urging Him To
Take Off The Gloves With Robert Mueller.
By Gabriel Sherman
November 3, 2017

making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes

up.

The consensus among the advisers I spoke to is that Trump

faces few good options to thwart Mueller. For one, firing
Mueller would cross a red line, analogous to Nixon’s firing
of Archibald Cox during Watergate, pushing establishment
Republicans to entertain the possibility of impeachment.

“His options are limited, and his instinct is

to come out swinging, which won’t help
things,” said a prominent Republican close
to the White House.
US President Donald Trump speaks alongside his daughter, Ivanka
Trump (L) and her husband, Senior White House Adviser Jared
Kushner (R) during a Cabinet Meeting in the Cabinet Room of the Trump, meanwhile, has reacted to the deteriorating
White House in Washington, DC, October 16, 2017. By SAUL situation by lashing out on Twitter and venting in private
LOEB/AFP/Getty Images.
to friends. He’s frustrated that the investigation seems to
have no end in sight.
Until now, Robert Mueller has haunted Donald Trump’s
White House as a hovering, mostly unseen menace. But by
“Trump wants to be critical of Mueller,” one
securing indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates,
person who’s been briefed on Trump’s
and a surprise guilty plea from foreign policy adviser
thinking says. “He thinks it’s unfair criticism.
George Papadopoulos, Mueller announced loudly that the
Clinton hasn’t gotten anything like this. And
Russia investigation poses an existential threat to the
what about Tony Podesta? Trump is like,
president. “Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me:
When is that going to end?”
Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of
Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former
Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. According to two sources, Trump has complained to
advisers about his legal team for letting the Mueller probe
progress this far.
“Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t
go any lower. He’s fucked.”
Speaking to Steve Bannon on Tuesday,
Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in
The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of
decisions, specifically the firings of Mike
what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to
Flynn and James Comey, that led to
conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the
Mueller’s appointment, according to a
president. For the first time since the investigation began,
source briefed on the call. When Roger
the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a
Stone recently told Trump that Kushner
realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream.
was giving him bad political advice, Trump
According to a source, advisers in the West Wing are on
agreed, according to someone familiar with
edge and doing whatever they can not to be ensnared. One
the conversation. “Jared is the worst
person close to Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they’re
political adviser in the White House in
modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only
365
 saying publicly what everyone says behind
the scenes at Fox News, in conservative
media, and the Senate and Congress.”
(The White House didn’t respond to a
request for comment by deadline.)
As Mueller moves to interview West Wing aides in the
coming days, advisers are lobbying for Trump to consider
a range of stratagems to neutralize Mueller, from
conciliation to a declaration of all-out war. One
Republican explained Trump’s best chance for survival is
to get his poll numbers up. Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb has
been advocating the view that playing ball will lead to a
quick resolution (Cobb did not respond to a request for
comment). But these soft-power approaches are being
criticized by Trump allies including Steve Bannon and
Roger Stone, who both believe establishment Republicans
are waiting for a chance to impeach Trump.
“The establishment has proven time and
time again they will fuck Trump over,” a
Bannon ally told me.
In a series of phone calls with Trump on Monday and
Tuesday, Bannon told the president to shake up the legal
team by installing an aggressive lawyer above Cobb,
according to two sources briefed on the call. Bannon has
also discussed ways to pressure Congress to defund
Mueller’s investigation or limit its scope. “Mueller
shouldn’t be allowed to be a clean shot on goal,” a Bannon
confidant told me.
“He must be contested and checked. Right
now he has unchecked power.”
Bannon’s sense of urgency is being fueled by his belief
that Trump’s hold on power is slipping. The collapse of
Obamacare repeal, and the dimming chances that tax
.
366
reform will pass soon—many Trump allies are deeply
pessimistic about its prospects—have created the political
climate for establishment Republicans to turn on Trump.
Two weeks ago, according to a source, Bannon did a
spitball analysis of the Cabinet to see which members
would remain loyal to Trump in the event the 25th
Amendment were invoked, thereby triggering a vote to
remove the president from office. Bannon recently told
people he’s not sure if Trump would survive such a vote.
“One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take
this more seriously,” the Bannon confidant
told me. “Stop joking around. Stop
tweeting.”
Roger Stone believes defunding Mueller isn’t enough.
Instead, Stone wants Trump to call for a special prosecutor
to investigate Hillary Clinton’s role in approving the
controversial Uranium One deal that’s been a locus of
rightwing hysteria (the transaction involved a Russian
state-owned energy firm acquiring a Canadian mining
company that controlled a large subset of the uranium in
the United States). It’s a bit of a bank shot, but as Stone
described it, a special prosecutor looking into Uranium
One would also have to investigate the F.B.I.’s role in
approving the deal, thereby making Mueller—who was in
charge of the bureau at the time—a target. Stone’s choice
for a special prosecutor: Rudy Giuliani law colleague
Marc Mukasey or Fox News pundit Andrew Napolitano.
“You would immediately have to inform
Mueller, Comey, and [Deputy Attorney
General] Rod Rosenstein that they are
under federal investigation,” Stone said.
“Trump can’t afford to fire Mueller
politically. But this pushes him aside.”
 Mueller Grand Jury Investigating
Top DC Lobbyists
By Breitbart News
3 Nov 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel
Robert Mueller’s grand jury is
investigating a prominent Democratic
lobbyist and a former GOP
congressman for their involvement in an
influence campaign on behalf of
Ukrainian interests tied to Paul
Manafort, according to a person with
direct knowledge of the investigation.
At the center of the widening probe are Tony Podesta, a
longtime Democratic operative, and Vin Weber, a former
GOP congressman and leader of his own high-powered
lobbying firm, Mercury LLC. The two men were hired as
part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort directed by
Manafort and longtime associate Rick Gates.
With the emphasis on the Ukrainian lobbying efforts,
Mueller’s criminal probe is moving beyond investigating
ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and is
aggressively pursuing people who worked as foreign
agents without registering with the Justice Department.
More witnesses are expected before the grand jury in
coming weeks.
Representatives for Weber’s firm and Podesta said they are
cooperating with the special counsel’s investigation.
Podesta, whose brother was the chairman of Hillary
Clinton’s campaign, has resigned from his firm.
367
FBI agents working for Mueller are asking witnesses about
meetings between Gates, Podesta and Weber to discuss the
lobbying work in detail and any communication with
representatives of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party,
according to two people familiar with the interviews who
spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity
of the investigation.
“There were questions about how much
Podesta and Vin Weber were involved.
There was a lot of interest there,” one of
them said.
FBI agents also expressed interest in the law firm Skadden,
Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, which produced a
2012 report used to justify the jailing of an opposition
politician in Ukraine.
Both people said that investigators on Mueller’s team have
asked about what the lobbyists knew about the source of
the funding and who was directing the work in 2012 —
long before Manafort became Trump’s campaign chairman
in 2016.
Gates and Manafort were both indicted Monday on
charges of acting as unregistered foreign agents and lying
on forms they filed with the Justice Department’s Foreign
Agents Registration Act unit as well as money laundering.
According to Manafort’s indictment, he and Gates
“engaged in weekly and at times daily calls
and emails with (company 1 and company
2) to provide them directions as to specific
lobbying steps that should be taken and to
receive reports back as to the results of
such lobbying.”
The two firms were the Podesta Group and Mercury.
In addition, Manafort’s and Gates’ 2017 disclosure forms
“misrepresented the relationship among
(the Targets), the Ukrainian government,
the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine
 (ECFMU), and two U.S. lobbying firms,” the
government said.
Mercury and Podesta’s work involved a non-profit called
the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. People
familiar with the efforts have described the non-profit as a
front to disguise an influence campaign on behalf of the
party of Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych. It
was governed by a board that initially included parliament
members from Yanukovych’s party and subsequently paid
at least $2.2 million to the lobbying firms to advocate
positions generally in line with those of Yanukovych’s
government.
Podesta acknowledged to the AP in 2016 that Gates had
been involved in the European Center’s work, but said he
had no idea the organization was not a legitimately
independent client.
Skadden’s involvement with Manafort stems from its
production of a 2012 report downplaying the political
motivations of the Ukrainian government in jailing an
opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko.
368
The report, written by former Obama White House counsel
Gregory Craig, found that Tymoshenko’s trial was
procedurally flawed but not marked by political
persecution. The Ukrainian justice ministry officials who
supposedly commissioned the report trumpeted it as proof
that Tymoshenko was not a political prisoner.
But how the report came to be is now in question.
According to the indictment of Manafort and Gates, the
two men
“used one of their offshore accounts to
funnel $4 million to pay secretly for the
report.”
The law firm and Craig have not responded to requests for
comment.
Separately, Mueller has an ongoing investigation into
former national security adviser Michael Flynn on similar
allegations related to lobbying work his firm performed for
a Turkish businessman.
 Twitter “Colluded” With Hillary Clinton’s Campaign To
Censor #Podestaemails And #DNCleaks In Failed Effort
To Help Her Win The Election
Alex Thomas
November 3, 2017
During a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary
Committee Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, a
lawyer for the social media giant Twitter openly admitted
that the company had deployed “election algorithms” that
specifically censored hashtags that exposed the corruption
of both candidate Hillary Clinton and the DNC as a whole.
The testimony, given by Sean Edgett, Acting General
Counsel for Twitter, seemingly proves that the tech giant
used the discredited idea of “Russian manipulation” to
actually censor legitimate content that exposed their
preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton.
“Before the election, we also detected and
took action on activity relating to hashtags
that have since been reported as
manifestations of efforts to interfere with
the 2016 election” Edgett said, in a clear
indication that the company is justifying
censoring content that reflected badly on
Clinton by using the reporting of the very
establishment news outlets that have
openly worked against Donald Trump from
the beginning.
“For example, our automated spam
detection systems helped mitigate the
impact of automated Tweets promoting the
#PodestaEmails hashtag, which originated
with Wikileaks’ publication of thousands of
emails from the Clinton campaign chairman
John Podesta’s Gmail account.”
369
Keep in mind, Twitter hasn’t actually provided any
evidence that the censored content was automated and we
already know the company itself is strongly anti-Trump.
Edgett continued,
“The core of the hashtag was propagated
by Wikileaks, whose account sent out a
series of 118 original Tweets containing
variants on the hashtag #PodestaEmails
referencing the daily installments of the
emails released on the Wikileaks website.”
“In the two months preceding the election,
around 57,000 users posted approximately
426,000 unique Tweets containing
variations of the #PodestaEmails hashtag.
Approximately one quarter (25%) of those
Tweets received internal tags from our
automation detection systems that hid them
from searches.”
So roughly one fourth of all tweets containing information
about the incredibly important Podesta emails were
straight up censored by the platforms search engine, again
explained away as some valiant effort to stop automation
from the evil Russians. (Who the Clinton campaign
themselves actually indirectly worked with to spread
disinformation about Trump.)
The lawyer went on to then stunningly say (as if it were a
good thing) that the company had censored almost HALF
of the Tweets that had anything to do with the leaked
emails from the DNC which revealed that the entire
Democratic primary was a complete sham that was rigged
in favor of then candidate Clinton and eventually resulted
in the resignation of corrupt DNC chair Debbie
Wasserman Schultz shortly before the convention.
“As described in greater detail below, our
systems detected and hid just under half
(48%) of the Tweets relating to variants of
another notable hashtag, #DNCLeak,
which concerned the disclosure of leaked
emails from the Democratic National
Committee.”
The company also neglected to even mention whether or
not their supposed fight against automation was as
protective of Trump as they admittedly were of Clinton.
Considering what we know about the liberal mindset of the
company, one can imagine that most of the employees
themselves were highly unlikely to do anything that could
be seen as helping Donald Trump.
Another, perhaps even more important point on the
testimony from Twitter came from Infowars Jerome Corsi
who wrote,
“Perhaps the Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee should refer Twitter’s
admission in its prepared testimony
submitted under oath to various law
enforcement and regulatory authorities,
including the Federal Election Commission
and the Department of Justice, to see if
Twitter’s pattern of censoring tweets during
the 2016 election campaign constituted
“collusion” with Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
“This admission opens the door to
Congress demanding that Twitter, as well
.
370
as other social media giants including
Facebook and Google/YouTube, explain
the full range of detection systems they
used in the 2016 campaign to censor out
content favorable to Trump or critical of
Clinton in what appears to have been an
effort to influence the outcome of the
election.”
It seems each week a new revelation comes out that adds
another piece of evidence in the now long list of facts that
point to a massive operation between the Clinton
campaign, the deep state, and the mainstream media to
spread propaganda to the American people in a failed
“anything goes” bid to stop Donald Trump from becoming
president.
Last week it was even revealed that the Clinton campaign
itself had paid for the disinformation that was eventually
written in the infamous “Trump dossier” by deep state
operative Christopher Steele and sourced by Russian
intelligence. This disinfo was then subsequently spread
around as if it were a credible piece of investigating.
 Trump Was Right: Mainstream Newscasts
Entirely Ignored Clinton-DNC Rigging Revelations
By Tyler Durden
Nov 3, 2017 2:44 PM

President Trump has been actively tweeting this morning "ABC's World News Tonight," "NBC
as he heads to Asia, but one of his messages particularly Nightly News" and "CBS Evening News"
caught our eye... all didn't report the allegations by
Brazile on Thursday evening despite it
receiving considerable coverage on cable
news and in print and online media.

Brazile was also trending as one of Twitter's top topics on

Thursday.

That cannot be, right? And considering the source was

once a well-sponsored, well-respected contributor to many
of these organizations, we were shocked.

So we decided to do a little fact- So what did the so-called 'news' media cover?
checking.
Despite the Brazile blackout,

the ABC, NBC and CBS evening

Well, it turns out - much to our surprise -
that, as The Hill reports, the broadcast
evening newscasts on three major
networks on Thursday didn't mention
bombshell revelations by former
Democratic National Committee interim
Chairwoman Donna Brazile.
newscasts all featured reports on
special counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation into Russian meddling in
the 2016 presidential election and the
recent indictments of Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort and his
business associate, Richard Gates.
Somehow, the so-called Big Three evening newscasts
draw more than 20 million viewers combined on a nightly
basis.
All of which probably explains this...

If you have been living under a rock (or only getting your
news from the mainstream media), in her recently released
book, disgraced (for cheating in a CNN debate) Brazile
exposed that she discovered evidence that she said showed
Hillary Clinton’s campaign "rigged" the Democratic
presidential primary.

Seems like that would extremely newsworthy, but as The

Hill notes,
371
 Obama Admin Lied; New Memos Reveal
Uranium One Exports To “Europe And Asia” Via Canada
Zero Hedge
November 3, 2017
As the mainstream media continues to
obsess over $100,000 worth Facebook ads
allegedly purchased by Russian spies in
2016 seeking to throw the presidential
election, behind the scenes, far removed
from the sight of CNN and MSNBC, the
Uranium One scandal, in which the Obama
administration approved a deal that
handed a Russian-controlled
corporation 20% of America’s uranium
reserves despite the existence of an FBI
investigation into ongoing illegal
bribery, extortion and money laundering
schemes, is slowly spiraling out of
control…despite CNN’s continued
ignorance of the topic.
By now we’re sure that most of our readers are well aware
that Obama’s approval of the Uranium One deal seemingly
landed the Clinton Foundation some $145 million in
donations and a $500,000 speaking gig for former
President Bill Clinton from a very thankful Russian
bank…if not, here are a couple of recent posts on the topic
as a recap:
 FBI Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Before Obama
Approved Uranium One Deal, Netting Clintons Millions
 Emails Reveal Bill Clinton Met With Vladimir Putin Just
Before Uranium One Deal
 FBI Informant “Threatened” After Offering Details
Linking Clinton Foundation To Russian Bribery Case
372
That said, one thing that you probably don’t know yet,
primarily because of the Obama administration’s proactive
attempt conceal such information,
is that despite repeated assurances from
Congress and Obama’s Nuclear
Regulatory Commission that U.S.
uranium reserves wouldn’t leave U.S.
shores, it, in fact, did.
As The Hill points out today, assurances that U.S. uranium
would not be exported to foreign countries was a key
sticking point when Congress reviewed the deal back in
2010. As such, repeated assurances were provided that
such exports would never occur…here are just a couple of
examples of those assurances:
“No uranium produced at either facility
may be exported,” the NRC declared in a
November 2010 press release that
announced that ARMZ, a subsidiary of the
Russian-owned Rosatom, had been
approved to take ownership of the Uranium
One mining firm and its American assets.
A year later, the nuclear regulator repeated the assurance
in a letter to Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican in
whose state Uranium One operated mines.
“Neither Uranium One Inc. nor AMRZ
holds a specific NRC export license. In
order to export uranium from the United
States, Uranium One Inc. or ARMZ
would need to apply for an obtain a
specific NRC license authorizing the
exports of uranium for use in reactor
fuel,” then-NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko
wrote Barrasso.
The NRC never issued an export license to the Russian
firm, a fact so engrained in the narrative of the Uranium
One controversy that it showed up in The Washington
Post’s official fact-checker site this week.
“We have noted repeatedly that
extracted uranium could not be
exported by Russia without a license,
which Rosatom does not have,” The
Post reported on Monday, linking to the
2011 Barrasso letter.
That said, new memos obtained by The Hill now confirm The license, reviewed by The Hill, is dated March 16,
that, in fact, Uranium One yellowcake did manage to 2012, and it increased the amount of uranium ore
escape U.S. shores repeatedly between 2012 – 2014. concentrate that RSB Logistics could ship to the Cameco
Corp. plant in Ontario from 7,500,000 kilograms to
Yet NRC memos reviewed by The Hill
12,000,000 kilograms and added Uranium One to the
shows that it did approve the shipment
“other parties to Export.”
of yellowcake uranium — the raw
material used to make nuclear fuel and The move escaped notice in Congress.
weapons — from the Russian-owned
And while it will be dismissed by the Left as a convenient
mines in the United States to Canada in
attempt for Republicans to change the “Russian collusion”
2012 through a third party. Later,
narrative, Senator Chuck Grassley and others are finally
the Obama administration approved
starting to press for a special counsel to investigate what is
some of that uranium going all the way
clearly a scandal that is far more pervasive than anyone
to Europe, government documents
originally thought.
show.
“The more that surfaces about this deal,
NRC officials said they could not disclose the total amount
the more questions it raises,” Sen.
of uranium that Uranium One exported because the
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a
information is proprietary. They did, however, say that the
statement released after this story was
shipments only lasted from 2012 to 2014 and that they are
published. Grassley, the chairman of the
unaware of any exports since then.
Senate Judiciary Committee, has launched
NRC officials told The Hill that Uranium an investigation into Uranium One.
One exports flowed from Wyoming to
“It now appears that despite pledges to
Canada and on to Europe between 2012
the contrary, U.S. uranium made its way
through 2014, and the approval involved a
overseas as a part of the Uranium One
process with multiple agencies.
deal,” Grassley said in the
statement. “What’s more disturbing,
those transactions were apparently
made possible by various Obama
Administration agencies while the
Democrat-controlled Congress turned a
blind eye.
“Americans deserve assurances that
political influence was not a factor in all
this. I’m increasingly convinced that a
special counsel — someone with no
prior involvement in any of these
deals — should shine a light on this ordeal
Of course, given his repeated assurances to the contrary, and get answers for the American people.”
Obama couldn’t simply allow Uranium One to ship
uranium to the nearest port for export, so he instead signed So, is this what Obama meant when he told Russian
a waiver allowing a Kentucky trucking company to carry President Dmitry Medvedev to let Putin know that he
the product across the Canadian border and then approved would “have more flexibility” after the 2012 election?
export from Canada to Europe.
Rather than give Rosatom a direct
export license — which would have
raised red flags inside a Congress
already suspicious of the deal — the
NRC in 2012 authorized an amendment
to an existing export license for a
Paducah, Ky.,-based trucking firm called
RSB Logistics Services Inc. to simply
add Uranium One to the list of clients
whose uranium it could move to
Canada.
.

373
 Jeff Sessions's Selective Memory
The Attorney General’s Sworn Testimony Before
The Senate Is At Odds With Other Accounts
Adam Serwer
Nov 3, 2017
Lucas Jackson / Reuters
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is facing renewed questions
about his sworn testimony before the Senate in the
aftermath of reports that he was told about contacts at least
two former Trump campaign officials had with Russia.
The former Trump foreign-policy adviser Carter Page told
the House Intelligence Committee that he informed
Sessions about a trip he took to Russia in July 2016,
according to CNN, which Page claims was unconnected to
the campaign. Separately, a participant in a March 2016
meeting of Trump’s foreign-policy advisers told The New
York Times he recalled Sessions “vehemently” opposing a
proposal from George Papadopoulos to set up a meeting
with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Papadopoulos
pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI on
Monday, and federal documents showed that he was
offered “dirt” obtained by the Russian government on
Trump’s 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.
That information appears at odds with Sessions’s
testimony during his confirmation hearing in January
2017. When Minnesota Democrat Al Franken asked what
Sessions would do “if there is any evidence that anyone
affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with
the Russian government in the course of this campaign,”
Sessions replied that he was “not aware of any of those
activities.” In October, Franken asked Sessions directly:
“You don’t believe that surrogates from the
Trump campaign had communications with the
Russians? Is that what you’re saying?”
374
“I did not, and I’m not aware of anyone else that
did, and I don’t believe it happened,” Sessions
said.
Sessions recused himself from the federal investigation
into Russian interference in the 2016 election in March,
after reports revealed that Sessions met twice with Russian
Ambassador Sergei Kislyak despite telling the Senate he
“did not have communications with the Russians.”
Sessions said he didn’t “remember a lot” of their
conversation, but that he met with Kislyak in his capacity
as the senator from Alabama, not as a Trump surrogate—
and so had not misled the Senate when he said did not
communicate with the Russians.
In June, Sessions angrily defended himself against what he
said were “scurrilous and false allegations” about his
conduct. In that same testimony,
he said that “there is the assertion that I did not
answer Senator Franken’s question honestly at
my confirmation hearing. That is false.”
The recent reports, however, contradict Sessions’s original
testimony in two respects: Not only did Sessions meet with
the Russian ambassador, but he was allegedly aware of
Trump surrogates’ outreach efforts to the Russian
government—in fact, he was reportedly so alarmed by
them that he shut them down. His subsequent insistence to
the Senate in October that no surrogates from the Trump
campaign had communications with the Russians has
likewise been contradicted by Papadopoulos. Perjury is
difficult to prove, because prosecutors have to show
evidence of a speaker’s state of mind and proof that the
speaker intended to mislead. But the attorney general’s
testimony appears impossible to square with these other
accounts.
Sessions initially told the Senate that he didn’t mention his
meetings with Kislyak because he had not met with him in
his capacity as a Trump surrogate. But he also said he
didn’t recall much of the substance of their conversation.
Perhaps Sessions also did not recall Papadopoulos’s offer
to set up meetings between the Russian government and
the Trump campaign, or the fact that he shut it down. It’s
possible that he didn’t remember Page telling him that he
was taking a trip to Russia the June before the election, But if so, it’s a remarkable string of memory lapses around
and that’s why he didn’t mention it when asked directly. incidents that appear to be relevant to a federal
investigation.

375
 Wasserman Schultz Shunned FBI,
Hid Security Breach From DNC Officials
By Tyler Durden
Nov 3, 2017 11:01 AM

Ever since the world first learned about the DNC hack last
year, there has been mass confusion over one peculiar
decision made by then DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman
Schultz:
Why, if DNC leaders thought they were the
victim of a massive cyber attack by a hostile
foreign government seeking to undermine
their political ambitions, would they shun
FBI help and instead engage the private
security firm CrowdStrike?
The timing suggests the DNC’s unusual and significant
choice to have the private law firm CrowdStrike conduct
the investigation into the breach, rather than turn the
evidence over to law enforcement, was made without
consulting DNC officers.
“She told [officers] about the hacking only
minutes before the Washington Post broke
the news,” Brazile wrote.

The response was so confounding, in fact, it has resulted in

several conspiracy theories attempting to explain why
DWS would make such a seemingly bizarre decision and
what, if anything, she was attempted to hide.

Now, efforts to rationally explain the DNC's response to

their server hack have grown even more difficult after
Donna Brazile revealed for the first time that DWS and
Hillary's campaign general counsel Marc Elias (yes, the
very same Marc Elias who we now know laundered DNC
and Hillary campaign cash through his law firm to pay for
the Trump Dossier)
apparently chose to hide their server issues,
not only from the FBI, buy from DNC
Officers as well.
Per The Daily Caller:
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former
head of the Democratic National Committee,
did not tell the DNC’s own officers about a
breach on its servers for more than a month
after learning about it, according to then-
DNC officer Donna Brazile.
Wasserman Schultz alerted the officers of
the breach only when The Washington Post
was about to make the revelations public,
Brazile writes in an excerpt of the book Politico ran
Thursday. The DNC instead enlisted the law firm of
Perkins Coie to make major decisions, including how to
handle the breach of its servers that led to an embarrassing
email dump.
Of course, this controversy erupted this past summer when
even Obama's Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson
blasted to the DNC's inexplicable decision to refuse FBI
assistance.
Former President Barack Obama’s Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson testified in June 2017 before
Congress that the DNC declined help from his agency after
the email system was hacked.
“The response I got was, the FBI had
spoken to them. They don’t want our help.
They have CrowdStrike, the cyber security
firm,” Johnson said. “I recall very clearly that
I was not pleased that we were not in there
helping them patch this vulnerability.”
Wasserman Schultz strongly disputed Johnson’s testimony.
“He’s wrong in every respect,” she said.
She claimed she had never been informed of the FBI’s
offer and said the FBI was the one who did not loop in
high-level officials, saying it did not

376
 “do anything other than lob a phone call into our
tech support through our main switchboard.”
“How is it that the FBI or DHS or any federal
agency that was concerned about a foreign
enemy state intruding on the networks of one of
the two major political parties did not think it
important enough to go higher than a tech
support staffer?” she asked. “It is astounding
and outrageous.”
The decision not to loop in the FBI was major, in part
because there are potential chain-of-custody issues when
law enforcement do not do the work directly. And
CrowdStrike can’t work hand-in-hand with prosecutors the
way the FBI can. Even CrowdStrike’s CEO said, as
paraphrased by the Post, that it is
.
“extremely difficult for a civilian organization to
protect itself from a skilled and determined state
such as Russia.”
Meanwhile, this isn't the only time that DWS has
responded in a bizarre and inexplicable way to a scandal.
As our readers are undoubtedly aware, DWS was the last
Representative in Congress to fire the now-infamous IT
staffer, Imran Awan, keeping him on her taxpayer funded
payroll even after he had been banned from Congressional
servers.
What is that saying about the truth and being set free?

377
 Angry About the DNC Scandal?
Thank Obama.
Ryan Grim
November 3 2017, 10:58 a.m.

DNC also was required to consult with the

campaign about all other staffing, budgeting,
data, analytics, and mailings.”

Brazile’s belated acknowledgement that the DNC was, in

Top photo: A Secret Service agent stands alert amid balloons that
were released following Hillary Clinton’s keynote address as she
accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the DNC on July
28, 2016.
In the fall of 2015, a year before the presidential election,
the Democratic National Committee, we now know, was
bought for the equivalent of a pawn shop by the campaign
of Hillary Clinton.
The party organization was still deeply in debt from the
2012 campaign, owing millions to banks and vendors,
burning through what little cash it had at a stunning rate of
some $3 million to $4 million per month. By August 2015,
the DNC was becoming unable to make payroll and
approaching the equivalent of bankruptcy, according to a
former senior party official, who requested anonymity,
arguing that being quoted publicly criticizing the DNC in a
news outlet connected to Intercept founder Glenn
Greenwald, who is a critic of the DNC, would be
damaging professionally.
And so the DNC, to save itself, sold everything to the only
bidder. The Clinton campaign bailed out the DNC and, in
exchange, effectively took it over, according to Donna
Brazile, who served as the organization’s acting
chairperson from July 2016 to February 2017.
fact, under the direct control of the Clinton campaign,
rather than a neutral arbiter of the race, has enflamed a
long-burning fight between Clinton’s backers and those of
2016 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, lending official
credence to the argument that the DNC was tilted in
Clinton’s favor.
There will be plenty of Facebook and Twitter threads to
hash that out between now and the apocalypse. There will
also be a chance to ponder the thinking behind Brazile’s
timing — after it could have made a difference in the DNC
chair race and a week before the Virginia gubernatorial
election — as well as the motive, both personal and
political. Indeed, during the campaign, Mook
subjected Brazile to regular indignities, according to
people who observed the relationship.
All that is fodder for a good flamewar, but walking away
rather unscathed is the man who set the blaze in the first
place: former President Barack Obama.
“Nobody wanted to out the fact that Obama had
let it get so bad,” said the DNC official.
Brazile’s reference to Marc Elias in her exposé was an
extra twist of the knife. Elias was the Clinton campaign’s
attorney and also the attorney for the DNC. A partner at
Perkins Coie, Elias replaced Bob Bauer — another Perkins
Coie attorney — when Obama brought him into the White
House.

“The agreement — signed by Amy Dacey, the

former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with
a copy to Marc Elias — specified that in
exchange for raising money and investing in the
DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances,
strategy, and all the money raised. Her
campaign had the right of refusal of who would
be the party communications director, and it
would make final decisions on all the other
staff,” Brazile wrote in an explosive excerpt of President Barack Obama makes phone calls to volunteers at an
her book published Thursday in Politico. “The Organizing for America field office with Alexa Kissinger, left, and,

378
Suzanne Stern, right, on Oct. 14, 2012, in Williamsburg, Va. - Photo:
Carolyn Kaster/AP
It didn’t have to be this way. Obama’s campaign operation,
Obama for America, took small-dollar giving to never-
before-seen heights and opened up the possibility of a
transformation of politics. But he quickly decided to
marginalize his group after the 2008 election. He renamed
it Organizing for America, but ordered it to do very little
organizing, worried that if grassroots activists attacked
Blue Dog Democrats, they would bolt from the president
and lose in 2010. Then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm
Emanuel famously told activists such a strategy was
“fucking retarded.” (Most lost anyway in 2010, as the tea
party wave swept them out.)
OFA became Obama’s primary campaign apparatus,
supplanting the DNC, which became an afterthought
handed to Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who later became
Clinton’s running mate. After the 2010 wave, Obama put
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on top of the
moribund institution, a clear signal that he was
uninterested in it as a central component of the party.
Obama’s poor relationship with Wasserman Schultz was
widely known and written about, but he left her in the job
for six years regardless.
379
Raising money for a bland outfit like the DNC isn’t easy in
the best of times, but with Obama offering little to no help,
and clinging to his invaluable email list, Wasserman
Schultz was set up to fail, even if she would have done so
on her own.
Obama instead reasoned that he could become the party,
his dynamic and charismatic personality carrying it at the
national level.
Obama was re-elected, but the party itself went on a
historic losing spree, ultimately shedding nearly 1,000
seats across the country. Even after Democrats lost the
Senate in 2014, and the DNC continued spending money
on consultants at an eye-popping rate, Obama decided not
to make a leadership change. Instead, he left it saddled
with debt — debt the Clinton campaign would later agree
to pay off in exchange for control.
Obama finally became interested in the party after the
2016 loss. His final gift to the party apparatus was Tom
Perez, his labor secretary, who he recruited to stop Rep.
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., from winning the race for DNC
chair. Obama and Perez won. DNC funding has been
anemic, and it recently had to add to its roughly $3 million
in debt.
 Trump Was Right: Mainstream Newscasts
Entirely Ignored Clinton-DNC Rigging Revelations
By Tyler Durden
Nov 3, 2017 1:44 PM

President Trump has been actively tweeting this morning
as he heads to Asia, but one of his messages particularly
caught our eye...
but as The Hill notes, "ABC's World News
Tonight," "NBC Nightly News" and "CBS
Evening News" all didn't report the
allegations by Brazile on Thursday evening
despite it receiving considerable coverage on
cable news and in print and online media.
Brazile was also trending as one of Twitter's top
topics on Thursday.

That cannot be, right? And considering the source was

once a well-sponsored, well-respected contributor to many
of these organizations, we were shocked.

So we decided to do a little fact-checking.

So what did the so-called 'news' media cover?

Despite the Brazile blackout,

the ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts

all featured reports on special counsel
Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian
meddling in the 2016 presidential election
and the recent indictments of Trump
campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his
business associate, Richard Gates.

Well, it turns out - much to our surprise - that, Somehow, the so-called Big Three evening newscasts
as The Hill reports, the broadcast evening draw more than 20 million viewers combined on a nightly
newscasts on three major networks on basis.
Thursday didn't mention bombshell
revelations by former Democratic National
Committee interim Chairwoman Donna All of which probably explains this...
Brazile.

If you have been living under a rock (or only getting your
news from the mainstream media), in her recently released
book, disgraced (for cheating in a CNN debate) Brazile
exposed that she discovered evidence that she said showed
Hillary Clinton’s campaign "rigged" the Democratic
presidential primary.

Seems like that would extremely newsworthy,

380
 Will RussiaGate Result
In Social Media Regulation?
Written by Andrew KORYBKO
03/11/2017
Colin Stretch (L), General Counsel of Facebook, Sean Edgett (C),
Acting General Counsel of Twitter, and Richard Salgado (R),
Director of Law Enforcement And Information Security of Google,
are sworn in prior to testifying during a US Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing on Russian influence
on social networks on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, October 31,
2017.
Whether preplanned or inadvertent, one
of the most likely and far-reaching
consequences of the fake news
RussiaGate scandal is that Facebook
and other social media giants might
soon come under strict regulation by
the state.
The artificially contrived and “deep state”-driven
RussiaGate scandal has been inflated to epic proportions
and has already resulted in the unexpected suicide of the
US’ soft power, but this never-ending conspiracy theory is
now poised to affect the rest of the world in a completely
different way due to the likely “regulation” that
Washington might soon impose on social media giants like
Facebook. “Traditional” media has long been clamoring
for the American government to do something about the
astronomical rise of social media, which has poached
millions upon millions of people away from newspapers
and TV stations and redirected them to their smartphones
instead. From the perspective of social media and many of
its users, however, these people weren’t “poached”, but
liberated from their prior status as a captive audience to
conventional influence techniques and allowed to roam
freely in cyberspace as they searched for alternative non-
mainstream interpretations of current and past events.
381
The rise of social media coincided with that of Russia’s
publicly funded RT and Sputnik media outlets, whose
reporting and analyses soon went viral all over the internet
because they satisfied the crucial information desire that so
many people were craving for years. Their explosive
popularity led to them gaining a sizeable following among
Western audiences, who voluntarily shared their content
online and contributed to what Facebook describes as
“organic growth”, or the natural trending of non-advertised
posts. While posing a challenge to Establishment
narratives all across the world, neither RT nor Sputnik
were seriously viewed as “threat” by the US and its allies
because they had yet to be blamed for affecting any real-
life change outside of the internet “matrix” of clicks, likes,
and shares.
That all changed during the 2016 US election, however,
since the Mainstream Media’s monopoly on information
was wielded in such a blatantly and obviously biased
nature against Trump that countless Americans began
countenancing what would have previously been
unthinkable to many of them just a year prior, and that’s
trawling foreign-based media outlets in order to get a more
accurate sense of the truth that their own country’s media
barons were suppressing. This certainly says a lot about
the deep distrust that was already prevalent among many
Americans towards their own government, but it hit its
climax the more that the Mainstream Media began
concocting openly fraudulent “news” stories about Trump
in a bid to derail his candidacy, with this effort becoming
unquestionably clear when compared with the flowery
coverage given to anything that Clinton said or did. As is
now known, Americans rebelled against the Establishment
by voting Trump into office, and the “deep state” was left
scratching its head about how this could happen.
The author explained the domestic dynamics at play in his
November 2016 article right after the election titled “Dear
Foreign Friends, Here’s Why Trump Won (From A
Clevelander)”, but the general idea is that the Democrats’
weaponization of identity politics miserably backfired as
Americans sought out a radical solution to bring balance to
their “deep state”-destabilized country. Nevertheless, the
Establishment couldn’t bring itself to recognize the
obvious, take the loss, and move on to fight another battle
later on, hence why they decided to continue pressing the
cringe-inducingly ridiculous narrative that “Russian trolls”
somehow swayed the election due to their social media
activity, and hinting that there might even be a whiff of
outright collusion between Presidents Trump and Putin in
organizing this movie-like conspiracy.
This narrative is convenient for many geopolitical reasons
that are outside the scope of this analysis, but the domestic
benefit that was expected to be derived from this storyline
is that “traditional” media and the Establishment finally
had the pretext that they were looking for to “regulate”
social media. Bringing Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and
others into compliance with already existing American
laws about revealing the source of election-related
advertisements is one thing, but pressing these platforms to
restrict the activity of Russian publicly financed media
outlets like RT and Sputnik, as well as speculatively
“shadow banning” some of their staff and supporters, is a
bridge too far into dystopia, as is doing so on the US
governments’ double-standard FARA witch hunt which
alleges that the two are “foreign agents”. As a result, it
appears as though the “good ‘ole days” of “freewheeling”
across Facebook and sharing whatever content one finds
enjoyable is soon coming to an end as Washington begins
to “regulate” social media on the basis of “safeguarding
democracy”.
Of course, the real reason is that some vested power
interests also have a stake in supporting their decades-long
allies in the “traditional” media against their new social
media rivals, to say nothing of the self-evident imperative
in suppressing non-mainstream news and analyses through
the US’ War on Russian Media. The forthcoming
“regulation” might even go further than what’s presently
being observed, as there’s a chance that Washington could
seek to label social media platform like Facebook as being
“media companies” in their own right, which would then
instantly force them to comply with the existing legislation
that their “traditional” media counterparts have had to
contend with for years. In a sense, this would “level the
382
playing field” between “traditional” and social media, but
it could also destroy the very essence of social media itself.
Not only that, but if the US comes to consider Facebook
and Google as “monopolies”, then they could be broken up
and “regulated” even further.
What’s terribly ironic about all of this is that the US
government’s international stance has always been in favor
of “internet freedoms”, routinely attacking Russia, China,
and Iran for implementing national security-based
legislation aimed at thwarting the risk that Color
Revolutions and Hybrid Wars could dangerously recruit
across social media, but now all of a sudden “the land of
the free” is doing the same thing as the countries that it
regularly smears as “dictatorships”, though without any
convincing reason and depending solely on a trumped-up
fake news conspiracy theory. As is typical, the ruling
Establishment and their “deep state” supporters
condescendingly believe that their true intentions are
invisible to the naked eye because of their presumption
that the populace is stupid and politically unaware, though
the very fact that their “perfect candidate” was defeated by
a “dark horse” like Trump totally disproves this notion.
The reality is that most Americans, and the rest of the
world at large, see the US government’s “regulation” of
social media for what it actually is, and that’s a dictatorial
power grab which crushes any remaining doubt that “the
land of the free” is anything but, and that the “freedom of
speech” is only allowed if one is either supporting the
Establishment or behaving as its “controlled opposition”.
The number one thing that “American Democracy” can’t
accept is the free flow of information and interpretations
that challenge the prevailing state-supported narrative,
which in and of itself negates the very basis of what the
world always thought that “American Democracy” was
supposed to be about, and this powerful revelation proves
that the US government’s accusations that its geopolitical
rivals are “authoritarian” was never anything more than a
psychological projection of its own self.
 Trump Says Unsure If Tillerson
Will Remain Top US Diplomat
Fri Nov 3, 2017 07:07PM
US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One departing from
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland on November 3, 2017, embarking on
an 11-day tour of Asia. (photo by AFP)
US President Donald Trump says he is not
sure if Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will
remain in his post through Trump’s term in
the White House, underscoring the
complicated relationship between the two
during the past nine months.
In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump said
that he alone determines US foreign policy and attacked
the US State Department for not supporting his agenda.
"The one that matters is me," Trump said. "I'm
the only one that matters because, when it
comes to it, that's what the policy is going to
be.”
PressTV-'I’m the only one that matters': Trump says he is not
worried about a number of key unfilled positions in his
administration, saying he is “the only one that matters.”
.
383
The US president also said he is “not happy” that some
State Department officials are not supporting his agenda.
Asked if he planned to keep Tillerson on board for the rest
of his term, Trump said,
"Well, we’ll see. I don’t know."
Tensions between Trump and Tillerson resurfaced last
month amid reports that Tillerson had called Trump a
"moron" and had considered resigning over the summer.
Trump is heading to Asia on an 11-day trip with Tillerson
following months of conflict between the two.
It will be his first official visit to Asia as president, and it
will mark his longest continuous trip during his time in
office.
Tensions between Tillerson and Trump have been
simmering for months, sometimes visibly as the two have
publicly diverged on some of the administration's most
crucial foreign policy challenges, including Iran and North
Korea.
FBI director James Comey, White House press secretary
Sean Spicer, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus
and national security adviser Michael Flynn are among the
senior officials forced from their roles by the Republican
president early in his term.
Richard Haas, president of the Council of Foreign
Relations, said Trump's comments spelled trouble not just
for the current secretary but for overall American foreign
policy.
"It's not just about Rex Tillerson, it's about who
comes after Rex Tillerson. If the president is not
determined to make sure his secretary of state
will succeed, the secretary of state can't
succeed," Haas told CBS News on Friday.
 "Hopelessly Compromised": Judiciary Member Calls For
Mueller's Resignation Over Uranium One Scandal
By Tyler Durden
Nov 4, 2017 4:40 AM

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.
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.

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.
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.

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).
384
“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.
385
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 an appearance of conflict of interest likely to affect public
nuclear program; perception of the integrity of the investigation;

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 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:

Whereas under 28 CFR 45.2, no individual can participate in a Now, therefore, be it Resolved,
criminal investigation if he has a personal or political relationship
with any organization substantially involved in the conduct that is
That House of Representatives expresses its sense that Robert
subject of the investigation;
Mueller is compromised and should resign from his special
counsel position immediately.
Whereas under 28 CFR 45.2, no individual may participate in a
criminal investigation if the individual’s participation would create
.

386
 Brazile Faces Backlash After Memo
Shows Clinton Paid DNC For Staffing, Policy Control
Published Time: 4 Nov, 2017 03:59 Edited Time: 4 Nov, 2017 09:21
Former US Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton © Joshua Roberts / Reuters
A newly released memo shows a deal struck between the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) and then-
candidate Hillary Clinton in 2015 gave her campaign
power to influence staffing and policy, in exchange for
monthly payments.
On Friday, NBC News released another agreement
between the DNC and the Clinton campaign from August
26, 2015, only four months after Clinton announced her
candidacy.
The memorandum of understanding details how the Hillary
for America (HFA) campaign agreed to pay the debt-
ridden DNC a
“base amount” of $1.2 million every month in
exchange for “influence over the financial,
strategic, and operational use of these JFA-
raised funds.”
The DNC also agreed to hire a communications director
from
“one of two candidates previously identified as
acceptable to HFA.”
In the event there were staff vacancies in the
communications, technology, and research departments,
the DNC would
“maintain the authority to make the final
decision” on who to hire, but they agreed to only
choose “between candidates acceptable to
HFA.”
387
Additionally, the DNC agreed to consult HFA personnel
and maintain joint authority over “strategic decisions over
the staffing, budget, expenditures, and general election
related communications, data, technology, analytics, and
research.”
The DNC also agreed to provide HFA with an
“advance opportunity” to review “on-line or
mass email, communications that features a
particular Democratic primary candidate.”
Clinton’s campaign would also be alerted before
any direct mail communications were sent out
that featured “a particular Democratic primary
candidate or his or her signature.”
And although the DNC would remain responsible for the
“day to day execution” of special projects, including
technology, analytics, research, and communications
operations, the agreement said that HFA would determine
the “scope, strategy, staffing, budget, and manner of
execution.”
Once HFA gave the DNC the initial $1.2 million, they
would be granted
“complete and seamless access to all research
work product and tools” except those related to
other Democratic candidates.
However, defenders of Clinton’s have pointed to certain
stipulations in the memo, which state that the agreement
only relates to the general election and the DNC will
provide other candidates the ability to make similar
agreements.
"Nothing in this agreement shall be construed to
violate the DNC's obligation of impartiality and
neutrality through the Nominating process,” the
memorandum states. “All activities performed
under this agreement will be focused
exclusively on preparations for the General
Election and not the Democratic Primary.
Further we understand you may enter into
similar agreements with other candidates.”
On Thursday, Politico published an excerpt from former
Thread. I truly don't get what's Donna Brazile's
DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile’ upcoming book,
doing or why. I haven't always been a huge fan
“Hacks.” In the excerpt, Brazile said after she took over as
of hers, but selling out for a book?
the DNC interim chair in July 2016, she found an
https://t.co/jRPPLUojJD
agreement that made the DNC
— shauna (@goldengateblond) November 3,
“fully under the control of Hillary’s campaign.”
2017

Brazile said the Joint Fundraising Agreement (JFA)

between the the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Hillary for
America (HFA), specified that

“in exchange for raising money and investing in

the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s
finances, strategy, and all the money raised.”

After Brazile’s excerpt was published, politicians from

President Donald Trump to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-
DNC Chairman Tom Perez sent a letter to party members
Massachusetts) said it was proof that the DNC "rigged" the
that said they reached “the same” joint fundraising
2016 primary for Clinton and against Senator Bernie
agreement with the Sanders campaign.
Sanders (I-Vermont).

Democrats took to social media after the memo was
released to criticize Brazile for releasing her excerpt
without the full context. Many asked her and Warren to
apologize for their statements.
“Our understanding was that the DNC offered
all of the presidential campaigns the opportunity
to set up a [joint fundraising agreement] and
work with the DNC to coordinate on how those
funds were used to best prepare for the general
election,” Perez said, according to NPR.

However, senior Democrats with knowledge of the

situation told NPR and CNN that Brazile and Perez were
referring to two different agreements.

388
The agreements were made at a time when the the DNC
was strapped for cash and former Chair Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida) approached the campaigns
looking to keep the DNC out of debt.
.

389
 Both Bush Presidents Lash Out At Trump,
GHW Confirms He Voted For Hillary
By Tyler Durden
Nov 4, 2017 10:56 AM
The fading Republican establishment remains unable to
reconcile its ongoing collapse, and continues to scapegoat
Donald Trump for all the GOP's troubles instead of
looking in the mirror.
Two weeks after an outraged George W. Bush lashed out
at Trump, accusing him of emboldening "bigotry and
white supremacy", on Saturday we learn just how deep the
animosity toward Trump runs within the extended Bush
household. In a new book to be released this month from
historian Mark Updegrove, titled "The Last
Republicans", and previewed on Saturday by the NYT
and CNN, former President George H.W. Bush said he
considers Trump a “blowhard,” only interested in feeding
his own "ego." Meanwhile, his son, former President
George W. Bush, thinks Trump fans public anger and
came to office without any understanding of the job.
When asked about Donald Trump in May
2016, GHW Bush said: "I don't like him ...
I don't know much about him, but I know
he's a blowhard. And I'm not too excited
about him being a leader."
His son was just as vocal: “Wow, this guy
doesn't know what it means to be
president,” the junior Bush said, indicating
that a president should not “exploit the
anger, incite it” but rather “come up
with ideas to deal with it.”
Which, of course, is easy for the Bushes to say: after all
they - together with the Clinton and Obama
390
administrations - spent over two decades laying the
groundwork and building up the "anger" which resulted
from the greatest social and political polarization and
wealth inequality the US has ever seen. Perhaps the reality
- as the election one year ago showed - is that the status
quo simply no longer works. Perhaps... the Republican
party is broken precisely due to the work of the two Bush
presidents.
In any case, both former Bush presidents are worried that
Mr. Trump has blown up a Republican Party that they
spent two lifetimes building; Dubya also told Updegrove:
"I'm worried that I will be the last
Republican president."
Ironically, author Updegrove told the NYT that
"at the time, I think he was concerned that
Hillary Clinton would win ... But if you look
at his values and those shared by his father
and Ronald Reagan, they are very much in
contrast to the values of the Republican
Party today, in particular the platform that
Donald Trump ran on."
So what happened? Well, as CNN adds,
"George H.W. Bush confirmed that he
voted for Democratic nominee Hillary
Clinton."
His son meanwhile voted for nobody:
"George W. Bush told Updegrove he left
the top of the ballot blank. 'I voted "None of
the Above" for president, and Republican
down ballot in 2016.'"
In retrospect, Dubya may be correct:
As Axios' Mike Allen writes, George W.
Bush is probably right that he was "the last
Republican president," as his family sees
the party.
The "Republican Party" is now multiple ideological Which, considering the previous "label" no longer meant
parties, awkwardly — and probably not sustainably — anything to most Americans - except such figures as the
scrunched under one inadequate label. Bushes, of course- is probably not a bad thing.

391
 Trump Administration Strikes Back At Bushes,
Elected Over ‘Decades Of Costly Mistakes’
Sat Nov 4, 2017 09:00

An anonymous White House source was also quoted as

saying that

“If one presidential candidate can

disassemble a political party, it speaks
volumes about how strong a legacy its past
two presidents really had.”

Former US President Jimmy Carter (L), former President George W.

Bush and former President George H. W. Bush attend the Hurricane
Relief concert in College Station, Texas, on October 21, 2017.
The administration of US President
Donald Trump is striking back at George
W. Bush and his father George H.W.
Bush as the former presidents decry the
commander in chief’s policies in a new
book.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders

indicated in a briefing Saturday that the two are an
outcome of “decades of costly mistakes.”

"The American people voted to elect an

outsider who is capable of implementing
real, positive, and needed change - instead
of a lifelong politician beholden to special
interests,” she said in a statement to The
Hill. “If they were interested in continuing
decades of costly mistakes, another
establishment politician more concerned
with putting politics over people would have
won.”
US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump throw
flowers during their visit to the USS Arizona Memorial on November
3, 2017, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Photo by AFP)
392
Penned by American author Mark K. Updegrove, “The
Last Republicans,” contains quotations by the two
Republican leaders, who claim they are the last GOPers.
“I don’t like him,” George H.W. Bush says
of Trump in the book, which will be
released November 14. “I don’t know much
about him, but I know he’s a blowhard. And
I’m not too excited about him being a
leader.”
“I’m very comfortable that when people fully
analyze my decisions in the proper context,
they will understand why my foreign
policy—not in the principles of US
leadership but in the application—was
different,” George W. Bush said in a recent
speech without mentioning Trump’s name.

This AFP file photo taken on February 04, 2017 shows former US
President George H. W. Bush as he is helped to midfield for the coin
toss prior to Super Bowl 51 between the New England Patriots and
the Atlanta Falcons at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
In March 2003, Bush invaded Iraq in a blatant violation of
international law, over the Arab country’s “weapons of
mass destruction,” but no such weapons were ever
discovered in the country.
The invasion plunged Iraq into chaos, resulting in years of
deadly violence and the rise of terrorist groups like Daesh
(ISIL), while leaving more than one million Iraqis dead.
But the White House said the Bush legacy
.
393
"begins with the Iraq war, one of the
greatest foreign policy mistakes in
American history."
“Saddam Hussein was a bad guy,” George
H.W. Bush said. “I think history will be okay
with it."
The White House, meanwhile, argued that
“President Trump remains focused on
keeping his promises to the American
people by bringing back jobs, promoting an
America First foreign policy and standing
up for the forgotten men and women of our
great country.”
Since Trump assumed office, the US has been expanding
its military presence in various spots in the world,
including Afghanistan.
The New York billionaire was nominated by the
Republican Party to run for the 2016 presidential election
and managed to beat Democrat Hillary Clinton despite
losing the popular vote.
Former US House Speaker John Boehner indicated
recently that the Republican party is dead, saying,
"Donald Trump’s not a Republican.”
 ‘A Complete And Total Sewer’:
Brazile’s DNC Bombshell Only The Beginning
© AP Photo/ Tom Lynn
00:59 04.11.2017(Updated 02:39 04.11.2017)
Donna Brazile, the chair of the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) from July 2016 to February 2017, has
alleged massive corruption within the supposedly impartial
DNC during the 2016 election as the party was under the
financial control of then-candidate Hillary Clinton.
In an excerpt of her upcoming book published as an article
on Politico titled, "Inside Hillary Clinton's Secret
Takeover Of The DNC," Brazile offers yet more evidence
that the pervasive sense that the DNC had rigged the
Democratic primary contest against Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-VT) in favor of Clinton was, in fact, correct.
While the primaries were ongoing, Brazile alleged, the
Clinton campaign was paying to keep the lights on at the
DNC, which was $24 million in debt. The DNC, which is
supposed to be neutral and not support any one candidate
during the primary, was under Clinton's control the entire
time as a result, she said.
Garland Nixon and Lee Stranahan of Fault Lines
on Sputnik Radio spoke with Michael Krieger, a financial
analyst turned social activist and populist blogger. Krieger
was excited about the Brazile article, which he considered
the first shot in an unprecedented political upheaval in the
US.
"Donna Brazile is a known liar," Krieger began.
"She participated in this rigging of the primary,
we know that, but at the end of the day, Donna
Brazile is a minion. She's a nobody. She's just
like anyone else, she wants to do well in her
job… she [wants] a nice lifestyle."
394
"We need to take a big picture [approach]…
[Brazile has] not harmed America in massive
ways, she's harmed American in minor ways… I
care about people who have harmed America
in massive ways. The Clintons are one of the
best examples we have in this country. The
proof is right here: this family, Bill and Hillary,
made $150 million. Doing what? Being career
politicians. How do you do that? The only way
you can make $150 million by being politicians
is if your system is a complete sewer — and it is
it is a complete and total sewer, and they are
one of the primary beneficiaries."
"Also that's not clean money, that's all dirty
money again," said Krieger. "People that go
to Washington to care about the public don't
make $150 million, it's Ethics 101. [The
Clintons] belong to a class of people: they're
Democrats, they're Republicans, they're Wall
Street CEOs, they're pharma CEOS, they're
lobbyists like [John and Tony] Podesta and
[Paul] Manafort. They're defense contractors,
they're intelligence peddlers. It's the top people
at these places who are ruining the country —
and they know what they're doing, too."
"Brazile is getting a paycheck. The Clintons are
giving out the paychecks. What I want to do is
[get] American citizens to stop being distracted,
stopping being divided and look at the big
'Super Predators,' " Krieger urged, ironically
referencing an infamous description of African-
American youth by Hillary Clinton. "Look at the
people who are given the paychecks and the
minions who are keeping this corrupt system
alive, because it needs to die, and the sooner it
dies, the better… so I'm happy with what Donna
Brazile did. I forgive her for her past sins,
because this was a huge positive and I want
to see a lot more of it."
Krieger also praised Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who
came out in support of Brazile's allegations and
condemned her own party, calling for significant party
reform to limit the power of superdelegates and, in her
words,
"take back our party — a party that belongs
to the people — and fight for a new path
forward that is open, transparent, accountable,
inclusive, and that actually strengthens our
democracy."
Gabbard's words were echoed by Sen Elizabeth Warren
(D-MA) who agreed that the primary was "rigged" in favor
of Clinton.
To Krieger, Gabbard "is about a million times braver. Let's
not forget what she did during the primary:
She quit her position [as vice-chair of the DNC]
to support Bernie. Now — I think she's very
savvy politician; I think she saw the writing
on the wall super early — but it still took a ton
of courage. She could have been wrong, and if
she was wrong, her career is finished."
"Warren, on the other hand, who aligned
perfectly with Bernie Sanders on almost every
issue, didn't say a peep during the primary. She
was a total coward." And she wound
up supporting Clinton in the end, too.
Nixon and Stranahan compared Brazile's allegations, and
their reinforcement by Gabbard and Warren, to the current
sexual assault scandal embroiling Hollywood personalities
.
395
like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. All it takes is
one relatively low-level individual to come forward
to open the floodgates of a major scandal.
"That's a great comparison," said Krieger."I
want to inspire people, from your average
person who can't make a difference really
to people who really can. I want people to say,
'look, we're in a very special time'… we live
in revolutionary times."
But unlike the Hollywood scandal, Brazile's allegations
have not been extensively covered by mainstream media
outlets. Quite the opposite.
"That's how you know when something's big,"
said Krieger "When I see MSNBC or CNN or
the New York Times ignoring a story that
anyone with two brain cells to rub together can
see the gigantic political implications of… that is
such a sign that we're winning. That is such a
sign that the status quo has no confidence, that
they're terrified, that they're weak."
"The cat's out of the bag. In a world where we're
talking to each other across the world and we've
got billions of people that can communicate and
say, 'what is wrong with these elitists? They're
complete lunatics, and we don't need them.'
They can't win… and so the only question
for me is what comes next? I think the next five
years will be the most chaotic five years that
any of us alive will ever live."
 Donna Brazile Says She "Feared
For Her Life" After Seth Rich Was Killed
By Tyler Durden
Nov 4, 2017 10:25 PM
Perhaps the most shocking revelation
contained in the excerpts from former DNC
Chairwoman Donna Brazile’s book was,
unsurprisingly, buried in a Washington Post
overview of the various allegations (and frankly,
we’re surprised the Post, given its status as a
protector of the Washington establishment,
deigned to publish it).
In the aftermath of Wikileaks’ decision to publish a cache
of emails stolen from the DNC’s servers, Donna Brazile
says she became increasingly paranoid about both possible
Russian efforts to sway the election. Surprisingly, she says
top Democrats initially instructed her not to discuss her
concerns with others.
But even more than the Russians, Brazile says she feared
possible retribution from shadowy elements within the
campaign and the Democratic Party who might blame her
for the leak.
Her fears only intensified, she says, after the
mysterious shooting of former campaign
staffer Seth Rich, who the authorities said
was killed during a robbery, though many
so-called conspiracy theorists have
speculated about a possible Democratic plot
to kill Rich for his role in leaking the stash of
DNC emails to Wikileaks. Brazile's anxiety
eventually spiraled out of control, to the
point where she feared for her own life while
serving as interim chairwoman of the DNC.
.
396
Brazile describes her mounting anxiety about Russia’s
theft of emails and other data from DNC servers, the slow
process of discovering the full extent of the cyberattacks
and the personal fallout. She likens the feeling to having
rats in your basement:
“You take measures to get rid of them, but
knowing they are there, or have been there,
means you never feel truly at peace.”
Brazile writes that she was haunted by the
still-unsolved murder of DNC data staffer
Seth Rich and feared for her own life,
shutting the blinds to her office window so
snipers could not see her and installing
surveillance cameras at her home. She
wonders whether Russians had placed a
listening device in plants in the DNC
executive suite.
At first, Brazile writes of the hacking, top Democratic
officials were “encouraging us not to talk about it.” But
she says a wake-up moment came when she visited the
White House in August 2016, for President Obama’s 55th
birthday party. National security adviser Susan E. Rice and
former attorney general Eric Holder separately pulled her
aside quietly to urge her to take the Russian hacking
seriously, which she did, she writes.
While she doesn’t elaborate on her reasons for suspecting
that Rich’s death may have been a homicide, just the fact
that Brazile says she, too, suspected that something
nefarious might’ve been afoot is reason enough to take a
second look at Rich’s death.
Of course, if it’s true that Rich was killed as
punishment for leaking the emails, then that
would of course invalidata most of the
evidence supporting the Russia interference
narrative that has been propagated by the
Democrats and their partners in the
intelligence community.
 Brazile: ‘Donald Trump
Loves To Distract Us And Divide Us’
By Pam Key
5 Nov 2017
She continued,
She added,
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” former Democratic
National Committee chair Donna Brazile said President
Donald Trump “loves to distract us and divide us.”
When asked about death threats, Brazile said,
“Every day, especially when Donald Trump
would go out there and tweet. Look, I have
worked on campaigns all of my adult life. I have
397
been called some of the worst things in
America. When Donald Trump would attack me,
I got the threats were just unbearable.”
My house right now is — I’ve got every different
kind of security device. I had to get my home
swept. The DNC offices swept twice. It was
horrible.”
“Donald Trump likes to distract. What he should
be focusing on is protecting our country from
being hacked again. He should be working with
Congress to ensure that the American people
will feel confident that we are going to have a
good election season in 2017, 2018. Donald
Trump loves to distract us and divide us. I’m not
playing his game.”
 Antifa Fail: Low Turnouts
Mark Nationwide ‘Refuse Fascism’ Protests
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On November 5, 2017

Despite advanced publicization and free nationwide press, There were also several hundred people who showed up to
no doubt protest in President Donald J. Trump’s hometown of New
York City.
Antifa is especially strong in far-Left Seattle, but some
who attended just to see what kind of crowd the protest
would draw reported that at its peak only about 50 persons
showed up.
Many protest signs were seen lying on the ground,
untouched and unused, Breitbart News reported.

(National Sentinel) Antifail: So-called anti-fascist

organization Antifa planned protests in scores of major
cities on Saturday, but turnout for most of them was
extremely low.

The loose-knit organization, founded by Revolutionary

Communist Party chairman Bob Avakian, took out a full-
page ad in the New York Times to promote the rally. In
addition, the group received no small amount of free press
in the days leading up to the protests.

That said, turnout at the protests was far less than the 1
million people the group anticipated.

The one exception appears to have been L.A, where local

news reported that close to 2,000 protesters gathered.
.

398
 Mueller Investigation Has Enough
Evidence To Charge Michael Flynn – Media Report
© AP Photo/ Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA - US
21:43 05.11.2017(Updated 21:54 05.11.2017)
Federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to
press charges against former national security adviser
Michael Flynn and his son, NBC News reports, citing
sources reportedly close to Robert Mueller's investigation
into alleged collusion between the presidential campaign
of US President Donald Trump and Russian actors.
A team of federal investigators led by Special Counsel
Robert Mueller have gathered sufficient evidence to charge
Michael T. Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn, as they
carry out a probe into alleged collusion between Trump
aides and Russian actors, NBC News reported on Sunday.
399
Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn served as Trump's national
security adviser for just 24 days until he was forced to quit
due to accusations he had contact with Russia's
ambassador to the US and misled Vice-President Mike
Pence about the conversations.
The sources reportedly told NBC that investigators are
examining Flynn's lobbying contacts and exploring
possible charges of money laundering and lying to federal
agents.
They are also investigating whether he attempted
to orchestrate the extradition of Fethullah Gulen from the
US to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars.
Mueller's investigation, which is being carried out on
behalf of the US Department of Justice, has already
indicted three members of Trump's campaign team. They
are former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former
campaign aides Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos.
 New FOIA Documents Reveal FBI Scramble
To Preserve CFIUS Records In Uranium One Scandal
zeropointnow
Sun Nov 5, 2017 3:10am EST
An internet researcher has uncovered what
appears to be proof that the FBI was
investigating the Uranium One deal back in
2015 – months after the Peter Schweizer
book Clinton Cash exposed the scheme,
along with an article in the New York Times which laid out
allegations of criminal malfeasance by the Clintons, their
charitable foundation, and several associates.
Twitter user Katica (@GOPPollAnalyst) – who notably
discovered Hillary Clinton’s IT guy ‘Stonetear’ asking
Reddit users how to strip Clinton’s name from archived
emails –
discovered several Preservation and Records
requests sent by an FBI special agent to
various agencies involved in the approval of
the Uranium One deal on August 28th, 2015,
as first published by The Conservative
Treehouse.
Katica found the requests buried in an FBI file released via
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Revealing Timeline
While the Clinton email investigation was launched
in March of 2015 after it was revealed that Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton used a personal server and non-
approved email accounts to conduct government business,
400
reports from August, 2015 revealed that the
FBI investigation was actually a criminal probe – though
most assumed it was simply covering Clinton’s
mishandling of classified information and not the content
of her emails.
What Katica discovered is that weeks after
the criminal probe began, the FBI sent
notices to nearly every agency involved in the
Uranium One approval process to preserve
records.
This is huge…
The agencies which received the request included the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Dept. of
Treasury, the Office of Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI James Clapper), The National Counter Terrorism
Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Five days after the initial request, the same
FBI agent sent another round of notifications to
the same agencies, adding the National
Security Agency (NSA) and the U.S. Secret
Service (USSS).
The next day, September 3rd, 2015, three
more agencies were added to the preservation
request: The CIA, the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) and the Department of Defense
(DOD)
At this point, every single member of the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS) which signed off on
the Uranium One deal was served with a
notice to preserve records.
As The Conservative Treehouse notes:
It would be intellectually dishonest not to
see the very likely attachment of the special
agent’s action. That is to say an FBI probe
originating as an outcome of information
retrieved in parallel to the timing of the
“criminal probe” of Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s email use.
The sequence of events highlights a criminal probe starting
[early August 2015], followed by notifications to the
“Uranium One” CFIUS participants [late August 2015].
If you consider the larger Clinton timeline; along with the
FBI special agent requests from identified participants; and
overlay the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the leading
entity surrounding the probe elements; and the fact that the
CFIUS participants were the recipients of the retention
requests;
well, it’s just too coincidental to think this is
unrelated to the Uranium One deal and the
more alarming implications.
FBI Mole
Let’s not forget a bombshell report from The Hill two
weeks ago which revealed that as early as 2009,
the FBI – led by Robert Mueller at the time,
As far as the current state of the FBI investigation, “They
had a mole in the Russian uranium industry,
are more focused on facilitators of Russian influence in
and that the agency had evidence
this country than they are on election collusion,” Carlson’s
that “Russian nuclear officials had routed
source told Fox.
millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to
benefit former President Bill Clinton’s
charitable foundation during the time
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on
a government body that provided a
favorable decision to Moscow” – a deal which
would grant the Kremlin control over 20 percent
of America’s uranium supply.
The mole was forced to sign an iron-clad non-disclosure
agreement (NDA) which threatened criminal penalties for
revealing information, even to Congress. After a request
was made by Reps Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Chuck
Grassley (R-IA) calling for the Justice department to
invalidate the NDA, the gag order was lifted, and the FBI
informant was authorized to speak with congress.
Tony Podesta and Uranium One
While one-time Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
turned himself in to the FBI a week ago on charges of
money laundering, let’s not forget what a former Podesta
Group executive interviewed by Special Counsel Robert
Mueller told Tucker Carlson Tonight:
401
the FBI probe is now focusing on people in
Washington who have worked as de-facto
operatives on behalf of Russian government
and business. To that end, he had quite a bit
to say about his former boss Tony and his
relationship to the Uranium One deal.
 In late 2013 or early 2014, Tony Podesta and a
representative for the Clinton Foundation met to
discuss how to help Uranium One – the Russian
owned company that controls 20 percent of American
Uranium Production – and whose board members gave
over $100 million to the Clinton Foundation.
 In 2013, John Podesta recommended that Tony
hire David Adams, Hillary Clinton’s chief adviser at
the State Department, giving them a “direct liaison”
between the group’s Russian clients and Hillary
Clinton’s State Department.
 “Tony Podesta was basically part of the Clinton
Foundation.”
Tying it together – previous reports of
Federal investigations into the Clinton
Foundation:
Katica’s FOIA discovery corroborates a New
York Times report from November 1, 2016,
which asserts that an FBI investigation was
kicked off based on revelations of pay-for-play
in the book “Clinton Cash” written by Peter
Schweizer:
The investigation, based in New York, had
not developed much evidence and was
based mostly on information that had
surfaced in news stories and the book
“Clinton Cash,” according to several law
enforcement officials briefed on the case.
The book asserted that foreign entities gave
money to former President Bill Clinton and
the Clinton Foundation, and in return
received favors from the State Department
when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state.
Mrs. Clinton has adamantly denied those
claims. -NYT
The Wall St. Journal also reported last October
that five FBI field offices were investigating
the Clinton Foundation; New York, Los
Angeles, Washington, Little Rock and
Miami, and “were collecting information about
the Clinton Foundation to see if there was
 evidence of financial crimes or influence-
peddling, according to people familiar with the
matter.”
The FBI field office in New York had done the most work
on the Clinton Foundation case and received help from the
FBI field office in Little Rock, the people familiar with the
matter said. –WSJ
mishandling of classified material, we now
have proof that the FBI set their sights
on the Uranium One scandal weeks after
they began looking into Hillary Clinton’s
emails. We also know that five FBI field
offices and the IRS have been investigating
the Clinton Foundation on accusations of
pay-to-play and other criminal acts.

And in November, as tweeted by Wikileaks and reported Bets on who’s indicted next?
on by the Dallas Observer,
Flashback to October 27, 2016
the Clinton Foundation has been under
investigation by the IRS since July of 2016,

after 64 GOP members of Congress received letters urging

them to push for an investigation. The investigation has
been notably held at the Dallas IRS office – far away from
Washington.

The Earle Cabell Federal Building in downtown Dallas is

an all purpose office complex, a bastion of federal
bureaucracy located at 1100 Commerce St. Most people
come for a passport or to get business done in front of a
federal judge. But inside, a quiet review is underway that
has direct ties to the raging presidential election: The local
branch of the IRS’ Tax Exempt and Government Entities
Division is reviewing the tax status of the Bill, Hillary and
Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

So – while the FBI investigation into Hillary

Clinton was sold as a simple matter of
.

402
 Boris Johnson Reportedly Linked
To FBI Probe Into Alleged Moscow Collusion
© AP Photo/ Thierry Charlier - Europe
22:27 05.11.2017(Updated 22:30 05.11.2017)
The new details were revealed concerning the FBI
investigation of alleged Russian interference in 2016 US
Presidential campaign.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — UK Foreign Secretary Boris
Johnson along with two other executives had contacts
with those, who are mentioned in the FBI probe of alleged
Russian interference in 2016 US Presidential campaign,
the Observer newspaper reported citing its sources.
To be more precise, three senior incumbent and former
Foreign Office officials, including Johnson, had
encounters with Trump campaign foreign policy adviser
George Papadopoulos and Maltese academic Joseph
Mifsud living in the United Kingdom.
.
403
The US Department of Justice revealed on Monday that
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty on October 5 to making false
statements to FBI agents pertaining to Russian actors
with whom he contacted while acting as an adviser.
Alok Sharma, a foreign parliamentary under-secretary
of state in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, had met
Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud "not at once". Boris
Johnson was among speakers during one of the events,
where they also had a conversation together.
Moreover, the media outlet also discovered that there was
a meeting between Papadopoulos and Tobias Ellwood,
then a senior minister in the Foreign Office, on the
sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2016.
The US Congress is currently investigating Russia's
alleged meddling in last year's US presidential election.
The FBI has been carrying out a similar investigation
under Special Counsel Robert Mueller. A number
of hearings regarding the issue have been held
in Congress, but intelligence service officials did not
provide any evidence, claiming that the information was
confidential. Russia denies meddling in the 2016 US
election, calling the accusations absurd.
 'Voter Fraud Doesn’t Exist,
Trump Made It Up' Says Chelsea Handler
On Netflix Show
By Karen Townsend
November 6, 2017 7:00 AM EST
The November 3 episode of Netflix’s Chelsea, titled
“Gwen We Meet Again,” included a segment on the
judicial system and "voter suppression." Jason Kander,
President of Let America Vote, and Michigan Supreme
Court Justice Bridget McCormack were the guests Chelsea
Handler tasked with educating America (and herself).
After Chelsea admits her ignorance (again) about America
by saying,
“I have a really hard time understanding the
judiciary system,” Justice McCormack
explains the state and federal court
systems.
McCormack, it should be noted, is the sister of Handler’s
best friend and occasional show guest, the liberal Mary
McCormack. Thankfully, she remains professional
throughout this segment as she stresses that judges are to
be non-partisan in their work. That’s difficult for most of
us to believe in practice, but at least she says the words.
Kander, however, pipes up with all the standard liberal
talking points. He is happy to agree when Handler says,
“Voter fraud doesn’t exist. Trump made
it up.”
Really? I have supported a group called True the Vote,
founded in my city, for many years. This group certainly
pre-dates Trump’s political campaign (founded in 2009)
and their focus is precisely on voter fraud. You may have
404
heard of the legal battles instigated by the Obama
administration’s I.R.S. against the group’s founder,
Catherine Engelbrecht. Her battle continues to this day.
Despite the articles written about voter fraud cases, as
recently as the past few days, Kander lobs one Democratic
talking point after another.
“The Republican Party has tried to pretend
there’s a difference between the parties,
that one party believes voting should be
harder. That’s not it. The Republican wants
to make it harder for folks to vote if they’re
less likely to vote Republican.”
He continues,
“They go out and tell everybody there’s an
epidemic of voter fraud when you’re more
likely to be struck by lightning as an
American than you are to commit voter
impersonation fraud. They do it to
undermine faith in democracy so that they
can pass laws that make it harder to vote.
It’s like the centerpiece of Donald Trump’s
reelection strategy.” Well, that’s quite a
stretch, isn’t it?
Then, of course, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is brought
into the mix. Kander says,
“But when you have Jeff Sessions in
charge of DOJ and then you have Donald
Trump picking the judges, what happens is
now you can’t just have a legal argument,
you also have to have an argument in the
court of public opinion.” He claims
Sessions has “the DOJ against voting
rights” and “being on the side of making it
harder to vote.”
Fortunately, Justice McCormack pushes back on his
prattling. She says,
 “It should not matter who appoints the
judges. I want you to be optimistic.”
She gives an example of a new justice now her colleague
on Michigan’s Supreme Court. The woman is a Trump
appointee and she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a
bipartisan vote. “She’ll be excellent,” McCormack says.
The Justice wraps up the discussion aptly, I thought. She
says,
“I believe that when the founders set up
this, you know, lovely system in our federal
government, they made that branch
.
405
different from the others, not subject to
partisan elections, for a reason.”
She calls it the “non-political” branch of government. Hey,
it was nice to have an adult in one of Chelsea Handler’s
discussions to counter the juvenile partisanship of most
liberals.
Handler often admits her ignorance of basic American
history and the various parts of our government. This show
is no different. Sadly, I do not have the impression that she
ever really learns anything. Maybe I’ll take the Justice’s
advice and “remain optimistic.”
 Trump-Hating Celebrities Can’t
Cope With The ‘Orange Nightmare’
By Geoffrey Dickens
November 6, 2017 9:47 AM EST

[LANGUAGE WARNING] and the genocide of the Native American

population, the napalming of the
Vietnamese children, the destruction of
Afghanistan’s civilian hospitals.”

Actress Jane Fonda told a British interviewer that she was

not proud to be an American and would eagerly join NFL
players’ National Anthem protests: “I would take a knee. I
would take two knees. I’d get on all fours if necessary.”

The following are the craziest examples of celebrities

attempting to cope with Trump from the past few months:

Celebrities Still Can’t Cope with Trump Presidency

If there was a fancy Malibu rehab center for Trump
Derangement Syndrome it would be jam packed with
celebrities right now. Ten months into Trump’s first term
Hollywood actors, directors, comedians and singers are
STILL having trouble coping with life under President
Trump.

Comedian Rosie O’Donnell confessed her sick obsession:

“I spend like pretty much 90 percent of my

waking hours tweeting hatred” towards
Trump. And for some celebs Trump
became a literal nightmare they can’t wake
up from.
Actor Rob Reiner whined:
“I’m in a nightmare that doesn’t ever stop,”
and hippie-singer David Crosby wailed
about the “orange nightmare in
Washington.”
There were also the typical “crazy” comparisons. Green
Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong compared the
president to Saddam Hussein and called him “Batshit
crazy.” And Netflix host Chelsea Handler wanted to trade
Trump for the “more sane” Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Many celebrities also admitted to being ashamed of
America.
Prophets of Rage guitarist Tom Morello
cursed the “same flag that flew over slavery
406
“I spend like pretty much 90 percent of my
waking hours tweeting hatred towards this
administration.”
— Comedian/actress Rosie O’Donnell
on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers,
November 2.
“I just want him to go away. This is a satire
that you can’t make it up. It’s like you don’t
have to change anything....I feel like I’m in
a nightmare that doesn’t ever stop...It’s
sad. I worry for the health of democracy.”
— Actor Rob Reiner in October 24
interview for The Hollywood Reporter.
“It has taken me a full year to integrate the
reality of him being a president in a way
that I don’t come across as either so full of
rage that no one can hear my words, or so
sad that I can’t articulate the level of
pain....I seriously worry whether I
personally will be able to live through
[Trump presidency] and whether the nation
 will be able to live through it and survive.
It’s a terrifying concept, on the brink of
nuclear war with a madman in charge.”
— Comedian/actress Rosie O’Donnell in
October 24 interview for W magazine.
Hippie Singer Wails About “Orange Nightmare”
Trump
“Part of our [musicians] job has always
been to be the – the one who carries the
news from town to town. The, the – you
know – the troubadours. That’s where we
come from. The town crier. It’s 12:30am
and you guys elected an imbecile [Donald
Trump] to run the country....One of the only
good things that’s happening from having
the orange nightmare in Washington
is....it’s that it’s generating some good
art....one of the only good things about this
disaster is that it will generate good art.”
— Singer David Crosby of the folk band
Crosby, Stills & Nash on PBS’s Tavis
Smiley, September 13.
Batsh*t Crazy” Trump Like Saddam Hussein, Satan
“The first time I heard of [Donald] Trump
legitimately running for president, the first
thing I thought of was fascism. I was just
thinking of all the buildings he’s got his
name on. That type of narcissism – wow,
that’s not that much different from Saddam
Hussein. He’s batshit crazy. This isn’t just a
Republican that you’re dealing with. He’s
no longer the leader of the free world. I’ve
never seen a president that was no longer
that....[My sons] look at it and they’re like,
‘We have Satan as the President of the
United States.’ And I was like, ‘We’ve had
Satan before, and we voted Satan out. Just
remember that.”
— Green Day frontman Billie Joe
Armstrong at liberal filmmaker Michael
Moore’s Broadway show, as reported in
September 21 RollingStone.com article.
407
“Trade” Trump for “More Sane” Korean Dictator
“Uhhhh. Kim Jung’s letter to
@realDonaldTrump is a little bit more sane
than @realDonaldTrump. Maybe we
trade?”
— September 21 tweet from Netflix host
Chelsea Handler.
“Kim Jong Un is right: ‘Far from making
remarks that can be viewed as helpful to
defusing tension, [Trump] made
unprecedented rude nonsense.’”
— September 22 tweet from former
MSNBC host Toure.
Never Let a Crisis Get In the Way of
Trashing Trump and GOP
“As we send our thoughts, donations and
love to victims of Irma, we must never
forget Donald Trump is the worst POTUS in
US history.”
— September 11 tweet by actor/director
Rob Reiner.
“As a massive hurricane bears down on us,
please remember that one American
political party literally does not believe in
science.... And they will never stop
justifying their own bullshit. People are
going to die in Florida in the next few days
and they’re going to offer thoughts and
prayers and go back to raping the country
they claim to love in the name of Jesus
fucking Christ on high. Fuck them. And if
you support this bullshit, fuck you too.”
— From September 9 tweet thread by
actor Michael Ian Black.
“Don’t be fooled by @ScottPruittOK he is a
full blown Climate Denialist and he is
making it harder to protect ourselves and
families from it.”
— September 10 tweet by actor Mark
Ruffalo
“While another storm heads r way, craven
republican sock puppets in service of
shameless greed, try AGAIN 2 ravage
healthcare. #sickening.”
— September 19 tweet by actor Jim
Carrey.
 Trump Election Was “Last Primal
Scream of White Males”
“I think we’re looking at a moment which is
the last primal scream of white males in
this society, that last moment of ‘I just lived
through eight years of a president of color,
you are now asking me to buy in on a
female president, and I’m going to go
kicking and screaming because what was
mine, what I perceived to be my status and
privilege within the culture is now being laid
bare as entirely vulnerable, and I’m fighting
back.’ And I don’t think you can divorce that
from the phenomenon that is Donald
Trump.”
— Creator of HBO’s The Wire David
Simon on PBS’s Charlie Rose show,
September 11.
Trump’s “Entire Appeal” is the “Logical End” of
Reagan’s Racist Revolution”
Author Salman Rushdie: “It seems pretty
goddamn obvious that what happened on
November 8th was a racist backlash
against eight years of a black man in the
White House.”
Host Bill Maher: “You’re not saying that all
Trump voters – ”
Author Fran Lebowitz: “All Trump voters,
Trump’s entire appeal was racism.”
Maher: “Every single Trump voter? That’s
not true.”
Lebowitz: “Okay, maybe two, two no.
Those rallies, you know, for someone our
age, what did they remind you of? George
Wallace rallies....He allows them to express
their bigotry and that’s why they’re so
ecstatic at those rallies.”
— HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, September 15.
“You kind of have to overlook the fact that
Trump isn’t a virus from space. He came
from the Republican Party, he’s the kind of
408
logical end of the Reagan revolution. He’s
not an anomaly, he’s not an aberration. It
started long ago. All the things that are in
Trumpism were there: The racial dog
whistles, the anti-intellectualism, the anti-
science. He’s just the end of the road for
that. And so when I hear the anti-Trumpers,
I applaud, but at the same time I go ‘yeah,
but there’s something in there that we’re
not really saying.’”
— Host Bill Maher on HBO’s Real Time,
September 22.
Thankful That Trump Too Much of an “Imbecile” to
Get “Cruel” Legislation
“You know, and we may have to struggle,
like other civilizations have. Like you know,
people did during the czar, and things like
that. We may have to struggle, because we
deserve it, frankly...Trump is a fucking
imbecile, and I’m kind of glad he is,
because if he were somewhat efficient,
he’d actually be passing some of this
sadism that passes as legislation. I swear
to God. I don’t like him, and I think he’s
poisonous, an egomaniac and a lunatic, but
I know that there’s another side to the story
that balances everything, and it’s keeping
people like Paul Ryan from taking
everybody’s healthcare away, or passing
initiatives that are devoid of compassion.
Cruel, you know? Absolute cruelty.”
— Actor Jim Carrey in a September 9
Facebook Live video with Michael
Moore before appearing in Moore’s
Broadway show.
Remove Trump For His “War On Our Ovaries”
“This has been cool and fun and you guys
were so right about her e-mails and thank
God we went your way but I think we are
ready for mom to pick us up from this
slumber party because we have kind of had
enough and because we love Puerto Rico
and our LGBTQ friends and we kneel with
our brothers and sisters who choose to and
because we don’t want WW3 on our
ovaries or for our soldiers so you can make
more money and a golden gun with your
name on it. So what do you say?
#25thamendment.”
— October 12 Instagram post by
actress/comic Amy Schumer.
Subtle
“Trump, you dumb motherfucker, you
talking shit about the [NBA star Steph
Curry] Currys? Everybody loves the Currys.
Ayesha Curry, Riley Curry, Steph Curry,
Dell Curry, even the pretty ass moms, you
dumb motherfucker don’t you even know
who the Currys are? That’s like talking shit
about Mickey Mouse! You took away his
invitation to the White House to come meet
you? Motherfucker, no one from the NBA is
fucking with you! KD (Kevin Durant),
LeBron, Steve Kerr, Greg Popovich, Yao
Ming, Larry Bird, nobody is coming to fuck
with you man. No one wants to meet your
ass. And then you was talking shit about
Kaepernick. Saying ‘get that son of a bitch
off the field.’ No! You fat motherfucker, get
that son of a bitch out of the motherfucking
White House. Get him the fuck out! So now
what’s going to happen is we gonna take a
knee to you. You bloated motherfucker
you. You have any idea how uncomfortable
this is for a 47-year-old Jewish man with a
bad back and shin splints? We taking a
knee to you, motherfucker.”
— Actor Michael Rapaport in September
23 video tweet.
Republicans and NRA Members At Fault for Mass
Shootings
“Innocent people go to church on Sunday
to honor their God, and while doing so, get
shot in killed. What country? America.
Why? Republicans.”
— November 5 tweet after Texas church
shooting by Netflix host Chelsea
Handler.
“The murderous members of the NRA
should face a firing squad.”
— October 3 tweet after Las Vegas
concert shooting by singer Nancy
Sinatra.
409
Second Amendment Was About Slavery
“The Second Amendment shows just how
far the poison of slavery pervaded the
Constitution. It was intended to protect
slave holders who used militias to keep a
firm grip on their slaves. It wasn’t meant to
let individuals prevent federal tyranny. How
could it? It was meant to guarantee the
legality of well-regulated militias to handle
the states’ internal problems, especially the
problem of a large slave population.’ Says
a lot, doesn’t it?”
— Host Bill Maher quoting a New York Times column
by Gary Wills, on HBO’s Real Time, October 6.
Love For Everyone...Except For “Unintelligent”
Climate Change Deniers
“We’ve come together today to love on the
people that have been devastated by the
hurricanes. When love goes into action, it
preferences no color of skin, no ethnicity,
no religious beliefs, no sexual preferences,
and no political persuasions. It just loves.
As we should begin to love and value our
planet, and anyone who believes that there
is no such thing as global warming must be
blind or unintelligent. Lord, please save us
all.”
— Singer Stevie Wonder on telethon for hurricane
victims Hand In Hand: A Benefit for Hurricane Relief,
September 12.
The Anti-Lee Greenwood? Not Proud to Be An
American
BBC Hardtalk host Stephen Sackur:
“Let me ask you a simple question: Are you
proud of America today?”
Actress Jane Fonda: “No! But I’m proud
of the resistance. I’m proud of the people
who are turning out in unprecedented
numbers and continue over and over and
over again to protest what Trump is doing.
I’m very proud of that core....[If I were in the
.
410
NFL] I would take a knee. I would take two
knees. I’d get on all fours if necessary.”
— BBC Hardtalk, October 16.
American Flag Represents Racism and “Genocide”
“It’s the same flag that flew over slavery
and the genocide of the Native American
population, the napalming of the
Vietnamese children, the destruction of
Afghanistan’s civilian hospitals and it’s on
the uniform of every police officer who’s
killed an innocent African-American person.
It’s also a flag that’s in the courtroom of
every judge who’s let those cops go free.”
— Musician Tom Morello on HBO’s Real Time with
Bill Maher, September 29.
 Russian Dossier Investigators Suspect
Reporters Were Paid To Spread Fake Collusion Narrative
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On November 6, 2017
The cases underscore how a Moscow-sourced
memorandum created as opposition research against
Donald Trump in the presidential campaign last year often
dictates the debate about politics and reporters’ rights in
Washington
(National Sentinel) Fake News: The role the media played
in the spread of a thus-far unsubstantiated narrative that
collusion existed between the Trump campaign and Russia
is coming under further scrutiny by investigators looking
into the infamous Russia dossier.
As noted by The Washington Times, Fusion GPS, which
financed the dossier via funds provided by the Democratic
Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign, is fighting a
House committee chairman in U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia as he attempts to find out whether
journalists were paid.
Also, the Times reported, a self-described dossier victim
wants a federal judge in Florida to order the news web
site Buzzfeed, which published the full 35-page dossier, to
say who provided it.
The Times:
The cases underscore how a Moscow-
sourced memorandum created as
opposition research against Donald Trump
in the presidential campaign last year often
dictates the debate about politics and
reporters’ rights in Washington.
Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican
and chairman of the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, signed a
411
subpoena to force a bank to turn over
Fusion’s financial records. He wants to
know who paid for the dossier, which was
written in a series of 18 memos by former
British spy Christopher Steele. He relied
almost exclusively on unidentified Kremlin
sources.
Steele also reportedly paid those Kremlin sources, further
raising suspicions about the information they provided, the
most damning of which remains unsubstantiated.
Fusion went to court in a bid to block Nunes, “but the law
firm Perkins Coie LLP, whose partner Marc E. Elias is the
Clinton’s campaign’s general counsel, intervened,” the
Times reported, providing information that the Clinton
campaign and the DNC paid for the dossier.
Fusion and Nunes worked out an agreement for the
opposition research firm to supply him with additional
financial information.
However, now the firm has gone back to court to block
Nunes’ subpoena because he is seeking even more data.
Fusion briefed a number of Washington journalists on the
contents of the dossier, but executives with the firm said
they did not provide Buzzfeed with an actual copy.
The site is being sued by Russian tech firms accused of
wrongdoing in the dossier.
In addition, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was known to
have possessed a hard copy of the dossier through a set of
complex arrangements with Steele. But he has said he also
was not the source of providing a copy of it to Buzzfeed,
the Times reported.
“I gave it to no one except for the director
of the FBI. I don’t know why you’re digging
this up now,” McCain told The Daily Caller
last month.
 DEEP Corruption Inside Robert Mueller’s
Office As It’s Revealed His Top Lawyers Secretly Signed
Off On The Uranium One Deal
By JD Heyes
Monday, November 06, 2017
If you haven’t realized yet just how big and powerful “the
swamp” is in Washington, D.C., that President Donald J.
Trump is trying to ‘drain,’ this should help you understand
how big of a job it’s going to be.
Special counsel Robert Mueller, who was initially
appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein —
whom President Obama named to his post — was
originally tasked with finding out whether the Trump’s
campaign “colluded” with Russia to “steal the election”
from Hillary Clinton.
There has been no evidence whatsoever produced by
anyone — the FBI, the intelligence community or various
investigating congressional committees — to substantiate
such a claim, even though Democrats and their
sycophantic media allies continue to insinuate that a link
exists.
But it appears proving that was never the goal.
Mueller was given a very broad mandate by Rosenstein,
allowing him to pretty much investigate whatever he wants
as it relates to Team Trump. What most people haven’t
been told is that Mueller has some skeletons of his own
that should be investigated by a separate special counsel.
As noted by The Gateway Pundit, Sean Hannity, a popular
Fox News host, pointed out on his program last week that
attorneys who worked for Mueller as head of the FBI
during the Uranium One deal signed off on it despite the
fact that the bureau had uncovered massive evidence of
412
criminality involving Russian and American figures, up to
and including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Gateway Pundit reported:
According to Hannity, Fox News Legal
Contributor Gregg Jarrett discovered both
Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein
and Mueller’s right-hand man, Andrew
Weissmann, former head of the fraud unit
at Obama/Holder’s Justice Department,
signed the plea agreement of the Russian
businessman embroiled in the Clinton-
Uranium One case.
In his opening monologue, Hannity noted that Weissmann,
“just like Mueller and so many other
Obama officials,” is “tied up in the corrupt
Uranium One deal.”
He noted that Weissmann ran the Department of Justice’s
fraud section at the time Russian operatives were bribing
Americans involved with the company, and while vast
sums of money were flowing into the coffers of the
Clinton Foundation and former president Bill Clinton’s
pockets.
In addition, Weissmann’s name appears at the bottom of a
plea agreement involving one of the Russian operatives in
a case that was quietly disposed of by DoJ — without
much coverage in the media and without informing
Congress of what had taken place.
Hannity also noted that another signature on the document
is that of Rosenstein, who helped oversee the deal as a
U.S. attorney. All three officials — Mueller, Weissmann
and Rosenstein are all complicit in the deal and are now
involved in an investigation involving Trump and his
campaign.
It’s ludicrous. But more than anything else, it is intensely
corrupt.
Hannity pointed out that were they not so corrupt, all three
current and former DoJ officials would be investigating
the Clintons for their ties to Russia, Russian operatives,
and Russian influence.
Included in that investigation would be Obama, who as
master of the universe at the time was no doubt kept in the
loop about the deal, which saw 20 percent of all strategic
U.S.-held uranium be transferred to Moscow.
What’s more, as The Gateway Pundit reported in a
separate story, former U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah,
told Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro that Attorney
General Jeff Sessions had no plans at all to investigate
Clinton, the corrupt Uranium One deal, or any Justice
Department officials who were complicit in it. (Related:
Why Jeff Sessions should resign.)
“I can tell you that while I was in Congress
and the Chairman of the Oversight
Committee, I did go over and visit with
.
413
Attorney General Sessions and it was one
of the most frustrating discussions I had
because whether it was the IRS, Fast and
Furious, the email scandal that we went
through, I did not see the Attorney General
willing to just let Lady Justice administer
justice and then follow through,” he told
Pirro.
“Wait a minute, I don’t have that much time.
You spoke with Sessions on IRS, Fast and
Furious. Did he give you a reason? Did he
say he was presenting anything to a grand
jury? Yes or no?” she responded.
“No, he basically let me know he wasn’t
going to pursue anything on the major
cases,” the former congressman said.
Sessions needs to be the next one Trump fires. If he
doesn’t reclaim the Justice Department, he is liable to face
the loss of his presidency because the objective of the
Deep State and Mueller is to see him impeached.
 FOIA Documents: FBI Scrambles To
Preserve Records In Clinton ‘Uranium One’ Scandal
Mac Slavo
November 6th, 2017
New FOIA documents are showing proof that the FBI was
investigating the “Uranium One” scandal back in 2015.
Now, internet sleuths are doing the job of the mainstream
media, and have discovered Hillary Clinton’s IT guy trying
to strip the former presidential candidate’s name from
emails – and that isn’t all.
Months after the Peter Schweizer book Clinton
Cash exposed the Russian collusion scheme, along with an
article in the New York Times which laid out allegations of
criminal malfeasance by the Clintons, their charitable
foundation, and several associates, new FOIA documents
are shedding light on the scandal being ignored by the
mainstream media.
Twitter user Katica (@GOPPollAnalyst) – who notably
discovered Hillary Clinton’s IT guy “Stonetear” asking
Reddit users how to strip Clinton’s name from archived
emails –
discovered several Preservation and
Records requests sent by an FBI special
agent to various agencies involved in
the approval of the Uranium One
deal on August 28th, 2015,
as first published by The Conservative Treehouse. Katica
found the requests buried in an FBI file released via the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
While the Clinton email investigation was launched
in March of 2015 after it was revealed that Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton used a personal server and non-
approved email accounts to conduct government business,
414
reports from August, 2015 revealed that the
FBI investigation was actually a criminal probe –
though most assumed it was simply
covering Clinton’s mishandling of
classified information and not the
content of her emails.
What Katica discovered is that weeks after the criminal
probe began, the FBI sent notices to nearly every agency
involved in the Uranium One approval process to preserve
records. –iBankCoin
This is very important, and a big deal, considering the
agencies who received the request included the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Department of Treasury,
the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI
James Clapper), The National Counter Terrorism Center,
and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Five days after the initial request, the same FBI agent
sent another round of notifications to the same
agencies, adding the National Security Agency (NSA) and
the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) to the list. The next day,
September 3rd, 2015, three more agencies were added to
the preservation request. Those were: The CIA, the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of
Defense (DOD)
At this point, every single member of the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS) which signed off
on the Uranium One deal was served
with a notice to preserve the records.
The sequence of events highlights a criminal probe starting
in early August 2015, followed by notifications to the
“Uranium One” CFIUS participants in late August 2015. If
you consider the larger Clinton timeline; along with the
FBI special agent requests from identified participants; and
overlay the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the leading
entity surrounding the probe elements and the fact that the
CFIUS participants were the recipients of the retention
requests, it seems like too much to be coincidental, and to
think this is unrelated to the Uranium One scandal and the
more alarming implications.
415
While the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton was sold
as a simple matter of mishandling of classified material,
we now have proof that the FBI set their sights on the
Uranium One scandal weeks after they began looking into
Hillary Clinton’s emails. It is also known that five FBI
field offices and the IRS have been investigating the
Clinton Foundation on accusations of pay-to-play and
other criminal acts.
No wonder the leftist mainstream media is more worried
about what Donald Trump feeds koi fish than the major
scandal unfolding right before our eyes.
 Why Wikileaks Was Right:
Rigging The Democratic Way
By Binoy Kampmark
November 6, 2017
It took some time of muzzling and concealment before the
horror, but various Democrats have finally come clean
about the Hillary Clinton machine: things were, it seems,
rigged, stacked, and doctored. This was the language of
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump from opposite sides of
the political spectrum, the code of anti-establishment
anger, the message for disruptive change.
Such anti-establishment creatures were ultimately reviled
by orthodox party priests as futile hopes, misguided and
bound to lose. In the great tradition of US presidential
politics, they had to be neutralised.
As each less credible than the last figure fell before the
Trump juggernaut, Clinton felt she could hold her own on
the Democratic wing, keeping Sanders at bay and
ultimately convincing a broken Democratic party machine
that her famed outfit would steady the ship for an effortless
docking in the White House.
Donna Brazile’s revelations, to that end, can hardly be
deemed “explosive,” as Politico puts it. (Damp squib,
more like.) The Podesta emails available on the
WikiLeaks site already showed a picture of concern and
application against the Sanders threat, a nursed fear that
his message was biting. Tactics are discussed, dirt
suggested as to how best to stall and eliminate the Bernie
momentum.
In her book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and
Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House,
the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman
416
reveals collusion and bad smell complicity. She insists,
however, that there was nothing “criminal” in it, though it
“compromised the party’s integrity”. “If the fight had
been fair, one campaign would not have control of the
party before the voters had decided which one they wanted
to lead.”
Brazile is, as ever, careful with the water: she is always
ready to wash her hands vigorously in the anticipation that
she might be accused of bad faith and shape changing.
She claims to have “promised Bernie when I took the helm
of the Democratic National Committee after the
convention that I would get to the bottom of whether
Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process,
as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted
online had suggested.”[1]
The more Brazile goes into the story, the more the story
seems old and known. What matters is that she has woken
up to it, to Clinton as ruthless and omnivorous. “Right
around the time of the convention, the leaked emails
revealed Hillary’s campaign was grabbing money from the
state parties for its own purposes, leaving the states with
very little to support down-ballot races.”
Brazile’s revelations stimulated interest among certain
Democratic politicians, notably Elizabeth Warren who
decided to recapitulate the rigging theme in three of five
national television interviews. “We recognize the process
was rigged,” explained Warren to Judy Woodruff of PBS,
“and now it is up to Democrats to build a new process, a
process that really works, and works for everyone.”[2]
Unfortunately for Warren, much of this is fuming after the
horse has bolted, the wringing of hands at milk long spilt.
She might well have picked another option, glaringly
obvious and daring, but decided to fall into line with the
DNC machinery when her protest would have counted
most. Warren ultimately joined forces to give Clinton
ballast on the campaign trail. The ignorance card is only
bound to take you so far.
A former Sanders campaign strategist sees the play by
Warren for what it is. “There is a Bernie donor base that’s
very important if you want to be in national political
office. This is a play for that.” To that end, “Repairing that
relationship is more important than poisoning the well with Perhaps this is hardly surprising, when one considers the
the Clintonites.”[3] Russian mania that suffuses her Twitter postings, the usual
bellyaching blame game that keeps company with Clinton.
That may well do much to continue undermining the “Russia,” she writes in a re-Tweet of a link from The
reform agenda, which the Democrats have yet to embrace. Guardian, “funded Facebook and Twitter investments
While Clinton attempts to monetise her abysmal failure to through Kushner associate.”[6] On November 4, she
defeat Trump through speeches, publications and chirps in smug satisfaction how, “Report shows the
interviews, Brazile is now reconsidering her slant. complex way Russian hackers went after Hillary Clinton
and the Democrats.”[7]
Did she ever actually say, let alone suggest, that the
process had been tampered with, sewn up and manipulated Another re-Tweet features a piece by Joy-Anne Reid in
in favour of Clinton? No. On Twitter, she fretted: The Daily Beast as another attempt to throw critics off the
“Today’s lesson: Being quoted by Donald Trump means scent, hoping that attention will not be paid to the atrocious
being MIS-quoted by Donald Trump. Stop trolling conduct of the Clinton machine: “Donna Brazile’s
me.”[4] Bombshell Isn’t that Hillary Clinton rigged the race, but
that the Democratic Party Blew it.”[8]
In another statement, Brazile seemed to have undergone a
remarkable transformation, suggesting that the author of All that is true, but the ugly, grizzled picture of
Hacks had been abducted and substituted. The problem, as Democratic decline and fabled suicide was epitomised by
ever, was who was capitalising on her sudden insight. its poor choice of candidate, the party establishment’s
“Trump looks for a daily excuse to distract from his job. inadvertent admission that ossification had set in. The
No, the primary system wasn’t rigged! States control Warrens fell silent, and Sanders retreated, leaving his
primary ballots.”[5] supporters to grieve and observe the unfolding calamity.
Trump duly scooped up the remains. WikiLeaks was, after
the dust had settled, discomfortingly right.
Notes.
[1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774
[2] https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/11/03/elizabeth-warren-charge-that-democratic-primary-was-rigged-says-more-
about-than/2L5lOAkxFaI5tulLKi9V6N/story.html
[3] https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/11/03/elizabeth-warren-charge-that-democratic-primary-was-rigged-says-more-
about-than/2L5lOAkxFaI5tulLKi9V6N/story.html
[4] https://twitter.com/donnabrazile/status/926477310458515457
[5] https://twitter.com/donnabrazile/status/926465631536459777
[6] https://twitter.com/donnabrazile/status/927273936676687872
[7] https://twitter.com/donnabrazile/status/926815655961223168
[8] https://www.thedailybeast.com/donna-braziles-bombshell-isnt-that-hillary-clinton-rigged-the-race-but-that-the-democratic-party-
blew-it?source=via

417
 “Deep State” Nears War After Trump
And Saudi Arabia Make Rapid Moves
Against 9/11 Coup Plotters
Lisa Phillips
Compiled By Lisa Phillips Of Opdeepstate.Com
By: Sorcha Faal, And As Reported To Her Western Subscribers (We Believe Sorcha Faal Are
American Intelligence Officers)
November 6, 2017

An ominous new Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)

report circulating in the Kremlin today as the “winds of
war” are blowing is warning that the American “Deep
State” is now in complete terror after National Security
Agency (NSA) forces loyal to President Donald Trump,
and Saudi Arabian forces loyal to Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, have “rapidly shifted” from
their “rampage bloodbath” destroying Hollywood and US
mainstream media leftist elites, to their now targeting the
coup-plotters behind the 11 September 2011 (9/11)
attacks—and that Trump had vowed he was going to do
when, on 16 February 2016, he said that if elected
“you will find out who really knocked down
the World Trade Center…it wasn’t the
Iraqis…you may find it’s the Saudis”.
[Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in
this report are English language approximations of Russian
words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
418
According to this report, as a world-class builder of iconic
skyscrapers across the globe, President Trump nearly
immediately knew that the collapse of the World Trade
Center buildings were caused by a controlled demolition
implosion event—as no one of sane mind would ever
believe that kerosene jet fuel could melt the massive
concrete reinforced steel beams these types of buildings
are constructed with—and that if possible, would now see
tens-of-millions of residential kerosene heaters the world
over having already been reduced into pools of melted
metal.
To what the true cause of the 9/11 attacks were about, this
report continues, Trump knew (and everyone else but the
American people too) was a vile and sinister plot
masterminded by the Bush Crime Family and the
powerful Bin Laden Family (and aided by the Clinton
Crime Family) in order to destroy the Middle East and
Afghanistan in order to build pipelines to control the
world’s flow of natural gas and oil—and that the
International Criminal Court has just put under a “war
crimes” and “crimes against humanity” investigation.
The 9/11 plot, this report explains, began in November,
1998, when former President George H.W. Bush, on
behalf of the multinational private financial company
named The Carlyle Group, traveled to Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, to meet with the Bin Laden Family—a meeting
also attended by Singapore billionaire Leonard Glenn
Francis, the owner of the international maritime company
Glenn Marine Group.
mysterious “Aurora Aircraft” took off from the equally
mysterious Area 51 region of Nevada, flew at Mach 6 (6
times the speed of sound) towards Pennsylvania where it
obliterated the plane intended to strike the US Capitol
building, with it then streaking to the Pentagon where it
fired a powerful cruise missile completely destroying the
“too secure to counterattack” Office of Naval Intelligence
Control Center instantly killing numerous US Naval
Intelligence officers—after which the 9/11 attacks
immediately ended.

A final meeting between President Bush and the Bin

Laden Family to “formalize” and “activate” the 9/11 plot,
this report continues, was held, again in Jeddah, in
January, 2000—where a “practice dry run” was approved,
but with “certain parties” only agreeing to this vile attack
if George W. Bush was elected US president—which he
was later that year when the US Supreme Court ordered
Florida to stop counting votes, thus handing Bush his
victory.

Video published on December 22, 2001 courtesy of dustin

lehr

**Editor’s note: This video has been mirrored for safe

keeping.

Upon George W. Bush becoming President in January

2000, this report further details, the 9/11 plot accelerated
with these murderous “actors” choosing their “bought and
paid for” US Naval Intelligence “assets” to coordinate the
attacks on the World Trade Centers and the US Capitol
Building—and that Leonard Glenn Francis had so
thoroughly corrupted, nearly every US Navy Admiral was
under his control.

These US Naval Intelligence assets in fearing that their

Pentagon control center for the 9/11 attacks could
possibly come under counterattack, this report explains,
ordered it to be massively reinforced, including its being
FBI photo of hole left in Pentagon on 11 September
fitted with blast-resistant windows 2 inches thick and
2001 before building structure collapsed…
weighing 2,500 pounds each—and whose work was
completed in the early morning hours of 11 September
2001.

So sure were these 9/11 plotters of success, this report

notes, at 9:00 a.m., on 11 September 2001, President
George H.W. Bush, the entire Carlyle Group, and the
Bin Laden Family, gathered together at the Ritz Carlton
Hotel in Washington D.C. to celebrate what to them
would be a victory, but to the rest of the world was one of
the most horrific crimes against humanity ever
committed—but whose vile plans were thwarted when a
419
 …that the American people have been
brainwashed into believing was made
by plane like this.
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, this report
continues, President George W. Bush quickly spirited out
of America all of the Bin Laden family members
attending what they believed would be their victory
celebration at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, in Washington
D.C., by having them flown to Texas from where they
then left the US back to Saudi Arabia—and his
audaciously stating afterwards “my dad was meeting with
the brother of Osama on September 11, 2001, does that
make him a terror suspect”—but whose “dad”, former
President George H.W. Bush, nevertheless, cut all ties
between his Carlyle Group and the Bin Laden Family
six weeks later, on 26 October 2001—and with the
supposed “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks, the former
CIA operative Osama Bin Laden, becoming no more than
afterthought.
Also in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, this report notes,
US Marine General John Kelly formed an alliance with
who is considered to be the most effective US military
intelligence official in modern times, US Army General
Michael Flynn—with both of them painstakingly
rebuilding the entire US Naval Intelligence organization
in their attempt to uncover the true facts of this monstrous
crime against America and its people.
In a classic “follow the money” intelligence operation, this
report details, General’s Kelly and Flynn began to
uncover the massive corruption that had led the US Navy
to becoming part of the 9/11 plot in the first place—but
who were fiercely being fought by both the Bush and
Obama regimes every step of the way—so much so that
they then had to turn away from the US military and get
aid from “loyal to their cause” FBI forces—all of whom
were based in California, not Washington D.C..
420
Being aided by these FBI forces in California, this report
continues, General’s Kelly and Flynn (who were
supported by loyal US military intelligence officials too)
were able to secure a guilty plea from a lower-level 9/11
coup plotter, and US Naval Intelligence officer, named
John Beliveau, on 17 December 2013—but with Beliveau
being kept hidden from the Obama regime for nearly 3
years, until 14 October 2016, when he was brought into a
US Federal Court and sentenced for his crimes.
From the “seed” of US Naval Intelligence officer John
Beliveau, this report continues, General’s Kelly and
Flynn were able to begin “growing the tree” to destroy
this vile nest of 9/11 attack accomplices (now called the
“Fat Leonard Scandal”)—and that greatly accelerated
under the leadership of President Trump with his
ordering, this past June, the first charges to be filed against
these monsters under US military law—and who just hours
ago, too, began targeting over 440 US Navy officials,
including 60 of Americas 221 Navy Admirals.
At the exact same time that President
Trump is moving against these US Naval
Intelligence 9/11 plotters, this report says,
so too are Saudi Arabian forces loyal to
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—
who over the past 48 hours, have arrested
nearly everyone of their citizens who
attended the “victory celebration” with the
Bush Crime Family at the Ritz Carlton
Hotel, in Washington D.C., on 11
September 2001, to include Osama Bin
Laden’s brothers Bakr Bin Laden and
Shafiq Bin Laden—but the exceptions
being Saudi Prince Mansour bin Muqrin
and other top Saudi officials who were
killed when their helicopter was shot
down while they attempted to flee the
 country, and Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd
who died in a firefight with forces trying
to arrest him.
421
With the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, yesterday, having
reported that President Trump had timed with Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman this attack against these
9/11 plotters to coincide with his being in Asia, and under
the protection of loyal forces to keep him from being
assassinated, this report concludes, “Deep State” forces
have, nevertheless, counterattacked by pushing the world
to the brink of war by having their Iranian Obama regime
allies begin firing missiles into Saudi Arabia—but that
has not stopped the Saudis massive roundup of these
monsters whose numbers may soon reach into the
hundreds, if not thousands.
 Woman Who Flipped Off
Trump’s Motorcade FIRED From Job
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On November 6, 2017

The company was concerned they could lose contracts or down sign. Then it overtook a female
have trouble getting new ones due to her behavior cyclist, wearing a white top and cycling
helmet, who responded by giving the
middle finger.”
“The motorcade had to slow and the cyclist
caught up, still offering the finger, before
turning off in a different direction.
Motorcade is now gathering speed and
heading for DC.”

At the time she was flipping off the president, Briskman

was working for Akima LLC, a Virginia-based company
holding a number of government contracts for marketing
(National Sentinel) Paying a Price: A woman bicycler
and communications work.
who was seen flipping off President Donald J. Trump’s
motorcade has been fired from her job.
The photo went viral, with social media users calling her a
“heroine.” But her bosses didn’t think so. They brought her
As Trump returned from the Trump International Golf
into their offices last week to give her the bad news.
Course in Leesburg, Va., Sunday, Oct. 29, a woman later
self-identified as Julie Briskman, made the rude gesture to
the president’s motorcade twice as she was cycling on the “They said, ‘We’re separating from you,’”
same road, noted The Daily Caller. Briskman told The Huffington Post in an
interview, describing the firing. “Basically,
you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things
According to the pool reporter on duty that day,
in your social media. So they were calling
flipping him off ‘obscene.’”
“POTUS’s motorcade departed the Trump
National Golf Club at 3.12pm, passing two
The company was concerned they could lose contracts or
pedestrians, one of whom gave a thumbs-
have trouble getting new ones due to Briskman’s behavior.
.

422
 Behar, Hostin Rush In To Defend
Brazile From McCain's Dossier Questions On 'View'
By Kristine Marsh
November 7, 2017 2:28 PM EST
Tuesday on ABC’s The View, former DNC Chairwoman
Donna Brazile was in the hot seat to answer questions
about the recent allegations she made in her new book
about the 2016 election. The liberal hosts were able to grill
Brazile on claims she made in the memoir that
conservative media seized on, because they put Democrats
and the Clinton campaign in a negative light. But as soon
as host Meghan McCain tried to ask Brazile about the
DNC paying for the infamous Russian dossier, hosts Joy
Behar and Sunny Hostin interrupted to answer the question
themselves, and followed up with questions trying to
contest the conservative host’s claims.
As soon as Brazile sat down at the table, the hosts got their
chance to confront Brazile on her new book’s claims about
the DNC, which they lamented were
“being used against the party.”
Host Whoopi Goldberg started off by stating,
“You do know that this book is being
used against the party, against
everybody. So you know, people are
upset and you know, you understand.”
She continued, asking Brazile to explain how she could let
her book be used by the right as a talking point against
Democrats:
“So explain why you didn't realize
people would take the idea of Hillary
bailing out the party years before—
423
or whenever she did it-- as something that was bad and
robbed Bernie of his ability to be president.
I mean, that's how -- that's the message
that's being put out. In your name,” she
stated.
Brazile denied she ever said the primary was “rigged” in
the book,
(even though printed excerpts from the
book reveal she did use that word)
but instead said she was “uncomfortable” with how deeply
in debt the party was. She rambled on, seeming to change
topics, blaming the Russian hacking, and defending her
position as a Democrat:
But what I wanted was to fight back. I knew
Donald Trump was doing more than just
trying to rattle African-Americans. We had
been hacked so I knew he was playing a
game and I wanted to respond. And I had
to respond with a column. I wanted to
respond with ads. I wanted to respond with
posters. I wanted to respond with more
activity across the country. That's what I
tried to do and that's why I said, Bernie,
guess what, I found the cancer. I'm not
killing the patient. I'm not killing my party
because my party was more than elected
the president. It was the United States
senate, the congress, and let me just say
there were things on the ballot that people
probably didn't see. I saw Obamacare, I
saw climate change. I saw a kid growing up
in poverty like myself who wanted a White
House and a president who would care for
them and that was Hillary Clinton. I wanted
to win. I didn't want to sit there and be a
figure head. Y'all don't think I'm a figure
head.
Host Meghan McCain tried to get Brazile to get back to the
topic at hand, by first correcting Brazile’s misdirection at
the Russian hacking.
 “But you’re highly critical of the
campaign in this, and I think there’s an
impression among some Democrats
that it was only the hacking, only James
Comey,” she posed.
Brazile lamely responded that there was a lack of
“passion” in the Clinton campaign, bizarrely citing the lack
of sex among staffers as evidence of that.
Host Sunny Hostin again attempted to get Brazile to give a
straightforward answer as to why she claimed in her book
that the primary was unfair to Bernie Sanders. Again,
Brazile gave a long rambling answer that didn’t really
address the question, saying she was upset about not being
able to spend money as she wished on the campaign,
because they were so in debt as a party. About the Clinton
campaign she said,
“I'm not mad at them. I was disappointed. I
said I need $8 million to fight Donald
Trump.”
After that host Joy Behar clearly had enough, bluntly
confronting Brazile again with more force, saying
Democrats were now “mad” at her for “throwing them
under the bus:”
“[Y]ou threw a lot of people under the
bus. The DNC is mad at you, Robby
Mook is mad. Maybe even Hillary might
be mad. I'm not sure about Hillary. I saw
Mook, he's upset. But here's the question I
have for you and I wanted to ask you, why
the timing of the book? Today is election
day, why are you giving red meat to
Trump's side? Why not have it next
week?” she asked.
Brazile defended the launch date, referencing Joe Biden,
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton’s memoirs that were
released recently as well.
“I wasn't writing to make someone upset.
Look, I cried enough for everybody. I
apologized enough for everybody. I wanted
to prevent this hacking from happening
again and I want to see the democratic
party a stronger party, more effective party
but I also want to make sure that our
country is never attacked again,” she
stated.
After commercial break, Hostin asked Brazile “why” she
apologized for sending debate questions on to the Clinton
camp.
424
“I was surprised that you apologized for it,
but in the book you seemed to doubt that
you really did that, so I would like you to set
the record straight. Did you pass on the
debate questions or not?” she asked.
Brazile explained that she apologized because she couldn’t
locate the original e-mail through her own server or the
recipients, and so she couldn’t defend herself against the
leaked accusations. So she apologized because she “could
not explain it.”
But she went on to confirm she did pass
on questions, saying “I was trying to
respond to the Black Lives Matter… I
was trying to get more debate questions
pertaining to 'people of color' and yes, I
wanted to have diversity,” she confirmed.
That’s when host Meghan McCain asked Brazile about the
Clinton funded Russian dossier.
“I have a question for you and I hope
you answer this honestly because there
are a lot of questions about this Russian
dossier and there's evidence that has
come out that the DNC helped fund it.
Did you know that was happening and
were you surprised to hear it if you
didn’t?” she asked.
“I asked one question on November 4th
and I was told that I didn't need to know, so
no, I did not know. Because I did not
control my money,” Brazile answered.
McCain tried to get more information:
“You're waxing poetic about Russia and
Russia being involved in the election, which
is deeply important to me, but when you
see that the DNC was funding it,” she
began.
At this point Joy Behar and Brazile began to answer
McCain, touting Clinton and the media’s line that it was
simply “opposition research:”
“Opposition research--” Brazile started
to say as Behar spoke over her.“Yeah,
explain,” Behar stated.
Brazile denied knowing about this story until November 4.
“So Meghan, Meghan, you know
campaigns. So the line item is called ‘legal’.
The line item is called ‘research’. The line
item -- if you asked me today because I
 have a list of all the DNC consultants, do I
see Fusion GPS? No, but if you ask me
was this a question that came up during my
tenure as chair, it did on November 4,” she
stated.
“Do you think it's wrong? Do you think
it sets a bad precedent?” McCain asked.
“To pay Russia for opposition research
for a campaign,” she clarified.
“I was not involved in the contracting,”
Brazile started to say, before Behar
interrupted her again to deflect blame from
the DNC.
“The Republicans did it too,” Behar
offered.
Brazile continued:
“I -- Meghan, I was not involved in the
hiring of this firm. I did not know about the
existence of this contract. But in terms of
opposition research, people go after
things that I must tell you in America,
they go after dirt. When they go after
dirt, you saw what Mr. Trump Junior did
but no, I did not go after it,” she
answered.
“But do you think it's wrong to go to
Russia to ask for opposition research
on a candidate?” McCain asked.
425
“You asking me about the dossier and how
it was compiled, I don't know how it was
compiled. I don't know how it was
compiled. I don’t know who went after it,
Meghan,” Brazile again denied.
“I'm just asking if you think it's wrong,”
McCain asked again.
“First of all, I don't believe that foreigners
should be -- unless they're American
citizens they should have no place in our
politician and they should not control our
politics,” Brazile replied.
“She's [McCain’s] not questioning --
you're not questioning opposition
research. You believe in opposition
research,” Behar demanded, putting
McCain in the spotlight instead of Brazile.
“I do. I don't agree with it to foreign
adversaries in any other foreign country
other than the United States of America. It
sets in my opinion a very dangerous
precedent,” she offered.
Clearly not wanting their low-information audience to take
away anything negative about the DNC from this
interview, Sunny Hostin immediately followed up with
Behar’s agenda of defending Clinton.
“Is there any evidence, Donna, that the
Clinton campaign actually paid the
Kremlin or Russia for information?”
Sunny Hostin asked.
“I have not seen any of that,” Brazile
denied. She went on to applaud the
“research” the DNC did, though she
claimed she was not “privy to that [dossier]
information.”
 Mueller’s Special Investigation Is Nothing
More Than A “Show Trial” To Destroy Trump
By Jayson Veley
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
If the future of the country weren’t on the line, the lengths
that congressional democrats and liberals within the
mainstream media are going to take down President Trump
would almost be laughable. In the five months of Trump’s
time in office, the left has successfully manufactured a
scandal and perpetuated the myth that the President
somehow colluded with the Russians throughout the
election. What’s laughable about this is the fact that the
democrats continue to tell us that they want to proceed
with an investigation that is fair, unbiased and based on
fact, yet so far it has been anything but. As a matter of fact,
it has become quite clear that the Russia probe is nothing
more than a republican witch hunt, with the ultimate goal
being the impeachment of Donald Trump.
On June 14, as the rest of the country was mourning and
praying over the tragic shooting that took place in
Alexandria, Virginia, the Washington Post was busy —
you guessed it — attacking Donald Trump. The piece,
written by Devlin Barrett, Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima
and Sari Horwitz, alleged that the Special Counsel
overseeing the Russia investigation is investigating
President Trump for possible obstruction of justice. Their
source? “Officials.” No names, no evidence; just
“officials.”
And the mainstream media wonders why the American
people are losing faith in them.
The very next day, the Washington Post published another
article alleging that the Special Counsel is investigating
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his business
dealings.
426
“Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is
investigating the finances and business
dealings of Jared Kushner… as part of the
investigation into Russia’s interference in
the 2016 presidential election, according to
U.S. officials familiar with the matter,” the
article read. You’ll notice that yet again, the
sources for the newspaper’s allegations are
vague at best. Anyone with a computer and
a third-grade writing level is capable of
sitting down and writing a story “according
to U.S. officials.”
Why should anyone believe them?
The article went on to say,
“The officials who described the financial
focus of the investigation spoke on the
condition of anonymity because they were
not authorized to speak publicly.”
Since when is leaking information about ongoing
investigations to the mainstream media okay as long as it
is done anonymously? Isn’t it illegal to say anything at all,
regardless of whether or not you reveal yourself as the
source of the information?
The Trump administration responded to these leaks by
urging Americans to question any allegations that don’t
mention a specific source.
“Americans should exercise caution before
accepting as true stories any stories
attributed to anonymous ‘officials,'” warned
Trump’s Deputy Attorney General Rob
Rosenstein, “particularly when they do not
identify the country — let alone the branch
or agency of government – with which the
alleged sources supposedly are affiliated.”
For more proof that the Russia investigation is nothing
more than a left-wing show trial to destroy Donald Trump,
all you have to do is look at the team Robert Mueller has
assembled. According to a CNN analysis of Federal
Election Commission records, three members of Mueller’s
legal team have given political donations almost
exclusively to liberal democrats. One of them, named
James Quarles, has given almost $33,000 to political
campaigns over the years, including the presidential
campaigns of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry,
former president Barack Obama and 2016 democratic
427
nominee Hillary Clinton. Based on this fact alone, how
could anyone possibly still believe that this investigation is
fair and unbiased? Furthermore, how could anyone think
that it is really about anything more than taking down the
President of the United States?
 Fusion GPS Official Met With Russian
Operative Before And After Trump Jr. Sit-Down
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne, Cyd Upson | Fox News
November 7, 2017

Simpson’s presence with Veselnitskaya during this critical

The co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm behind the
unverified Trump dossier, met with a Russian lawyer
before and after a key meeting she had last year with
Trump’s son, Fox News has learned. The contacts shed
new light on how closely tied the firm was to Russian
interests, at a time when it was financing research to
discredit then-candidate Donald Trump.
week in June -- together with revelations about Fusion’s
simultaneous financial ties to the DNC, Clinton campaign
and Russian interests -- raise new questions about the
company’s role in the 2016 election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the Trump
Tower meeting as part of his probe of Russian interference
in last year’s election.

The opposition research firm has faced renewed scrutiny
after litigation revealed that the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s
campaign paid for that research. Congressional
Republicans have since questioned whether that politically
financed research contributed to the FBI’s investigation of
Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – making
Fusion’s 2016 contacts with Russian interests all the more
relevant.
Simpson and Fusion GPS were hired by BakerHostetler,
which represented Russian firm Prevezon through
Veselnitskaya.
Veselnitskaya has said she sought the Trump Tower
meeting in order to lobby the candidate’s team against
Russian sanctions, but the initial approach included an
offer of compromising information on candidate Clinton.

The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Lawyers representing Fusion and Veselnitskaya did not
Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya respond to requests for comment lodged on Friday.
occurred during a critical period. At that time, Fox News
has learned that bank records show Fusion GPS was paid
Senate Judiciary Committee investigators interviewed
by a law firm for work on behalf of a Kremlin-linked
Simpson for more than 10 hours on Aug. 22. A spokesman
oligarch while paying a former British spy Christopher
for the committee had no comment on whether Simpson
Steele to dig up dirt on Trump through his Russian
confirmed his contact with Veselnitskaya during the
contacts.
closed-door session.
But hours before the Trump Tower meeting on June 9,
The DNC and Clinton campaign hired Fusion in April
2016, Fusion co-founder and ex-Wall Street Journal
2016 through lawyer Marc Elias, who was general counsel
reporter Glenn Simpson was with Veselnitskaya in a
for the Clinton campaign. Fusion, in turn, paid Steele
Manhattan federal courtroom, a confidential source told
$168,000 for the dossier, memos from which were shared
Fox News. Court records reviewed by Fox News, email
with the FBI in the summer of 2016.
correspondence and published reports corroborate the
pair’s presence together. The source told Fox News they
also were together after the Trump Tower meeting.

428

Fusion officials said last week Steele's money came from
$1.02 million it received in fees and expenses from Elias'
law firm Perkins Coie. Prior to contracting with the DNC,
Fusion had been conducting research into Trump and other
Republican candidates on behalf of the conservative
website The Washington Free Beacon.
Simpson, seen here in a picture taken at a security forum in Aspen,
Colo., in July, was a Wall Street Journal reporter before co-founding
Fusion GPS (Fox News)
NBC News first reported that Veselnitskaya and Simpson
were both at a hearing centered around another Fusion
client, Russian oligarch Denis Katsyv. His company,
Prevezon Holdings, was sanctioned against doing business
in the U.S. for its alleged role in laundering more than
$230 million. Fox News obtained audio records from that
hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit.
The wrongdoing had been uncovered by Russian lawyer
and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to
death in a Russian prison in 2009 after being arrested for
probing Prevezon and other companies with ties to Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
.
429
In December 2012, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law
Accountability Act was passed into U.S. law, freezing
Russian assets and banning visas for sanctioned
individuals. Fusion’s Simpson is believed to have been
working with Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, a
former Soviet counter-intelligence officer turned Russian-
American lobbyist, to overturn the sanctions.
Akhmetshin also attended the June 9 Trump Tower
meeting, along with about a half-dozen others including
Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, publicist Rob
Goldstone, Natalia's Russian translator Anatoli
Samochornov and Ike Kaveladze from a Russian-
American real estate agency.
Mueller’s interest in Fusion is unclear, but the House
Intelligence Committee, which is conducting one of
several related congressional probes, recently struck a deal
to gain access to Fusion’s bank records after initially
issuing a subpoena. The records show that the DNC
funded Fusion’s dossier effort.
Over the weekend, Fusion GPS sought a new restraining
order after the House panel requested additional records
that could reveal if Fusion was paying media companies or
reporters for planting stories.
"What we are finding out is that there is a
lot of Russian influence in Washington, and
a lot of money flowing in to influence our
political process in Washington," Marc
Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist
and former Bush administration official,
said. "It's going into Hillary Clinton. It's
going to Fusion GPS. It's going into a
lobbying campaign up on Capitol Hill
against Magnitsky."
Meanwhile, a request from Veselnitskaya and Katsyv for a
new "temporary immigration parole" to return to the U.S.
for a Nov. 9 Prevezon hearing in New York was denied,
according to court documents reviewed by Fox News.
A Senate Judiciary Committee spokesman told Fox News
they are "encouraged" that Veselnitskaya has "signaled a
willingness to cooperate" with the committee.
 Media Collusion & Fusion GPS:
Were US Journalists Paid To Peddle ‘Russiagate’?
Published Time: 7 Nov, 2017 17:42 Edited Time: 8 Nov, 2017 07:23
© BeckerBredel / Global Look Press
From lurid reports of Trumpian ‘golden showers’ in
Moscow to unverified claims of Russia ‘hacking’ Hillary
Clinton’s email, a high-ranking US lawmaker is on a
mission to determine if journalists were paid to push an
anti-Russian document.
Even before Donald Trump ascended to the White House,
the US media had been relentlessly driving the narrative
that Trump, WikiLeaks and the Russians colluded to hack
the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers
before dumping the damaged goodies into the public
realm. This elaborate bit of sabotage, as the story goes,
deprived the Democrats of the White House.
Despite the effectiveness of the story to deflect attention
away from the real crimes of the Democratic Party, while
at the same time splashing the increasingly irate Russians
with mud, the narrative is beginning to show considerable
wear and tear.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California), chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, dropped a veritable bomb in the
Beltway when he signed a subpoena to seize the financial
records of Fusion GPS, the ‘opposition research’ group
behind the so-called ‘Trump dossier.’ The 35-page
document hatched by former British spy Christopher
Steele is loaded with sex, lies and – alas – not a single
videotape.
Nunes forwarded a simple question:
Who paid for the dossier?
At first blush, it seemed the mystery had been resolved.
The law firm Perkins Coie LLP, whose partner Marc E.
Elias served as the Clinton campaign’s general counsel,
430
came forward and said it had paid Fusion for the ‘dirty
dossier’ on behalf of the DNC. Never mind the failure of
the Clinton campaign to disclose the $10 million price tag
to fund the dossier, which may amount to money
laundering, argued Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina),
chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
This convenient legal fire wall, however, did not satisfy
Nunes. On Friday, he pushed his demands further, asking
for the names of journalists and law firms that Fusion GPS
might have paid, possibly to support wild allegations
mentioned in the ‘Trump dossier.’
The response by Fusion executives was as shocking as it
was telling. In addition to requesting that the courts block
the subpoena, they fell back on the First Amendment ‘right
to confidentiality’ while never denying they had paid any
journalists. But if the firm has nothing to hide, why not, in
the spirit of transparency, crack open the books?
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Fritsch, one of
Fusion’s founders, filed a statement minus a denial of the
accusations, saying:
“Our techniques and investigative tools for
our research and investigation go beyond
standard open-source methods. Fusion
GPS has an extensive network of domestic
and international contacts, built up over
many years of reporting.”
Although it was practically impossible to independently
verify the veracity of the dossier’s assertions, BuzzFeed,
plumbing the depths of Western media standards, decided
to publish the document in its entirety anyways. That
‘mistake’ may cost the clickable news site dearly.
Russiagate claims first victim
Proving the recklessness of the ongoing anti-Russian
campaign that has gripped the American psyche, Aleksey
Gubarev, a Russian-born internet entrepreneur, is suing
BuzzFeed in a Florida District Court for libel.
“The Steele dossier accused Mr. Gubarev
of overseeing a botnet operation that
flooded Democrats’ computers with porn,
viruses and spyware,” according to the
 Washington Times. “It said the operation
was financed by the FSB, Russia’s
intelligence agency.”
Gubarev is also demanding that BuzzFeed, which his
attorneys argue is “not a real news organization,” reveal
the identity of the source that passed it the unsubstantiated
dossier.
Last week, Gubarev's attorneys submitted subpoenas
against a number of other major news organizations,
including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New
Yorker and CNN for depositions to reveal who leaked the
dossier to BuzzFeed.
Meanwhile, in an effort to defend himself from libel
charges, Steele said his investigative work was never
meant to be made public, and Fusion GPS should not have
released it.
Flight from reality
It cannot be overestimated how much the so-called ‘Trump
dossier’ and the lies it propagates have sabotaged US-
Russia relations many years into the future. Indeed,
whenever Trump was dragged through the deepest mud,
Russia was dragged even deeper.
On the second page of the seedy dossier, we already enter
the theater of the absurd as we get a glimpse of Trump’s
“perverted” shenanigans while on a trip to Moscow. Years
before anyone could have guessed he would one day be
presidential material, the dossier alleged that the billionaire
real estate developer employed a “number of prostitutes to
perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show” on one of
the beds in the Ritz Carlton where he believed President
Barack Obama and his wife had slept.
As the story goes, Russian intelligence filmed the
buffoonery and now has “enough embarrassing material…
to be able to blackmail him if they wished” stashed away
in a vault somewhere.
431
However, the most damaging part of the dossier, as far as
Russia is concerned, involves the claim that the Kremlin
was “behind recent appearance of DNC emails on
WikiLeaks as means of maintaining plausible deniability.”
To date, not a single shred of evidence has been produced
to substantiate this claim, which has resulted in bad blood
between the United States and Russia seldom witnessed
even at the height of the Cold War. From the closure of
diplomatic facilities to tit-for-tat sanctions, the madness
continues.
Yet, like any good lie that requires ever new lies for fear it
will become revealed, the truth is beginning to seep out of
the cracks in this fantastic story. And in the most
unexpected of places.
For example, in a new book released by Donna Brazile
(‘Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and
Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White
House’), the former DNC chairwoman throws the entire
DNC under the bus, accusing her colleagues of treating her
like a slave, being sexist and rigging the entire system in
favor of Hillary Clinton.
Unsurprisingly, former top officials came out and said
Brazile’s views prove that she had come under the
unwitting influence of Russia, the faraway nation that
conveniently explains every problem.
“It is particularly troubling and puzzling that
she would seemingly buy into false
Russian-fueled propaganda, spread by
both the Russians and our opponent, about
our candidate's health,”said a letter from
100 top DNC staff, including John Podesta,
Huma Abedin and Robby Mook.
The real revelation, however, comes when Brazile admits
to feeling fear following the death of Seth Rich, who
worked as the voter expansion data director at the DNC
before he was shot twice on his way home on July 10.
Some suggest he may have been the source of a leak at the
DNC that provided WikiLeaks with significant amounts of
incriminating data.
Brazile, who dedicated her book to the memory of Rich,
writes that she was
 “haunted by the still-unsolved murder of
DNC data staffer Seth Rich and feared for
her own life, shutting the blinds to her office
window so snipers could not see her and
installing surveillance cameras at her
home.”
Yet if the media was so sure that it was a crazy conspiracy
theory that Rich was the possible source of the leak, as
opposed to a Russian ‘hack,’ what was Donna Brazile so
worried about?
These are the types of questions that are beginning to
emerge as the anti-Russian narrative starts to go wobbly
and those involved – including, possibly, journalists – see
their unsubstantiated story lose all credibility.
With some perseverance and a little bit of luck,
Congressman Nunes may get the answers so many people
are looking for.

432
 Judicial Watch Was Right:
DOJ Confirms Comey Leaked
Classified Intel — Former FBI Head
Compared To Wikileaks
By Joshua Caplan
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
The Justice Department is comparing
former FBI director James Comey’s
unauthorized ‘memo leak’ to the New
York Times to Wikileaks, says Judicial
Watch president Tom Fitton.
The Justice Department believes some
of the Comey memos contain classified
material.
Judicial Watch reports:
Judicial Watch announced today that the
Justice Department is now comparing
former FBI Director James Comey to
WikiLeaks. After Comey was fired by
President Trump on May 9, 2017, he gave
the New York Times a February 14, 2017,
memorandum written about a one-on-one
conversation he had with President Trump
regarding former National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn.
[…]
Comey testified under oath before the U.S. Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence that he authored as many as
nine such memos about his one-on-one conversations with
President Trump. He also admitted, regarding the “Flynn”
memo, “I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the
memo with a reporter [for The New York Times] … I asked
him to because I thought that might prompt the
433
appointment of a special counsel.” The New York
Times published a report about the memo on May 16,
2017.
[…]
In its court filing opposing the release, the Justice
Department also asserts that some of the Comey memos
contain classified material.
The Justice Department is effectively challenging Comey’s
testimony, where under oath, the former FBI director
claimed he did not leak any classified information (or
“government documents”) to the media.
The report contradicts Comey’s testimony to Congress
back in June, when the embattled swamp creature told
Senator Blunt that his memos about President Trump
weren’t ‘government documents.
Below is a transcript of the exchange between Sen. Blunt
and Comey where the FBI director appears to have
committed perjury:
BLUNT: “You said, after you were
dismissed, you gave information to a friend
so that friend could get that information into
the public media.”
COMEY: “Correct.”
BLUNT: “What kind of information was
that? Wasn’t that (ph) — what kind of
information did you give to a friend?”
COMEY: “That the — the — the Flynn
conversation, that the president asked me
to let the — the Flynn — I’m forgetting my
exact own words, but the — the
conversation in the Oval Office.BLUNT: So
you didn’t consider your memo or your
sense of that conversation to be a
government document? You consider it to
be somehow your own personal document
that you could share with the media as you
wanted to?”
 COMEY: “Correct. I…”
BLUNT: “Through a friend?”
COMEY: “… I understood this to be my
recollection, recorded, of my conversation
with the president. As a private citizen, I felt
free to share that. I thought it very
important to get it out.”
BLUNT: “So were all of your memos that
you’ve recorded on classified or other
documents memos that might be yours as
a private citizen?”
COMEY: “I’m sorry, I’m not following the
question.”
BLUNT: “Well, I think you said you’d used
classified — a classified…”
(CROSSTALK)
COMEY: “Not the classified documents.
Unclassified — I don’t have any of them
anymore. I gave them to the special
counsel. But, yeah, my view was that the
content of those unclassified — the
memorialization of those conversations
was my recollection recorded.”
434
More than half of the memos fired FBI Director James
Comey wrote during his private conversations with
President Trump have been determined to contain
classified information.
In fact, more than half of Comey’s memos on President
Trump were labeled “government documents.”
The Hill reports:
More than half of the memos former FBI
chief James Comey wrote as personal
recollections of his conversations with
President Trump about the Russia
investigation have been determined to
contain classified information, according to
interviews with officials familiar with the
documents.
[…]
Comey insisted in his testimony he believed his personal
memos were unclassified, though he hinted one or two
documents he created might have been contained classified
information.
But when the seven memos Comey wrote regarding his
nine conversations with Trump about Russia earlier this
year were shown to Congress in recent days, the FBI
claimed all were, in fact, deemed to be government
documents.
Following the Justice Department’s announcement on
Comey’s unauthorized leak, Fitton had this to say:
“How can this Justice Department defend
its position that memos written for
pernicious purposes to target a sitting
president with a criminal investigation
should remain secret? Mr. Mueller may
have an interest in protecting Comey, but
the public’s interest demands transparency
about Comey’s vendetta against President
Trump.”
 CIA Director Met Advocate Of Disputed
DNC Hack Theory — At Trump’s Request
Duncan Campbell, James Risen
November 7 2017, 8:11 A.M.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo met late last month with a
former U.S. intelligence official who has become an
advocate for a disputed theory that the theft of the
Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016
presidential campaign was an inside job, rather than a hack
by Russian intelligence.
Pompeo met on October 24 with William Binney, a former
National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower
who co-authored an analysis published by a group of
former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S.
intelligence community’s official assessment that Russian
intelligence was behind last year’s theft of data from DNC
computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that
the DNC data was “leaked,” not hacked, “by a person with
physical access” to the DNC’s computer system.
In an interview with The Intercept, Binney said Pompeo
told him that President Donald Trump had urged the CIA
director to meet with Binney to discuss his assessment that
the DNC data theft was an inside job. During their hour-
long meeting at CIA headquarters, Pompeo said Trump
told him that if Pompeo
“want[ed] to know the facts, he should talk
to me,” Binney said.
A senior intelligence source confirmed that Pompeo met
with Binney to discuss his analysis, and that the CIA
director held the meeting at Trump’s urging. The
Intercept’s account of the meeting is based on interviews
with Binney, the senior intelligence source, a colleague
who accompanied Binney to CIA headquarters, and others
who Binney told about the meeting. A CIA spokesperson
declined to comment.
“As a general matter, we do not comment
on the Director’s schedule,” said Dean
Boyd, director of the CIA’s Office of Public
Affairs.
Binney said that Pompeo asked whether he would be
willing to meet with NSA and FBI officials to further
discuss his analysis of the DNC data theft. Binney agreed
and said Pompeo said he would contact him when he had
arranged the meetings.
435
It is highly unorthodox for the CIA director to reach out to
someone like Binney, a 74-year-old ex-government
employee who rose to prominence as an NSA
whistleblower wrongfully persecuted by the government,
for help with fact-finding related to the theft of the DNC
emails. It is particularly stunning that Pompeo would meet
with Binney at Trump’s apparent urging, in what could be
seen as an effort to discredit the U.S. intelligence
community’s own assessment that an alleged Russian hack
of the DNC servers was part of an effort to help Trump
win the presidency.
It is possible Trump learned about Binney and his analysis
by watching Fox News, where Binney has been a frequent
guest, appearing at least 10 times since September 2016. In
August, Binney appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox show to
discuss his assessment that the narrative of Russia hacking
the DNC during the 2016 campaign is untrue,
stating that “many people are emotionally
tied to this agenda, to tie the Russians to
President Trump.”
Binney said he is not sure how Trump found out about his
analysis.
However the meeting came about, the fact that Pompeo
was apparently willing to follow Trump’s direction and
invite Binney to discuss his analysis has alarmed some
current and former intelligence officials.
“This is crazy. You’ve got all these
intelligence agencies saying the Russians
did the hack. To deny that is like coming
out with the theory that the Japanese didn’t
bomb Pearl Harbor,” said one former CIA
officer.
Binney, for his part, is happy that the meeting occurred
and eager to help Pompeo and Trump get to the bottom of
the DNC email theft because he believes the intelligence
community has not told the truth about what happened.
“I was willing to meet Pompeo simply
because it was clear to me the intelligence
community wasn’t being honest here,”
Binney said, referring to their assessment
 of the DNC email theft. “I am quite willing to
help people who need the truth to find the
truth and not simply have deceptive
statements from the intelligence
community.”
William Binney, former National Security Agency intelligence
official-turned-whistleblower, arrives to testify at the Bundestag
commission investigating the role of the NSA in Germany on July 3,
2014 in Berlin. Photo: Adam Berry/Getty Images
The analysis by Binney and his colleagues aligns neatly
with Trump’s frequent public skepticism of the
intelligence community’s assessment that Russia
intervened in the 2016 campaign to damage Hillary
Clinton’s candidacy and help elect Trump. The
declassified summary of a U.S. intelligence community
report, based on the work of the CIA, the FBI, and the
NSA and made public in early January before Trump’s
inauguration, stated that “Russian President Vladimir Putin
ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine
public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate
Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential
presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian
Government developed a clear preference for President-
elect Trump.” Trump has frequently raged against the
accusation that he won the presidency thanks to help from
the Russians, labeling the charge “fake news.”
“The Director stands by, and has always stood by, the
January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment,” Boyd,
the CIA spokesperson, said.
Binney’s claim that the email theft was committed by an
insider at the DNC also helps fuel one of the more bizarre
conspiracy theories that has gained traction on the right:
that the murder of a young DNC staffer last year was
somehow connected to the data theft. Binney said he
mentioned the case of Seth Rich to Pompeo during their
meeting.
The meeting raises questions about Pompeo’s willingness
to act as an honest broker between the intelligence
community and the White House, and his apparent refusal
to push back against efforts by the president to bend the
intelligence process to suit his political purposes. Instead
of acting as a filter between Trump and the intelligence
community, Pompeo’s decision to meet with Binney raises
the possibility that right-wing theories aired on Fox News
and in other conservative media can now move not just
436
from conservative pundits to Trump, but also from Trump
to Pompeo and into the bloodstream of the intelligence
community.
Some senior CIA officials have grown upset that Pompeo,
a former Republican representative from Kansas, has
become so close to Trump that the CIA director regularly
expresses skepticism about intelligence that doesn’t line up
with the president’s views. Pompeo has also alienated
some CIA managers by growing belligerent toward them
in meetings, according to an intelligence official familiar
with the matter.
The CIA, however, strongly objected to this
characterization. “The Director has been adamant that CIA
officers have the time, space and resources to make sound
and unbiased assessments that are delivered to policy
makers without fear or favor,” Boyd said in an email to
The Intercept. “As he has stated repeatedly, when we
deliver our assessments to policy makers, we must do so
with complete candor. He has also pushed decision making
down in the organization, giving officers greater
ownership of their work and making them more
accountable for the outcomes. These changes are designed
to make CIA more agile, aggressive and responsive.”
Yet indications of Pompeo’s willingness to support Trump
at the risk of tainting the intelligence process have
occasionally broken into the open in recent months. In
August, the Washington Post reported that Pompeo had
taken the unusual step of having the CIA’s
Counterintelligence Mission Center, which would likely
play a role in any inquiries by the agency into Russian
election meddling, report directly to him. That move has
raised concerns within the agency that Pompeo is seeking
to personally control the CIA’s efforts to investigate
accusations of collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russia.
More recently, at a Washington event in October, Pompeo
said that U.S. intelligence had determined that Moscow’s
intervention hadn’t impacted the outcome of the election.
He was quickly criticized for the comments, and the CIA
had to issue a clarification saying that the intelligence
assessment on Russia hadn’t been altered.
While Pompeo seems to be actively taking Trump’s side
on contentious issues like Russian collusion, Dan Coats,
the former Republican senator who now serves as director
of national intelligence, has been largely missing in action.
Coats has been reluctant to push for an aggressive Trump-
Russia investigation, according to a source familiar with
the matter.
By contrast, Coats’s predecessor, James Clapper, saw
himself as the public face of the intelligence community
and its spokesperson. Now out of government, Clapper,
who was appointed by former President Barack Obama,
has become an ardent advocate for a thorough
investigation of Trump and Russia. Clapper told Politico in
late October that the Russian election hacking was
designed to help Trump win. “The Russians have
succeeded beyond their wildest expectations,” he said.
With Coats largely out of the picture and Pompeo actively
siding with Trump, the intelligence community is
effectively leaderless as it struggles to come to grips with
its role in the Trump-Russia inquiry. The lack of
aggressive support from the intelligence community could
hamper the ongoing investigation by Special Counsel
Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Trump and
Russia. Eventually, that lack of support could make it more
difficult for Mueller’s team to glean information from
inside Russia.
Pompeo’s meeting with Binney came just days before the
first charges from Mueller’s investigation were made
public on October 30. Former Trump campaign chair Paul
Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates were
charged in a 12-count indictment in connection with their
work with a pro-Russian party in Ukraine. It was also
disclosed that George Papadopoulos, a former Trump
foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty earlier in October to
making a false statement to the FBI in connection with his
efforts to develop Russian ties during the campaign.
Through a plea agreement, Papadopoulos is now
cooperating with Mueller’s investigators.
Clearly anxious as the Mueller investigation looms over
his presidency, Trump has continued to promote
alternative theories that would exonerate him and his
campaign. Binney’s analysis falls squarely into that
category.
President Donald Trump speaks on April 19, 2017, in the Roosevelt
Room of the White House in Washington. Photo: Susan Walsh/AP
Binney’s adherence to a widely disputed theory about the
DNC email theft that is favorable to Trump marks a new
twist for a retired government employee who has become
an outspoken critic of the intelligence community to which
he once belonged. Binney grew up in Pennsylvania,
majored in math at Penn State, and joined the Army in
1965. He was assigned to the U.S. Army Security Agency,
437
learning communications traffic analysis and, in 1967, was
assigned to NSA headquarters. In 1970, he joined the NSA
as a civilian and remained at the agency for the rest of his
career. He rose through the ranks to become the agency’s
technical director for world geopolitical and military
analysis and took over the NSA’s Signals Intelligence
Automation Research Center, a kind of skunkworks to test
out new ideas.
Late in his career, he began to clash with NSA
management, particularly over efforts to drag the
hidebound agency into the internet age. He advocated for a
sophisticated data search and analysis project called
ThinThread that his team had developed in-house, which
he believed would help the agency more effectively sift
through the torrent of digital information that was starting
to appear on the internet. But Binney was outraged when
the NSA’s leaders went instead with a more expensive
alternative called Trailblazer, offered by an outside
contractor. Binney, who thought Trailblazer was deeply
flawed and represented a massive sop to a powerful
defense company, took his concerns to a congressional
staffer involved with NSA oversight. By doing so, Binney
angered top NSA officials who were pushing Trailblazer.
Binney retired in the fall of 2001, but not before he learned
that the agency was beginning its massive post-9/11
domestic spying program. Binney did not go to the press to
discuss the NSA’s domestic spying program, but he did,
along with others, complain to the Defense Department’s
Inspector General about the Trailblazer program.
After the New York Times disclosed the domestic spying
program’s existence in 2005, Bush administration officials
wrongly suspected Binney was part of a small group of
NSA officials who were sources for the story. As part of a
criminal leak investigation, Binney and others had their
homes raided by the FBI.
They were never charged, but Thomas Drake, another
NSA official who the government thought was part of the
same group, was charged under the Espionage Act and
accused of leaking information about the controversial
Trailblazer program to the Baltimore Sun. The
government’s case against Drake eventually collapsed,
ending with his agreement to plead guilty to one
misdemeanor count of “exceeding the authorized use” of
an NSA computer.
Drake and Binney both emerged from the government’s
draconian leak investigation as prominent whistleblowers.
Their fame grew after former NSA contractor Edward
Snowden went public in 2013 and provided the press with
access to a trove of NSA documents about the agency’s
mass surveillance programs. Binney was featured in
“Citizenfour,” the Oscar-winning 2014 documentary
about Snowden directed by Laura Poitras; he was also the
subject of a 2015 documentary titled “A Good
American.” (Poitras co-founded The Intercept following
Snowden’s 2013 disclosures.)
In the 2016 presidential election, Binney says he opposed
Clinton and voted for Trump. This past summer, as the
Mueller investigation was heating up, Binney co-authored
a memo, published by members of a group of former
intelligence officials called Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), making the case that the
DNC emails were not hacked by Russia, but stolen by an
insider. The memo argued that the emails were likely
downloaded directly from a DNC computer onto a thumb
drive or some other external device.
“Forensic studies of ‘Russian hacking’ into
Democratic National Committee computers
last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data
was leaked (not hacked) by a person with
physical access to DNC computer,” the
memo states.
The memo’s conclusions were based on analyses of
metadata provided by the online persona Guccifer 2.0, who
took credit for the alleged hack. “Key among the findings
of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion
that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a
speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote
hack.”
The memo garnered attention on the right, but its claims
have been disputed. It cited timestamps embedded in the
Guccifer files showing when they’d been copied, and used
this data to extrapolate how quickly they’d been copied
from one computer to another. The analysis on which the
VIPS memo was based, conducted by a blogger called
“The Forensicator,” showed that the files were transferred
at a speed roughly equivalent to the rate at which data can
be downloaded to a USB thumb drive. VIPS claimed that
speed was “much faster than what is physically possible
with a hack,” and so the files had to have been stolen by an
insider with direct access to the computer system.
But this argument led to a tense split within the VIPS
group. Among others, Drake, who for so long had been
closely associated with Binney, publicly opposed the
memo, joining a group of dissenting VIPS members who
have attacked it.
“A number of VIPS members did not sign
this problematic memo because of
troubling questions about its conclusions,
and others who did sign it have raised key
concerns since its publication,” states a
competing memo written by Drake and
other VIPS members and published
September 1 on the website of The Nation
magazine, which had earlier published a
story about the Binney memo.
438
Drake and the dissenters complain that the original memo
was deeply flawed and came to biased conclusions based
only on a sketchy analysis of information that originated
with Guccifer 2.0, which the U.S. intelligence community
believes is a front for Russian intelligence. The dissenters
also point out that it is indeed possible for a remote
internet transfer to occur at the speeds identified in
Binney’s memo.
“The environment around Trump, Russia,
et al. is hyperpolarized right now, and much
disinformation is floating around, feeding
confirmation bias, mirroring and even
producing conspiracy theories,” the Drake
memo says.
“In an ideal world, VIPS would at least
retract its assertion of certainty. Absent real
facts regarding proof of leaks or hacks (or
both), how many hypotheses can one copy
onto the head of a digital pin?”
The controversy surrounding the July VIPS memo didn’t
seem to deter Pompeo from meeting with Binney. In late
September, Binney was in Amsterdam, where he has been
working to set up a new data analysis firm called Pretty
Good Knowledge, when his wife called to tell him that he
had received a call at home from the CIA director’s office,
asking to set up a meeting. Binney returned the call to
Pompeo’s assistant and scheduled the October 24 meeting.
Binney, who has serious medical problems and uses a
wheelchair, asked a colleague from Pretty Good
Knowledge, Chris Parker, to accompany him. Parker said
in an interview that he helped Binney get into Pompeo’s
seventh-floor office at CIA headquarters, shook hands with
the CIA director, and then waited outside the office during
their meeting. Marco Visser, a Dutch employee of Pretty
Good Knowledge who happened to be in Washington at
the time, said in an interview that he wanted to accompany
Binney and Parker because he had never been to CIA
headquarters and was excited to see it, but was not allowed
to go because he is a foreign national.
Binney said he was not told what the meeting was about
until he sat down with Pompeo. He said that in addition to
Pompeo, two other CIA staffers, who gave only their first
names, attended the meeting and asked technical questions
about Binney’s analysis. When Pompeo asked Binney
what evidence he had to support his analysis of the DNC
email theft, Binney says he told him that it was based only
on the online analyses of information published by
Guccifer 2.0.
Binney said that since their meeting, he has not heard from
Pompeo about scheduling follow-up meetings with the
NSA and FBI.
 Sabotage?: Hillary’s Fusion GPS Operative Met With
Russian Lawyer Before And After Trump Jr. Meeting
Zero Hedge
November 8, 2017

The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Donald

Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya
occurred during a critical period. At that time, Fox News
has learned that bank records show Fusion GPS was paid
by a law firm for work on behalf of a Kremlin-linked
oligarch while paying a former British spy Christopher
Steele to dig up dirt on Trump through his Russian
contacts.

But hours before the Trump Tower meeting on June 9,

2016, Fusion co-founder and ex-Wall Street Journal
reporter Glenn Simpson was with Veselnitskaya in a
Manhattan federal courtroom, a confidential source told
Earlier this summer we were all led to believe that the
Fox News. Court records reviewed by Fox News, email
now-infamous meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and
correspondence and published reports corroborate the
Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was undeniable
pair’s presence together. The source told Fox News they
evidence that the Trump campaign had colluded with the
also were together after the Trump Tower meeting.
Russian government to effectively stage a coup by
preemptively blocking Hillary from rightful throne.
Meanwhile, not only were Simpson and Veselnitskaya
together before the Trump Jr. meeting, as it turns out
But, what if it was all just a setup?
Fusion GPS was hired by BakerHostetler to represent
Russian firm Prevezon in an asset forfeiture case, a firm
According to a report from Fox News, just hours before which Veselnitskaya also represented and was the reason
Natalia Veselnitskaya sat down with Trump Jr., Paul that she was in the U.S. in the first place. To summarize,
Manfort and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower on June 9,
2016, she was with Fusion GPS co-founder and former
Fusion GPS and Veselnitskaya were
Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson in a Federal
effectively co-workers defending a
Manhattan courtroom. Adding to the mystery, Fox reports
Putin-linked Russian operative on trial
that the pair were together shortly after the Trump Jr.
in the U.S. for a massive $230 million
meeting as well.
money laundering fraud.
Of course, this is an intriguing new development because
NBC News first reported that Veselnitskaya and Simpson
just a couple of months prior to these events, Fusion GPS
were both at a hearing centered around another Fusion
was paid at least $1 million by Hillary’s campaign and the
client, Russian oligarch Denis Katsyv. His company,
DNC to ‘prove’ that Trump was working with the
Prevezon Holdings, was sanctioned against doing business
Russians. All of which begs the obvious question, was the
in the U.S. for its alleged role in laundering more than
whole Trump Jr. fiasco nothing more than a failed attempt
$230 million. Fox News obtained audio records from that
at political sabotage by the Hillary campaign?
hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit.
The co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm behind the
unverified Trump dossier, met with a Russian lawyer
The wrongdoing had been uncovered by Russian lawyer
before and after a key meeting she had last year with
and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to
Trump’s son, Fox News has learned. The contacts shed
death in a Russian prison in 2009 after being arrested for
new light on how closely tied the firm was to Russian
probing Prevezon and other companies with ties to Russian
interests, at a time when it was financing research to
President Vladimir Putin.
discredit then-candidate Donald Trump.

439
In December 2012, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law
Accountability Act was passed into U.S. law, freezing
Russian assets and banning visas for sanctioned
individuals. Fusion’s Simpson is believed to have been
working with Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, a
former Soviet counter-intelligence officer turned Russian-
American lobbyist, to overturn the sanctions.
The Senate Judiciary Committee interviewed Simpson for
more than 10 hours on August 22nd though a spokesman
for the committee refused to comment on whether
Simpson confirmed his contact with Veselnitskaya during
the closed-door session.
440
Of course, as we’ve noted previously (see: Hillary
Clinton Lied, Paid For “Trump Dossier”), the DNC and
Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS for over $1 million in
April 2016 through lawyer Marc Elias, who was general
counsel for the Clinton campaign. Fusion, in turn, paid
Steele $168,000 for the dossier, memos from which were
shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016.
So what say you? Was it all just an innocent coincidence
or political sabotage?
 Thousands Of Americans Scream
At The Sky To Mark Trump Anniversary
By Tyler Durden
Nov 8, 2017 10:09 PM

It was the scream which, at the conclusion of Donald
Trump's inauguration ceremony, captured the existential
dread of millions of Americans.
Explaining the motive behind today's screamfest, New
York event organizer Nathan Wahl said that "frankly, I
can’t keep up with it all. Every time I think of the laundry
list of social injustices on top of my own shit like my
actual laundry I get overwhelmed. Every news notification
on my phone is a reminder of something over which I am
powerless. And I think a lot of people feel that way. So
fuck me for thinking it’d be nice to yell about it."

We really need some universal mental healthcare in this

It also appears to have sparked a mass "resistance" protest
movement.
On Wednesday night, thousands of Americans across the
nation gathered to “Scream helplessly at the Sky on the
Anniversary of the Election” to mark one year since
President Trump's victory.
country and some anger management, while we’re at it.
Which is kind of what this event is. It’s group anger
management. No one’s crying. No one’s demanding
anything. It’s a collective expression of frustration. It’s
like… it’s like the feeling you have when you’ve been
building Ikea furniture for three hours, and it’s late, and
you feel like you’re getting nowhere, and you were almost
done, but then you realized you put a piece on backwards
and you have to take almost the entire thing apart and you
just wanna fucking SCREAM. That’s what we’re
doing?—?we’re screaming because living in America
feels like building ikea furniture.
Secondly, I am doing something.

Thousands attended events planned in New York City,

Philadelphia, Dallas and other major cities. The idea came
from Boston, where people will gather in America's oldest
park, the Boston Common, to scream. The premise behind
the event was self-explanatory as people came to public
gathering places, looked to the sky and, well, screamed.

This is how one Facebook event page described tonight's

event:

Let's have a primal scream for the current state of our

democracy! Gather together after work at Philadelphia's
City Hall, or just scream in solidarity from your own
backyard.
The Washington Square Park event planned in New York
was more emphatic:
Join us cucks and snowflakes, safe spacers and libtards, as
we enjoy a collective cathartic yell into the heavens about
our current political establishment.
441
More than 15,000 people had expressed an interest in
attending Wednesday’s scream in New York, including
Joe Z. from Astoria, who told Metro it “might be helpful to
bond with others who feel the same way.” Joe has found
Trump’s presidency thus far “as awful as I feared — it’s a
daily, sometimes hourly nightmare.” The main thing he
intends to scream about is Trump’s measures against
immigrants.
“Everything they do with immigration is about eliminating ... before the occasional clashes broke out.
diversity from this country,” he said. “I live in Queens,
diversity of cultures is what I most love about living here.
There's no empathy for others in the face of the most
callous cruelty to other human beings.”

Tonight's "scream" started off in a calm fashion as the

following BuzzFeed clip shows...

Meanwhile, there was a parallel event for Trump

supporters who wanted to shout their joy over the events of
the past year. According to RallyList.com, there was a
nationwide screaming counter-protest to “Praise God for
President Trump” and that “HRC is not our president.”

442
 ‘Zero Evidence’ That Russia Hacked DNC,
Says NSA Whistleblower (VIDEO)
Published Time: 8 Nov, 2017 18:07 Edited Time: 9 Nov, 2017 11:34
FILE PHOTO © Adam Berry / Getty Images
NSA whistleblower William Binney spoke to RT about
his recent meeting with CIA director Mike Pompeo, where
they discussed accusations that Russia meddled in 2016
US presidential election by hacking the Democrats.
In an interview with RT America host Ed Schultz on
Wednesday, Binney said tests have “clearly showed” the
DNC was not hacked by Russia before the 2016
presidential election, but that the data was downloaded
locally.
Binney met with CIA director Mike Pompeo on
Wednesday to review analysis by the Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which challenged the
notion that the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
was hacked by Russia. In a letter to President Donald
Trump, the group claims the “data was leaked (not
hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC
computers.”
After analyzing the data, VIPS concluded that the transfer
simply does not support the claim the documents were
hacked by Russian agents, as leaders of the US intelligence
community claimed in a January report.
Binney also spoke with RT's Neil Harvey on Wednesday.
During the meeting, Binney shared test findings gleaned
on the transfer rate of data, which he said “clearly showed
that it was a local download and not an international
hack.”
“It was very clear it was a local download, because of the
speeds and all,” Binney said, explaining how his
443
colleagues set up a test between a data center in New
Jersey and another in the UK, and could not reproduce the
download that took place on July 5, 2016.
The approximately 16GB of data was downloaded in two
bursts, totaling 87 seconds, with a 12-minute pause
between them.
“It had to be done locally,” Binney told RT America.
The data logs and the speed test were the only concrete
evidence available for examination, he pointed out.
“Everything else is speculation, and agenda- and
emotionally-driven assertions.”
If the intelligence community had some factual evidence
proving Russian hacking, that would be another matter, the
NSA whistleblower said, but “so far they’ve produced
nothing.”
When asked who could have been behind the leak, Binney
said it may have been an “inside job,” but he couldn’t
attribute it to anybody in particular, because “we never
knew who did the download, or whether or not it went
anywhere else.”
President John F. Kennedy presented aerial surveillance
photos of Soviet missiles in Cuba during the 1962 missile
crisis, Binney pointed out. Reagan presented Japanese
radio intercepts of orders to shoot down the Korean airliner
in 1983. No such evidence has been offered for the
hacking accusation, though many lawmakers have
described it as an act of war.
“They need to put up or shut up,” said Binney. He said he “They’re hiding this. They keep the population ignorant,
does not buy into such claims without any factual uninformed so they can manipulate them any way they
evidence, “and that’s basically what their situation is. want,” Binney said. “This is the same thing the
They have zero evidence.” mainstream media is doing.”

However, if there was an agency who would be able to Mainstream media outlets have branded the VIPS analysis
detect if the DNC was hacked, it would be the NSA, as “disputed,” “fringe,” or a “conspiracy
Binney said. theory” (Washington Post, NBC, and CNN respectively)
while failing to apply the same level of skepticism to the
“If anybody did anything across the net, NSA has so many US intelligence community narrative.
taps on the fiber network inside the US and around the
world and so many traceroute programs embedded by the On Wednesday, the NSA whistleblower was repeatedly
hundreds around the network, they would know where called Binney a “conspiracy theorist” in a
these packets went,” Binney told RT America. CNN article about the meeting.

The NSA and FBI “know a lot more than they're telling “That’s basically showing the shallow weakness of their
the president,” Binney added. argument,” Binney said. “They produce no facts
whatsoever and simply throw labels at people to do
The analysis from VIPS implies the intelligence character assassination.”
community is not telling the Trump administration what
really happened, Binney said. They don’t want the
American people to hear the truth either, he added.

444
 ABC, CBS Speculate Trump
Was Blackmailed With Russian Prostitutes
By Nicholas Fondacaro
November 9, 2017 9:34 PM EST
In a recent closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence
Committee (which was leaked), former Donald Trump
bodyguard Keith Schiller destroyed one of the more
salacious parts of the Clinton/DNC funded dossier. The
documents, which were put together by a former British
spy with the help of Russian agents, claimed Russia had
dirt on Trump regarding him and Russian prostitutes.
Despite Schiller shooting down the rumors, both ABC and
CBS spent Thursday evening speculating about the
debunked accusations as if there were something to them.
“The House committee investigating
Russian meddling in the presidential
election heard quite a story this week
from President Trump's former
bodyguard,” announced temporary Anchor
Anthony Mason during CBS Evening News
as he led into a report on the leaked
testimony, with the on screen headline
"Blackmailed by Russia?" enblazoned
behind him. “He seems to suggest
Russians may have tried to blackmail
Mr. Trump.”
In his report, Justice Correspondent Jeff Pegues gave a
rundown of Schiller’s testimony:
This week, Schiller told members of the House
Intelligence committee that during that trip, an offer was
made to send five women to Mr. Trump's hotel room at the
Ritz-Carlton. According to a source, Schiller told the
committee, he didn't take the offer seriously, but he did
later mention it to Mr. Trump.
445
Pegues failed to mention that it had been reported Schiller
testified under oath that he told the Russian making the
offer: “We don't do that type of stuff.” It had also been
reported that when Schiller told his boss about the offer,
Trump laughed it off. That was also missing from Pegues
report. But Pegues did talk to a former FBI operative who
opined about how it was no surprise the Russians would
want to compromise Trump.
Meanwhile, on ABC’s World News Tonight, Anchor David
Muir sensationalized the non-story as possibly being
important. “And there is another major headline at this
hour, involving the President's long-time bodyguard,
and what he told Congress about the President in
Moscow, and an alleged offer of several Russian women
in 2013,” he declared, before handing the report off to
Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross.
“Tonight, we are learning what Schiller
says he saw on a trip to Moscow with
Trump in 2013 for the Miss Universe
Pageant,” Ross hyped. “That trip to
Moscow figured prominently in the
uncorroborated dossier prepared for the
Clinton campaign, which includes
allegations that Trump while staying at
the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow
employed ‘A number of prostitutes.’”
Ross also failed to mention Schiller told the House
Intelligence Committee that “[w]e don't do that type of
stuff,” and that Trump laughed after being told about the
offer. But the ABC reporter did leave the door open for the
allegations, noting that “Schiller told Congress he stayed
outside Trump's hotel room for about five minutes that
night and saw no one go inside.”
NBC was the only network in the Big Three not to touch
the non-story on their evening broadcast. It’s clear that
both ABC and CBS were trying desperately to at least
create a specter of the Russians having dirt on Trump
being involved with their offered prostitutes. But it’s hard
to speculate that the salacious allegations were true when
that’s not what apparently happened.
ABC's speculation was sponsored by Allstate, T.RowePrice, and
Eliquis. CBS's was brought to you by Farxiga, Aleve, and
Trivago.
Transcripts below:
ABC
World News Tonight
November 9, 2017
6:36:20 PM Eastern
DAVID MUIR: Next, to the Russia investigation, and tonight,
we've learned the special counsel's probe reaching deep into the
West Wing. Now questioning one of the President's closest
aides, Senior Adviser Stephen Miller. And there is another
major headline at this hour, involving the President's long-
time bodyguard, and what he told Congress about the
President in Moscow, and an alleged offer of several
Russian women in 2013. Here's Chief Investigative
Correspondent Brian Ross.
[Cuts to video]
BRIAN ROSS: A former New York City cop, Keith Schiller, was
the bodyguard at Donald Trump's side for years. And he followed
his boss to the White House, and even hand-delivered the
President's letter, firing FBI Director James Comey. Tonight, we
are learning what Schiller says he saw on a trip to Moscow
with Trump in 2013 for the Miss Universe Pageant. That trip
to Moscow figured prominently in the uncorroborated
dossier prepared for the Clinton campaign, which includes
allegations that Trump, while staying at the Ritz-Carlton
hotel in Moscow employed "A number of prostitutes."
Tonight, Congressional investigators say Schiller told them
a well-connected Russian businessman offered him "Five
women" for Trump, but that he rejected the offer, believing it
was a joke. And that he never told Trump about it until
several hours later. Trump himself has denied the salacious
allegations, saying he knew there were cameras hidden in the
rooms.
DONALD TRUMP: I was in Russia years ago with the Miss
Universe contest which did very well, Moscow, the Moscow area,
did very, very well. And I told many people, be careful, because
you don't want to see yourself on television, cameras all over the
place.
ROSS: Schiller told Congress he stayed outside Trump's
hotel room for about five minutes that night and saw no one
go inside.
446
(…)
...
CBS Evening News
November 9, 2017
6:40:44 – 6:42:28 PM Eastern [1 minute 43 seconds]
ANTHONY MASON: The House committee investigating
Russian meddling in the presidential election heard quite a
story this week from President Trump's former bodyguard.
He seems to suggest Russians may have tried to blackmail
Mr. Trump. Here's Jeff Pegues.
[Cuts to video]
JEFF PEGUES: In 2013, President Trump's Miss Universe
Pageant was in Moscow. Mr. Trump was there, too, along with
his longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller. This week, Schiller told
members of the House Intelligence committee that during
that trip, an offer was made to send five women to Mr.
Trump's hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton. According to a
source, Schiller told the committee, he didn't take the offer
seriously, but he did later mention it to Mr. Trump. The
intelligence committee is investigating allegations made in a 35-
page dossier compiled last year by a former British spy. It made
the unsubstantiated claim that the Kremlin had compromising
information on Mr. Trump that included salacious details about
his 2013 trip to Moscow.
ERIC O’NEILL: It is an age-old tactic. The Russians have been
using it for as long as they have been spies.
PEGUES: Eric O’Neill is a former FBI operative.
O’NEILL: I'm not surprised at all that the Russians would have
gone after someone like Mr. Trump at the time to gather that
compromising information. He's a well-known figure, someone
who is very engaged in politics, and, also, someone who has
many deals in Russia.
[Cuts back to live]
PEGUES: An attorney for Schiller who worked at the White
House until September had no comment. Just recently, a lawyer
for both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic MASON: Jeff Pegues, thanks, Jeff.
National Committee admitted to paying the research firm that
compiled that dossier. Anthony.
.

447
 Facebook & Podesta Ran Dirty
Tricks Against Trump In China
By Yoichi Shimatsu - Exclusive To Rense
11-9-2017
Imagine if the White House had invited Guagua, the
celebrity son of imprisoned crooked Chinese politician Bo
Xilai, to the White House a week before Xi Jinping’s state
visit at the Mar-e-Lago summit. There would have been a
typhoon of angry complaints from the Chinese
ambassador.
The equivalent just happened in China, with help from the
astute publicity-information department, which accepted
the request from U.S. Democratic Party presidential
candidate Mark Zuckerberg for a personal meeting with Xi
Jinping at the Great Hall of the People. Tactfully, Donald
Trump did not raise a fuss over this cold slap at his face.
Then the Podesta brothers CAP machine, which is
entrenched here inside NGOs, American tech companies
here, and even at the U.S. Embassy, pulled off a classic
dirty trick with a Facebook-funded publicity stunt. The
news came out a day before Trump’s visit that three
freshmen with the UCLA basketball team got “caught”
stealing from the Louis Vuitton mega-store in Hangzhou.
ESPN played up the news of the local police questioning
players with the Bruins and Georgia Tech, which were
scheduled for the NCAA season-opener in Shanghai on
November 10.
A star from the Facebook reality show “Ball in the
Family”, LiAngelo was one of the arrested trio. His family
of ballplayers (dad, mom and three boys) are featured in
Facebook’s first-ever reality show, produced by the same
production team for “Keeping up with the Kardashians”.
The mastermind behind FB’s “Ball in the Family” series,
which premiered in late August, is daddy Lavar Ball, a
media clown who loud-mouths to the TV reporters at L.A.
Lakers games, where his eldest son Lonzo is a rookie
guard with a lousy start for this season. Who cares about
scoring, when It’s all about “Showtime!” and keeping up
with Kim and her girlie corps of fashion models?
Now back to the arrest in China: The George Tech
Bulldogs swore to the detectives that they are as honest as
the team mascot that always barks at thieves. So the police
took a long close look at the crew from UCLA, who fit
every stereotype of gangsta’ rap. LiAngelo has slit-shaven
eyebrows, Jalen Hill is adorned with dreadlocks, and Cody
Riley’s got a crazed stare. Now, officers, don’t judge them
by appearances. These boys aren’t really South-Central
ghetto, where I spent time in my childhood. Papa Lavar
gave LiAngelo the keys to a brand-new Ferrari at the
semester’s start, presumably bought with the down
payment from Zucketberg for the reality-show contract,
448
since daddy hasn’t sold enough $495 sneakers from his
Big Baller sporting wear company to cover his . . . hoop.
You see, officer, it was just a spoof, a stunt for the reality
show, the manager at Louis Vuitton on Rodeo Drive was
in on it all along.
ESPN played right into the Facebook publicity scam with
ballistic reporting that the B-ball boys were facing a
possible 3 years in a Chinese prison. For what? For
swiping three pairs of sunglasses? This is the best publicity
Louis Vuitton has ever received, now that upscale luxury
sales are down in China. Suddenly, the brand is Bling-
Bling. Not even Rihanna could put Louis Vuitton into the
hiphop must-have list. This all makes one start to wonder
how much did LV pay for product placement in this reality
show?
Their scary overnight detention in a Chai-neeez police
station, where a firing squad is waiting out back and
there’s no toilet paper (according the script of the reality
show), ends in their release the next morning on bail under
“house arrest” inside the Hyatt Regency Hangzhou Tower,
one of the most expensive hotels in China’s most
expensive tourist city, with meals and beer delivered by
room service. If that’s prison, we should all be locked up.
Meanwhile, basketball and football hero Lavar (who just
never got the breaks he deserved like Magic or OJ, and so
ended up playing American football in England) and
Mama Tina (who was also a college women’s basketball
player) are sitting in the Shanghai stadium, worrying about
their boy in the clink (don’t mess with the spelling of that),
before this meaningless season (pre)opener, which isn’t
going to count in the 2017-18 season ratings anyway. It’s
just a scrimmage between freshmen on both sides to drum
up interest in NCAA satellite feed into the world’s biggest
media market.
(This offshore ritual was started three years ago by a team
from Harvard, a game which sold less than 600 tickets,
mostly to alums who’ve never seen basketball before). So
after a slow start, this year’s Shanghai opener was
melodrama at its finest, which makes one wonder how
much did the organizers pay Facebook for the news of the
arrest. It also give Lavar another chance to say that in his
prime he could do a jumper against Michael Jordan
anytime of day, with a billion Chinese fans nodding their
heads in awe at this living legend of American sports.
Mind you, this entire scripted and staged fake reality
occurred just one day before the arrival of the soon-to-be
deposed Republican President Donald Trump, while the
news coverage and public comments during his visit were
massively blotted out by Zuckerberg’s business partners
inside the propaganda bureau; it’s Ball in the Family,
right? Facebook would have to pay a billion dollars or
more from one of his wife’s accounts to get the licensing
to crack the Chinese market. Trump is a pauper by
comparison.
(For official purposes, and so I don’t get thrown into a
Hangzhou jail cell for slander and libel, let me state here
that, after close inspection with my magnifying glass and
pocket calculator, I ascertain that media licensing in China
is absolutely free of corruption. And if you don’t believe
my sworn statement, go ask the propaganda chief who
hosted Zuckerberg and Tim Cook.)
Meanwhile, a herd of Silicon Valley execs, mostly
Democrats, timed their “promises, promises” Beijing
promo visit to distract online media away from Trump.
When I say the Podesta machine is entrenched in Beijing
in alliance with other countries hostile to Trump, including
India, let’s cite one example. The online hacking of Carter
Page’s alleged “money-laundering” from the Balkans to
the Trump campaign headquarters in New York was
organized by former U.S. military cyber-warfare personnel
assigned to China by the Obama administration.
These less-than loyal Americans are still here, trying to
pick apart Trump. It’s called Benedict Arnold-type treason,
.
449
and Podesta’s crew is guilty on top of their vice-related
offenses. How much of their “discoveries” are true and
how much is invented and put online from a foreign
country? Of course, the USA is doing the same with
turncoating Chinese citizens residing in the States to snoop
against their own country. We live in a world without a
shred of respect for the principle of strong fences making
good neighbors.
So the winner of the dirty tricks is the king of fake news
Mark Zuckerberg, whose 2020 presidential campaign
against incumbent Trump was kick-started with a pre-
emptive photo-op with the world’s most powerful leader,
his venture into reality media assured by the staged
shoplifting and arrest for dramatic purposes, and by now a
big piece of the Ball brothers’ marketing franchise. With
these assets, he probably hopes sooner than later to own
the Lakers and China online along with the White House.
Social Media Rules! As the movie suggested, there’s more
to social media than meets the eye. Therefore, my advice
to Steve Bannon and his bulldogs at Breitbart is to take a
long close look at the wife’s connections with the
Vietnamese “trading” empire that pumps “sleepy time”
into the USA and via Boston into Ireland and Europe, the
immigrant underworld that provided the wherewithal for
FB to get its start-up. Then maybe the Zucks can trade
places with LiAngelo inside a jail.
 Botched Russia Meddling Analysis
Makes U.S. Intel Agencies Appear Politically Motivated
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On November 9, 2017
While the charges at the time seemed persuasive and
sharp, some 10 months later they are unraveling
Left to right: James Comey, FBI Director, John Brennan, CIA
Director, James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, and U.S.
Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. FLynn, Defense Intelligence Agency
Director, testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence in Washington D.C. on Feb. 4, 2014. The directors are
fielding questions about the impacts of recent events and the steps
being taken by the intelligence community to prevent future
incidents. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Lovelady)
(Released)
(National Sentinel) Faulty Assessment: Just two weeks
before President-elect Donald J. Trump took office,
President Obama’s intelligence heads made public a
unanimous analysis that Russian operatives, under orders
from President Vladimir Putin, staged an influence
campaign in order to help Trump win the 2016 election.
As the Washington Times reported, it was a significant
event: The CIA, NSA, and FBI were all challenging the
legitimacy of a presidential election.
While the charges at the time seemed persuasive and
sharp, some 10 months later they are unraveling, which is
raising questions about the legitimacy of the initial
assessment and whether it was politically motivated to
undermine the incoming commander-in-chief.
“It left me scratching my head,” said one
intelligence source with personal access to
former Director of National Intelligence
James R. Clapper and former CIA Director
John O. Brennan, two of the men who had
signed off on the assessment.
Both men have since publicly criticized Trump, which in
and of itself is nearly unprecedented.
450
What’s more, the Times reported:
The 15-page document presented to the
president-elect at Trump Tower in
Manhattan was mostly filler — a
republication of a years-old CIA analysis of
the Kremlin’s global television network
Russia Today. A mere five pages were
dedicated to [the] charge that Moscow
blended cyberhacking with state-backed
propaganda and social media trolls to
defeat Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary
Clinton.
There was no supporting documentation of
how America’s top spies arrived at the
brazen conclusion that Russians had
“gained access to” and “exfiltrated large
volumes of data” from Democratic National
Committee computers, an explosive claim
that sent shock waves across the U.S.
political and intelligence landscapes.
And yet, because of the source of the report, those five
pages have cast a pall over Trump’s presidency ever since,
hurting his credibility abroad and forming the backdrop for
five separate congressional and special counsel
investigations.
This, despite the fact that the document’s singular
conclusion — Russian collusion with Team Trump —
looks less and less believable by the day.
And now, members of both parties say that the Russian
efforts to undermine the November election were neither
new nor aimed at electing Trump, but merely to
‘undermine’ American democratic processes.
The Times said in interviews with scores of former U.S.
national security, intelligence community vets at the
highest levels as well as foreign diplomats who all thought
the initial assessment was devoid of much detail.
“I actually called them both the day after it
came out and asked, ‘Why was it so thin?’”
said the source close to Clapper and
Brennan. “The answer I got was simple:
 There was a serious counterintelligence
operation going on.”
The Times noted,
“U.S. spies were neck-deep in an elaborate
counterintelligence operation, and they
didn’t want to jeopardize it by revealing too
many details, according to various officials
inside and outside the intelligence
community.”
Trump did not see it that way; he believed that the Obama
intelligence apparatus had been politicized and, as we have
learned since, it likely was, just like Obama’s Justice
Department.
Other intelligence vets agree:
Fred Fleitz, a 19-year CIA veteran who
served as a chief of staff for John R. Bolton
during the George W. Bush administration,
first laid out the argument in a Fox News
.
451
op-ed the day after the assessment was
made public.
The entire purpose of the report was
apparently “to undermine the legitimacy of
Trump’s election,” Mr. Fleitz wrote on Jan.
7. He called the assessment “rigged for
political purposes” and lamented that it
contained “serious accusations of Russian
interference” but “did not back them up with
evidence.”
At least one Russian envoy interviewed by the Times
agreed.
“I believe it was a total fraud and it was
very badly concocted, to say the least,” he
said. “It was clearly done to divert attention
away from all the infighting and
backstabbing that was going on inside the
Democratic Party. It was also a perfect
move to place the blame on someone else
— a foreign power — for Hillary’s defeat.”
 Sibel Edmonds: Robert Mueller Covered Up
Islamic Terror Networks, FBI Agents Would “Testify”
That He Cannot Be An Impartial Special Prosecutor
In Trump-Russia Probe
Alex Thomas
November 9, 2017

“I was the one who stepped outside of the

FBI, went to Congress, went to IG, it was a
game. This same Mueller, who invoked the
state secrets privilege, placed gag orders
to protect, to protect, this terrorist network,”
Edmonds stunningly revealed.

In a stunning interview on The Alex Jones Show, famed

FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds completely destroyed
special counsel Robert Mueller, laying out a series of facts
that paint Mueller as a deep state operative who in the past
has actively covered up Islamic terror networks and is
now conducting a sort of “new McCarthyism” in his sham
investigation into supposed ties between President Trump
and Russia.

Edmonds noted her background dealing with Mueller and
it is not pretty. Not only did he help suppress evidence in
her case he also issued a gag orders to silence the truth.
“Imagine my shock when I saw that Robert
Mueller was appointed as the special
counsel in this case, the same Robert
Mueller, who in my case, put gag orders
together with attorney general Ashcroft,”
Edmonds noted.
“There were FBI agents, not only in the
Washington field office, but also in the
Chicago and Patterson field offices, who
were blowing the whistle on Mueller
internally, saying hes squashing our
investigations [into terror networks].”
“So imagine my shock when I see, low and
behold, its Robert Mueller [investigating
Trump] and he dug and could not find a
single thing on General Flynn linking him in
anyway to any nefarious activities with the
Russians so he expanded this sham
investigation.”
In another segment of the show, Edmonds notes that it is a
slam dunk case that Robert Mueller cannot preside as the
special counsel in the Russia probe. She also notes how
disappointing it is that lawyers for Flynn and others under
investigation are not going on the offensive.

Edmonds then goes on to discuss her shock that Mueller

would be brought on as an “impartial” prosecutor in the
Trump-Russia probe when he himself has a history of
corruption. (Not to mention his close friendship with
Comey and the deep state in general)

452
Finally, Edmonds directly states that there are agents covering up and protecting Gulen
within the FBI who would testify that Mueller is not an Networks’ criminal operations within the
impartial special counselor. This would give President United States, and demands that he steps
Trump all he needs to fire him before he can ruin any other down.”
lives in his endless new McCarthyism like witch hunt.

“I know of several veteran, highly

decorated FBI agents, if subpoenaed,
would testify that how Robert Mueller, due
to what he was doing as the director of the
FBI, can not preside as the special counsel
in this case,” Edmonds continued.
“Its a slam dunk case, its documented.”

In other video, this time on her own website, Edmonds

discusses all the conflicts of interest Mueller has in going
after decorated General Michael Flynn.
“FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds exposes
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s conflict of
interest in pursuing General Michael
Flynn’s case due to his direct involvement
as former FBI Director and his role in
.
At this point it is shockingly obvious that Robert Mueller
is part of a deep state run, mainstream media pushed,
operation to take out the rightfully elected president.
Make no mistake, regardless whether or not you support
Trump or his policies, this is a direct attack on American
democracy.

453
 Were Mainstream Media Reporters
Paid Off To Spread Russia Collusion Narrative?
By Jayson Veley
Thursday, November 09, 2017
Anyone who isn’t a victim of the fake news mainstream
media and the propaganda that is constantly being shot out
across the airwaves knows that the whole Trump-Russia
scandal was a bunch of baloney from the start. It was and
continues to be nothing more than a phony story
manufactured by the progressive left that is rooted in
denial, contempt, and bitterness over the 2016 presidential
election. Now, new information has come out regarding
the pathetic dossier that the left tried to push just days
before the election, and once again, the liberals have found
themselves in hot water.
As The Washington Times reports, Fusion GPS, which is
the company that funded the research into the dossier via
money from the Clinton campaign, is currently fighting a
House committee chairman’s bid to determine whether or
not the opposition research firm paid journalists to help
advance the dossier’s narrative. Specifically, Devin Nunes,
a Republican Representative for the state of California and
chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, wants to know who paid for the dossier, and
whether left-wing reporters within the mainstream media
were financially bribed to cover a story that they knew was
illegitimate. (Related: Congressional investigations are
closing in on the massive Obama-Clinton corruption
behind the phony Trump dossier.)
After Representative Nunes signed a subpoena forcing a
bank to turn over all of Fusion’s financial records, Fusion
GPS attempted to block the move in federal court, only to
be interrupted by the law firm Perkins Coie LLP, whose
partner Marc E. Elias is the Clinton campaign’s general
counsel. The law firm filed a letter acknowledging that it
had paid Fusion GPS for research into the dossier on
behalf of the Democrat Party. As of right now, it seems as
though the Democrats are guilty of doing what they do
best – spreading false, unsubstantiated information. But
were leftists within the mainstream media paid to report on
454
the dossier? (Related: Yes, the Russian dossier story is a
very big deal, and here is why.)
If they did, it certainly wouldn’t be surprising. With the
exception of Fox News, virtually every single media outlet
has decided to completely abandon journalism and instead
focus on destroying President Trump and his
administration at all costs, even if it means lying to the
American people and manufacturing phony scandals. It’s
sad, but things like integrity and trustworthiness no longer
matter to the hosts and producers at CNN, ABC, MSNBC
and others; in fact, those qualities are now seen as nothing
more than obstacles that get in their way. It’s all about
destroying the political opposition, not facts and accurate
information.
But even when they are exposed as liars and
propagandists, the liberals never stop. According to the
Daily Mail, several sources now claim that Hillary Clinton
is in secret negotiations with Christopher Steele, the
original author of the dossier, to purchase yet another
report that allegedly contains new claims about President
Trump and his supposed ties to the Russian government.
Sources claim that the negotiations with Christopher Steele
that are going on behind closed doors are being carried out
by former Clinton aides who are still angry and bitter over
the fact that Hillary lost to Donald Trump
last November. “Hillary’s people have been
secretly in touch with Steele and are close
to making a deal with him on opposition
research that he claims has newly surfaced
from his Russian sources,” explained a
longtime Clinton adviser, adding, “Steele
didn’t release this information before now
because it wasn’t available to him when he
put together his first dossier.”
If this second dossier gains traction, then we can all expect
to see that same old song and dance yet again – the
mainstream media will report on it day and night, and then
by the time its revealed that the entire report is a bunch of
nonsense, the liberals will already be moving on to
something new.
And so it goes.
 Mueller Probes Flynn’s Role In
Alleged Plan To Deliver Cleric To Turkey
Under Alleged Plan, Ex-Trump Adviser And His Son Were To Be
Paid Millions To Forcibly Remove Fethullah Gulen From U.S.
And Deliver Him To Turkish Custody
By James V. Grimaldi, Shane Harris And Aruna Viswanatha
Nov. 10, 2017 5:33 A.M. ET

The Wall Street Journal previously reported on efforts by

Turkish officials to get Mr. Gulen to Turkey without going
through the U.S. extradition legal process, an effort that
included an earlier meeting with Mr. Flynn in September
2016.

The investigation is being handled by Mr. Mueller as part

of his probe of Trump campaign advisers and Russian
interference in the 2016 election, according to those
familiar with the investigation.

A spokesman for Mr. Mueller declined to comment.

Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn
already faces military, congressional and criminal investigations into The people who described the alleged proposal said they
allegations that he improperly concealed his financial ties to Turkey didn’t attend the December meeting and didn’t have direct
and Russia, and into whether the ties played any role in his decisions knowledge from Mr. Flynn or his associates about its
as the president’s adviser. Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters
purported details. It isn’t clear how advanced Mr.
Mueller’s investigation of the alleged plan to remove Mr.
WASHINGTON—Special Counsel Robert Mueller is Gulen is, nor is there any indication that any money
investigating an alleged plan involving former White changed hands, according to those familiar with the
House national security adviser Mike Flynn to forcibly discussions and the FBI investigation.
remove a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him
to Turkey in return for millions of dollars, according to
But federal investigators’ interest in whether Mr. Flynn
people familiar with the investigation.
was pursuing potentially illegal means to forcibly deal
with Mr. Gulen indicates that the former Trump adviser
Under the alleged proposal, Mr. Flynn and his son, faces another investigation stemming from his work on
Michael Flynn Jr., were to be paid as much as $15 million behalf of Turkish government interests, both before and
for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, after the presidential election.
according to people with knowledge of discussions Mr.
Flynn had with Turkish representatives. President Recep
A lawyer for Mr. Flynn declined to comment, as did a
Tayyip Erdogan, who has pressed the U.S. to extradite
lawyer for Mr. Flynn Jr.
him, views the cleric as a political enemy.
Before entering the Trump administration as the
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have asked at least
president’s national security adviser, Mr. Flynn was
four individuals about a meeting in mid-December at the
lobbying on behalf of Turkish interests in the U.S.,
‘21’ Club in New York City, where Mr. Flynn and
including on the Gulen issue. He didn’t disclose that work
representatives of the Turkish government discussed
until March of this year, after he was forced out of the
removing Mr. Gulen, according to people with knowledge
White House for misleading Vice President Mike Pence
of the FBI’s inquiries. The discussions allegedly involved
and other White House officials about conversations he
the possibility of transporting Mr. Gulen on a private jet to
had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Mr. Flynn
the Turkish prison island of Imrali, according to one of the
served as national security adviser for just 24 days.
people who has spoken to the FBI.

455
He is now facing military, congressional and criminal
investigations into allegations that he improperly
concealed his financial ties to Turkey and Russia, and into
whether the ties played any role in his decisions as the
president’s adviser, The Wall Street Journal has previously
reported.
One person familiar with the alleged discussions about Mr.
Gulen said Mr. Flynn also was prepared to use his
influence in the White House to further the legal
extradition of the cleric, who lives in Pennsylvania.
Turkey has pressed the U.S. to extradite Fethullah Gulen, who lives
in a compound in Saylorsburg, Pa. Photo: Sasha Maslov for The Wall
Street Journal
Mr. Gulen’s legal residency in the U.S. became a major
irritant in American and Turkish relations during the
Obama administration, and Turkish officials pressed for
Mr. Gulen’s extradition so that he could face charges. Mr.
Erdogan’s government has accused the cleric of
masterminding a failed coup and have called him and his
supporters a terrorist network. Mr. Gulen denies both
accusations.
The alleged meeting in New York in December, which
came after Mr. Flynn was tapped as national security
adviser, was a follow-up to an earlier discussion, on Sept.
19, where Turkish officials first raised the possibility of
forcibly removing Mr. Gulen. That September meeting,
held in a hotel and attended by former CIA Director James
Woolsey, was reported earlier by the Journal.
Mr. Gulen’s removal was discussed as “a covert step in the
dead of night to whisk this guy away,” according to Mr.
Woolsey, who said he attended the meeting at the request
of one of Mr. Flynn’s business associates.
Also present at the September meeting were Mr. Erdogan’s
son-in-law and Turkey’s foreign minister, foreign-
lobbying disclosure documents show. The Turkish
Embassy has previously acknowledged that Turkish
officials met with Mr. Flynn but declined to discuss the
conversation.
456
A White House spokesman deferred all questions to a
spokesman for the Trump transition process.
“We don’t have any evidence that such a
meeting took place,” that spokesman said,
referring to the December meeting. “And if
it did take place it happened not
withstanding the transition.”
At the time the plan was discussed, Turkey had been
lobbying Obama administration officials for months to
release Mr. Gulen to Turkish custody and wanted to avoid
a legal extradition proceeding, according to a former
official with direct knowledge of Turkish and American
discussions. The Obama administration rebuffed those
requests, the official said.
In Mr. Flynn, the Turks found a more sympathetic ear. Mr.
Flynn wrote an op-ed published in The Hill on the day of
the presidential election in which he praised Mr. Erdogan’s
government and called the cleric “a shady Islamic mullah”
and “radical Islamist” who may be running “a dangerous
sleeper terror network” in the U.S.
“We should not provide him safe haven,”
Mr. Flynn wrote.
Mr. Woolsey said he informed the U.S. government about
the September meeting by notifying Vice President Joe
Biden through a mutual friend.
The mutual friend confirmed to the Journal that he told Mr.
Biden about the meeting. Mr. Biden’s spokeswoman
declined to comment on the matter, other than to say Mr.
Biden felt the Gulen matter should be handled through the
courts.
Mr. Woolsey, who served briefly as an adviser to the
Trump campaign, said he turned down a consulting fee
from Mr. Flynn’s company because of what he heard at the
meeting.
Federal records show that the company, Flynn Intel Group,
was paid $530,000 for advocacy work that
“could be construed to have principally
benefited the Republic of Turkey.”
Federal investigators are currently looking at whether Mr.
Flynn’s work on behalf of Turkey violated the Foreign
Agents Registration Act, which requires people to disclose
when they are acting in the U.S. on behalf of foreign
powers, according to people with knowledge of the
investigation.
Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort,
has been indicted by the special counsel on charges
stemming from his work for the former government of
Ukraine, which he didn’t properly disclose to U.S.
authorities, according to federal charges disclosed last
month. Mr. Manafort’s attorney has entered a plea of not
guilty on his behalf.
The Journal reported in March that Mr. Flynn had sought
immunity from investigators probing Russia’s interference
in the presidential election in exchange for his testimony.
Mr. Flynn’s attorney, Robert Kelner, wouldn’t comment at
the time on details of his discussions involving Mr. Flynn,
but said
“General Flynn certainly has a story to tell,
and he very much wants to tell it, should
the circumstances permit.”
.
457
Mr. Flynn, who was fired in 2014 as the director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, is a central figure in the
sprawling special counsel investigation, which is
examining whether Trump campaign or business
associates coordinated with the Russian government in its
efforts to steal private emails from political groups and
campaigns and expose them publicly. Mr. Flynn’s contacts
with the then-Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey
Kislyak, have been scrutinized as part of that probe,
according to people with knowledge of the investigation.
President Trump has denied that his campaign colluded
with Russia. The Russians have consistently denied
interfering in the election.
 Frustrated MSNBC: ‘What’s It Going To Take’
For Latino Voters To Dump Trump?
By Kyle Drennen
November 10, 2017 3:57 PM EST
On Friday, while marking the one year anniversary of
Donald Trump being elected president, MSNBC
correspondent Jacob Soboroff traveled to Nevada hoping
to find that Latino voters who backed Trump in 2016 had
now abandoned him. However, much to his astonishment,
he found that they remained steadfast in their support for
the President.
“Two months before the 2016 election, I
went on the Las Vegas radio show of
Trump adviser Jesus Marquez....29% of
Nevada’s Latino voters did vote for Trump.
So last week I went back on Jesus’s show
to see how things have changed since
then,” Soboroff explained at the top of his
report during the 10 a.m. ET hour.
Soboroff pressed Marquez:
“What I want to know from you is, a year
after Donald Trump was elected
President of the United States, are you
still happy with the way that you voted
and the way that he’s doing?”
Without hesitation, the radio host replied:
“Yes, especially in the economy. The
economy’s growing, we are growing now at
3.1%.”
Looking back to 2016, Soboroff confessed:
What surprised me most when I was
here last time is that so many of your
458
listeners called in, okay, and said to me,
“It doesn’t matter that I’m Latino, it
doesn’t matter that Donald Trump has
insulted so many members of my race.”
I want to know, a year later, since all of
this, do people out there, do your
listeners feel the same way?
It turned out that they did. Caller after caller defied the
liberal reporter’s expectation of dwindling support for
Trump. One man declared:
“I feel way, way, way better with this
president than before he was president. So
I will vote for him again...”
Soboroff desperately tried to lecture him:
“As a Latino voter, nothing that Donald
Trump has done, including, you know,
ending DACA, going forward with building
these wall prototypes – ”
The caller cut him off:
Wait a minute, that’s a problem, that’s a
problem. He didn’t end DACA. DACA was
over by Barack Obama. He put the date
when it was gonna have to be finished he
didn’t renew it. That’s way different,
brother.
Another gentleman called in to the show and emphatically
stated:
“I’m a Mexican-born man, I came here
when I was 4. Enough is enough. Enough
of the political correctness. Enough of
everybody gets coddled. Enough of the
establishment.”
Finally, a woman on phone not only doubled down on her
vote for Trump but also blasted the liberal media:
I voted for Donald Trump, alright? And at
this point in my life, I am not sorry because
 I did it. Actually, I am very proud of Donald
Trump to be my president. I want to ask,
why these people in the media, regular
media, is always talking about corruption of
Donald Trump with Russia. Excuse me, it’s
all over the internet, it’s all over the cable
channels, that the actual corruption with
Russia was Hillary Clinton. So excuse me,
that is collusion, that is a problem.
Exasperated by all the pro-Trump sentiment, Soboroff
turned to Marquez and fretted:
“What’s it going to take, Jesus, for
people to change their mind that
supported Donald Trump in 2016?”
Fill-in anchor Kristen Welker introduced Soboroff’s piece
by telling viewers:
President Trump’s rhetoric on
immigrants was expected to doom him
on election day in 2016, especially with
Latino voters, after demonizing Mexico
and Mexican immigrants....And while
Trump did not win Nevada, he did get 29%
of the state’s Latino voters. Now Jacob is
back in Nevada to see if those voters
have any buyer’s remorse.
After the taped segment, she turned to her political panel
and was baffled as to how Trump could still have any
Latino supporters:
WELKER: I want to remind our viewers of
how President Trump started his campaign.
DONALD TRUMP [JUNE 16, 2015]: When
Mexico sends its people, they’re not
sending their best. They’re bringing drugs,
they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and
some, I assume, are good people.
WELKER: Tim, when he first spoke those
words, everyone said, “That’s it, he doesn’t
have a shot.” You just heard one voter
there in that conversation say, “I actually
feel better about him now that he’s in
office.” How do you square all of that?
Politico’s Tim Alberta observed:
“Well, look, it’s a great reminder that the
Latino community is not a monolith,
electorally speaking.”
Welker again worried that Trump wasn’t being seen as
anti-immigrant:
459
“...one of the things that struck me is you
heard that caller talking about DACA. He
said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, the way that
President Obama put it in place, it wasn’t
meant to last.’ So that voter isn’t pointing
the finger at President Trump.”
She then entertained the possibility that the media may be
out of touch:
“And yet, here in political circles, a lot of
folks thought, ‘Oh, that’s going to cost him
with Latino voters.’ Are we thinking about
this in the wrong way?”
The Washington Post’s Eugene Scott agreed:
“I certainly think so....to look at people who
backed Trump and to think that they voted
primarily from a place of being concerned
about how he spoke about demographics,
it’s not why they supported him.”
The biased coverage was brought to viewers by T.Rowe
Price, HomeLight.com, and Planters.
Here is a full transcript of the November 10 segment:
10:38 AM ET
KRISTEN WELKER: President Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants
was expected to doom him on election day in 2016, especially
with Latino voters, after demonizing Mexico and Mexican
immigrants. MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff tested that theory about a
month before the election. He visited a Las Vegas Spanish
language talk radio show and found a lot of support for candidate
Trump. And while Trump did not win Nevada, he did get 29% of
the state’s Latino voters. Now Jacob is back in Nevada to see if
those voters have any buyer’s remorse.
JESUS MARQUEZ: Jacob Sobor –
JACOB SOBOROFF: Soboroff.
MARQUEZ: Soboroff. Did I say that right?
SOBOROFF: Soboroff. Two months before the 2016 election, I
went on the Las Vegas radio show of Trump adviser Jesus
Marquez. Our September poll showed 30% of Latino voters in
Nevada would go for Trump and we wanted to find out why.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN A [CALLER]: Illegal immigration is not a big
issue to me. But what – my big issue is jobs and creating and
having a better economy.
SOBOROFF: It turns out our poll was right, 29% of Nevada’s
Latino voters did vote for Trump. So last week I went back on
Jesus’s show to see how things have changed since then.
MARQUEZ: We have here Jacob Soboroff. Did I say that right?
SOBOROFF: You got it right this time, 100% correct. What I want
to know from you is, a year after Donald Trump was elected
President of the United States, are you still happy with the way
that you voted and the way that he’s doing?
MARQUEZ: Yes, especially in the economy. The economy’s
growing, we are growing now at 3.1%.
SOBOROFF: What surprised me most when I was here last time
is that so many of your listeners called in, okay, and said to me,
“It doesn’t matter that I’m Latino, it doesn’t matter that Donald
Trump has insulted so many members of my race.” I want to
know, a year later, since all of this, do people out there, do your
listeners feel the same way?
MARQUEZ: We’ll open the lines.
SOBOROFF: Let's do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN B [CALLER]: I feel way, way, way better
with this president than before he was president. So I will vote for
him again and probably for his family if they run for president
after 2020.
SOBOROFF: As a Latino voter, nothing that Donald Trump has
done, including, you know, ending DACA, going forward with
building these wall prototypes –
CALLER: Wait a minute, that’s a problem, that’s a problem. He
didn’t end DACA. DACA was over by Barack Obama. He put the
date when it was gonna have to be finished he didn’t renew it.
That’s way different, brother.
LOUIS [CALLER]: My name is Louis. I’m a Mexican-born man, I
came here when I was 4. Enough is enough. Enough of the
political correctness. Enough of everybody gets coddled. Enough
of the establishment.
ERICA [CALLER]: Buenos dias. I voted for Donald Trump,
alright? And at this point in my life, I am not sorry because I did it.
Actually, I am very proud of Donald Trump to be my president. I
want to ask, why these people in the media, regular media, is
460
always talking about corruption of Donald Trump with Russia.
Excuse me, it’s all over the internet, it’s all over the cable
channels, that the actual corruption with Russia was Hillary
Clinton. So excuse me, that is collusion, that is a problem.
MARQUEZ: Thank you very much, Erica.
SOBOROFF: What’s it going to take, Jesus, for people to change
their mind that supported Donald Trump in 2016?
MARQUEZ: Like I said, if something comes out that proves that
he did something illegal, of course I’m not going to support any of
that.
SOBOROFF: But for the time being?
MARQUEZ: He’s good.
WELKER: Thanks for that report, Jacob. I always love Jacob’s
reporting.
Now I want to bring in my guests back, Eugene Scott, national
political reporter for The Washington Post, and Tim Alberta,
national political reporter for Politico. Thanks guys for sticking
around. A lot to chew on there. Before we get to what we just
heard in Jacob’s spot, though, I want to remind our viewers of
how President Trump started his campaign.
DONALD TRUMP [JUNE 16, 2015]: When Mexico sends its
people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs,
they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are
good people.
WELKER: Tim, when he first spoke those words, everyone said,
“That’s it, he doesn’t have a shot.” You just heard one voter there
in that conversation say, “I actually feel better about him now that
he’s in office.” How do you square all of that?
TIM ALBERTA: Well, look, it’s a great reminder that the Latino
community is not a monolith, electorally speaking. I think a
couple of things. First, President Trump actually was elected with
a slightly higher percentage nationwide than Mitt Romney was.
According to exit polls, 28% for trump, 27% for Romney, Latino
voters nationwide. I think the number was 29% in Nevada.
That having been said, Donald Trump lost the state of Nevada by
about two and a half points. Now, if the exit poll is even remotely
accurate, at about 29% Latino voters, that’s a state that is about
50/50. It’s basically a majority-minority state at this point with
Latino voters playing an overwhelming part of the vote share
there. If Donald Trump were to have scored even 35% to 37% of
that Latino vote, than he wins Nevada.
So on the one hand, I think it’s valuable to hear the perspective
of some Latino voters in that state who said, “Yes, we proudly
supported Trump, we still support him.” But overwhelmingly, if
you look at 29 versus 71% who did not, you have to wonder, as
he’s heading toward re-election in 2020, if the President needs to
build on that existing support that he established in 2012 [sic].
WELKER: It’s a great question. And, Eugene, one of the things
that struck me is you heard that caller talking about DACA. He
said, “Hey, wait a minute, the way that President Obama put it in
place, it wasn’t meant to last.” So that voter isn’t pointing the
finger at President Trump. And yet, here in political circles, a lot
of folks thought, “Oh, that’s going to cost him with Latino voters.”
Are we thinking about this in the wrong way?
EUGENE SCOTT: I certainly think so. I covered politics in
Arizona during the election and before the election. And what I
saw when I spoke with many voters is pretty similar to what I saw
with all demographics that supported Donald Trump. People who
supported Trump, who got on the Trump train, are generally
going to stay on, whether they’re Latino, evangelical, working
class, women, college educated. And so, to look at people who
backed Trump and to think that they voted primarily from a place
of being concerned about how he spoke about demographics, it’s
not why they supported him. And I think that’s what he was trying
to explain.
.
461
WELKER: And very quickly, before we go, we had a little bit of a
mini political earthquake this week, Democrats winning big in
various states, but particularly Virginia and New Jersey. When
you look toward 2018 and Democrats saying, “Hey, now we have
a real shot at trying to take back the House, maybe even take
back the Senate,” how important are Latino voters gonna be in
2018?
ALBERTA: Well, in some of these battleground states, more
important than others. And in Virginia, you have a perfect
example of a state that’s demographically transformed over the
last two decades and the political transformation has been a
corollary. And you’re going to see that in some of the other major
battleground states in 2018, where Republicans are trying to flip
Senate seats, and where, in some of these individual House
districts, especially suburban districts outside of big cities, you
have booming Hispanic populations.
WELKER: Alright, Tim and Eugene, thank you so much for
another great conversation, really appreciate it.
 Limbaugh: ‘The One Moment During Trump’s China Trip
The Mainstream Media Has Refused To Report’
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On November 10, 2017
The host uploaded a picture to his show’s Facebook page
(National Sentinel) Blackout: The legacy media has gone
out of its way to embarrass President Donald J. Trump
during his first trip to Asia, even purposefully misreporting
incidents as diplomatic faux pas.
In addition to misreporting, the mainstream media is also
ignoring certain events and occurrences in an effort to
portray Trump’s visit in a certain, negative light, and talk
radio legend Rush Limbaugh pointed out one such incident
Thursday.
The host uploaded a picture to his show’s Facebook page
of Trump and first lady Melania Trump after they climbed
down the steps from Air Force One.
.
462
The picture shows the president and his wife being greeted
by a number of children who are waving Chinese and
American flags.
Limbaugh surmises that the legacy media isn’t showing
the photo because it demonstrates that Trump and the first
lady visibly happy to have gotten such a warm welcome in
China.
“There’s not a single network that televised
all of the Chinese children waving
American flags to welcome President
Trump,” Limbaugh wrote.
The conservative talk giant even jabbed pro football,
saying that there were more Chinese kids waving U.S.
flags that NFL players.
“They’re happy to see President Trump.
There are more ChiCom children waving
the American flag than NFL players waving
the American flag,” he added.
“Chicom” is Limbaugh’s nickname for
“Chinese communists.”
Limbaugh suggested that the legacy media simply did not
want to give the appearance of Trump receiving such a
warm greeting.
 Investigators Probe Trump Knowledge
Of Campaign's Russia Dealings: Sources
Mark Hosenball, John Walcott
November 10, 2017 / 11:29 PM / Updated 21 Hours Ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special counsel Robert
Mueller’s team has questioned Sam Clovis, co-chairman of
President Donald Trump’s election campaign, to determine
if Trump or top aides knew of the extent of the campaign
team’s contacts with Russia, two sources familiar with the
investigation said on Friday.
The focus of the questions put to Clovis by Mueller’s team
has not been previously reported.
“The ultimate question Mueller is after is
whether candidate Trump and then
President-elect Trump knew of the
discussions going on with Russia, and who
approved or even directed them,” said one
source. “That is still just a question.”
Clovis testified in late October before the grand jury in
Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the
2016 presidential election. He is also cooperating with the
Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating the
same issues.
Contacted late on Friday, the White House declined to
comment.
One of the sources described Clovis as “another domino”
after former campaign foreign policy adviser George
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI over his
own contacts with Russians during the 2016 election
campaign.
“The investigators now know what
Papadopoulos was doing on the Russian
front, which he initially tried to conceal, and
who he told that to,” said the other source.
“Now [they] want to know whether Clovis
and others reported these activities and
others related to Russia, and if so, to
whom,” this source said.
Attorneys for Clovis did not respond to requests for
comment. Lawyers for Papadopoulos had no immediate
comment.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment.
According to court documents related to Papadopoulos’
guilty plea, he reported to Clovis in an email on a March
463
24, 2016, meeting he had in London with a professor later
identified as Joseph Mifsud.
Mifsud in turn introduced him to a Russian woman and the
Russian ambassador in London, and they discussed setting
up meetings to talk about U.S.-Russia ties in a Trump
presidency.
The documents showed Clovis responded to the proposed
meetings by saying he would
“work it through the campaign.” While he
told Papadopoulos not to make a
commitment then to set up those meetings,
he congratulated him for “great work.”
In August 2016, after Trump won the Republican
presidential nomination, Clovis encouraged Papadopoulos
to “make the trip” when Papadopoulos proposed going to
an off-the-record meeting with unnamed Russian officials,
the court documents show.
Victoria Toensing, one of Clovis’s lawyers, said last week
her client
“always vigorously opposed any Russian
trip for Donald Trump and/or the
campaign”.
After Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, the White House and
former Trump campaign officials dismissed Papadopoulos
and Clovis as minor figures in the campaign.
The campaign’s National Security Advisory Committee,
which Clovis formed, has become a focus of the
investigations by both Mueller and the Senate, sources
said.
“Sam built the first group of eight,” J.D.
Gordon, the director of the campaign
foreign policy group, told Reuters, adding
that he and then-Senator Jeff Sessions,
now the U.S. Attorney General, had “nearly
doubled” it in size.
However, two other sources familiar with the
investigations said investigators have been told the
committee Clovis formed did very little, and that other
advisers appeared to carry more weight with Trump.
 Roy Moore Story Unraveling? One Accuser Worked For
Hillary, Another Claims Several Pastors
Made Sexual Advances
By Zeropointnow
Nov 10, 2017 7:43 PM
Content Originally Published At Ibankcoin.Com

Levin posed the following questions:

 How did the WaPo reporter know there were four

From the outset, several aspects of the Washington
Post‘s decades-old accusations of Roy Moore having
inappropriate relations with four young women seemed
off. In addition to odd circumstances surrounding the
story’s origins, the accusers themselves – and even the
WaPo journalist who wrote the story – have checkered
pasts and political views which some could consider
ulterior motives.
If the accusations against Moore are true, he needs to
immediately step aside and exit politics – as both President
Trump and, oddly, Mitch McConnell have stated. Moore
has vehemently denied the charges.
women, who they were, and how to contact them?
 How is it that the reporter's anonymous source, who
they bumped into, knew about the four women who
don’t know each other and have never met, and
knew each woman's story and contact information?
 Why hasn’t any of this been reported in Moore’s 38
years in politics? And why now – a month before an
important election to fill Jeff Sessions’ senate seat?
Adding to the list of questionable
circumstances - one which the Washington
Post oddly omitted from it's report, is the
fact that one of Moore’s accusers,
Debbie Gibson, worked as a sign
language interpreter for Hillary Clinton
and Joe Biden, and is actively
campaigning for Moore’s Democrat
opponent, Doug Jones.
As New York Times bestselling author, Attorney, Law
professor and Newsmax columnis James Hirsen points out:

How did the story come together?

As Radio host Mark Levin pointed out on his show last

week that there are several aspects of the case which don’t
really make sense. To recap; a Washington Post reporter
overheard a rumor at a Roy Moore event in Alabama about
Moore sexually abusing four girls 38 years ago, then found
the women, interviewed them, and the rest is history.

Per WaPo:

While reporting a story in Alabama about

supporters of Moore’s Senate campaign, a Here’s Gibson, hard at work for Hillary:
Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly
had sought relationships with teenage girls.
Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post
reporters contacted and interviewed the
four women.

464
 The Star reports:
She says that her teenage life became increasingly reckless
with drinking, drugs, boyfriends, and a suicide attempt
when she was 16.

As the years went on, Corfman says, she did not share her
story about Moore partly because of the trouble in her life.
She has had three divorces and financial problems. While
living in Arizona, she and her second husband started a
screen-printing business that fell into debt. They filed for
bankruptcy protection three times, once in 1991 with
$139,689 in unpaid claims brought by the Internal
Revenue Service and other creditors, according to court
records.

In 2005, Corfman paid a fine for driving a boat without

lights. In 2010, she was working at a convenience store
when she was charged with a misdemeanor for selling beer
to a minor. The charge was dismissed, court records show.

The WaPo reporter who penned the

article wrote fake check, according to an
2011 Red State report

Ms. McCrummen has a rather interesting criminal history

herself, as public criminal records in multiple states
stretching across 4 time zones have shown.

Ms. McCrummen’s criminal history began with North

Carolina Case # 1992 CR 00654, a violation of the Article
19 – False Pretenses and Cheats section of the North
Carolina Criminal Code.

Ms. McCrummen was convicted of a

crime punishable by up to six months of
imprisonment for writing a hot check
that was deemed worthless.

Last but not least, former Secret Service

Another Moore accuser, Leigh Corfman,
has claimed “several pastors at various
churches made sexual advances at
her.”
This 3x divorcee who has also filed for bankruptcy three
times.
agent Doug Lewis (@umpire43) has
made an unsubstantiated claim that a
WaPo reporter named “Beth” offered a
family friend $1000 to accuse Roy
Moore, and that a tape of the offer is in
the hands of the DA.
A family friend who lives in Alabama just
told my wife that a WAPO reporter named
Beth offered her 1000$ to accuse Roy
Moore????

— Doug Lewis #MAGA (@umpire43)

November 10, 2017

She has a pic of the woman named Beth

and taped the conversation on her phone.I
told her to take it to the DA,s office but be
sure to keep a copy.
https://t.co/crHHrgkVGb

465
 — Doug Lewis #MAGA (@umpire43) justice if at all possible. That said, several troubling
November 10, 2017 aspects of the Moore accusations have come to light in the
days since the report, casting what many feel is reasonable
doubt on the entire thing.

Moore has denied the allegations and issued the following

statement:

Again – if Roy Moore took advantage of four young

women 38 years ago, it is reprehensible and he should face
.

466
 Chris Wallace: Donald Trump Is Historic Threat
To Free Press, But May Have Point About Media Bias
By Lisa De Moraes
November 10, 2017 4:36pm
President Donald Trump has “engaged in the most direct,
sustained assault on a free press in our history” – but has a
point about media bias, Fox News Channel’s Chris
Wallace said in a whiplash-making speech to fellow
journalists.
Picking up the International Center for Journalists
Founders Award for Excellence in Journalism in
Washington D.C. on Thursday night, Wallace charged that
since early in his presidential campaign, Trump has done
all he can to de-legitimize the media, “attacking us
institutionally, and individually.”
“I think his purpose is clear: a concerted
campaign to raise doubts that when we
report critically about his administration that
we can be trusted.”
Between January 10 and October 31, Trump tweeted about
“fake news” 141 times, Wallace claimed, citing the Trump
Twitter Archive. That, of course does not include all the
times he’s said it out loud.
For Wallace, one tweet stands out, from February 17:
“The fake news media (failing NY Times,
NBC News, ABC, CBS, CNN) is not my
enemy. It is the enemy of the American
People!”
“And that was precisely his point: If we
report negatively about something he’s
doing, we are hurting the country,” Wallace
warned.
467
According to Wallace, Bill McRaven — the Navy SEAL
who became head of all U.S. Special Forces, overseeing
missions that captured Saddam Hussein and killed Osama
bin Laden — said the sentiment Trump expressed in that
tweet
“may be the greatest threat to democracy
in my lifetime.”
McRaven might have understated the threat, Wallace
suggested, citing a recent Politico poll in which 46% of
voters believe major news organizations make up stories
about President Trump.
Pivoting sharply, Wallace said Trump has a point about
media bias.
He cited The New York Times‘ banner headline November
10, 2016: “Democrats, Students and Foreign Leaders
Face the Reality of a Trump Presidency” and read the
lead paragraph he complained was littered with
“buzzwords” such as “reeled,” “coming to grips,”
“unimaginable” and “plunged.”
Wallace similarly took issue with the February 16 lead on
CBS Evening News: “It Has Been A Busy Day For
Presidential Statements Divorced From Reality.”
And CNN’s White House correspondent report of August
2:
“This White House has an unhealthy
fixation on what I call the 3 M’s: the
Mexicans, the Muslims and the media.
Their policies tend to be crafted around
bashing one of these three groups.”
Asked Wallace:
“Do they belong on the front page of the
paper? Or the lead of the evening news?”
Wallace’s speech finally wound its way to his point:
“Many of our colleagues think this president
has gone so far over the line bashing the
 media, it has given them an excuse to “We shouldn’t be drawn into becoming
cross the line themselves, to push back. players on the field, trying to match the
people we cover in invective,” Wallace
“As tempting as that may be, I think it’s a
insisted. “It’s not our role. … And we’re
big mistake.”
giving up our special place in our
democracy. There’s enough to report about
Wallace did not cite any examples of line crossing by his this president that we don’t need to offer
primetime colleagues at Fox News Channel who, the opinions or put our thumb on the scale.”
network always is careful to say, host “opinion” programs.
And those programs, like FNC’s morning show Fox &
Friends, skew heavily pro-Trump and are much loved by
POTUS.
.

468
Lawyer: It Sure Looks Like James Comey Went Out Of His
Way To PROTECT Hillary Clinton And Obstruct Justice
By JD Heyes
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Gregg Jarrett, an attorney and a legal analyst for Fox
News, says that based on reporting this week, it certainly
seems clear now that former FBI Director James Comey,
whom Trump fired earlier this year, did all he could to
ensure that justice was not served on the 2016 Democratic
nominee for president: Hillary Clinton.
In a column for the news network, Jarrett cited federal
statutes governing the handling of classified information
— (18 USC 793-f) of The Espionage Act — which makes
it a crime to mishandle sensitive information “through
gross negligence.”
That definition is important, he notes, because it is
actionable — prosecutable — under the law.
But based on reports earlier this week, Comey initially
claimed in a memo that was used as the basis of his public
statement to the media in July 2016 that Clinton had
committed “gross negligence” in her handling of sensitive
email via her private server.
That language was eventually changed, however, by
Comey and others within the FBI, by the time Comey
addressed the press. Then, he claimed only that the
Democratic presidential contender was merely “extremely
careless,” a phrase which does not appear in the statute
and, thus, is not legally actionable.
“With 110 emails on Clinton’s private server
that were classified at the time they were
sent or received, the Democratic nominee
for president could have been prosecuted
on 110 separate felony counts. Yet Comey
scuttled the case,” Jarrett wrote.
469
The change in phraseology appears to indicate that Comey,
a seasoned federal prosecutor and Justice Department
official, knew that Clinton had violated national security
statutes but decided to conjure up a way to exonerate her
anyway through alteration of terminology.
But he really didn’t do a good job, Jarrett argues, since
both phrases are very similar under the law:
Many standard jury instructions, such as
those in California and elsewhere, say the
two terms mean the same thing. That is,
gross negligence is an extreme departure
from ordinary care. In other words,
extremely careless behavior.
Either Comey is not well-versed in the law
or he sought to draw a fine distinction
where none exists. Nevertheless, he
employed it as an excuse to protect Clinton
from prosecution in a case that should
have rendered 110 criminal charges
against her.
The Fox News legal analyst says now that this information
has come out, the former FBI director should once again
be called to testify under oath before appropriate House
and Senate committees to explain his change in wording so
he could clear Clinton in the face of compelling, slam-
dunk evidence she broke the law on numerous occasions.
Was Comey’s decision to absolve Clinton done for
political purposes? Was he, like nearly all of Washington
and the press corps, convinced by their own denials that
there was no way Trump could beat her last November?
What’s more, Jarrett asks, what compelled Comey to take
it upon himself to absolve Clinton when the FBI’s role in
criminal investigations is to merely make
recommendations, based on available evidence, to the
Justice Department — which then decides whether or not
to prosecute?(Related: Why is Paul Manafort in handcuffs
but Hillary Clinton isn’t?)
That’s not all, Jarrett points out. Comey also
 “blatantly misinterpreted another criminal
statute, also under the Espionage Act,
which Clinton appeared to have violated.”
He wrote:
Under 18 USC 978, it is a crime to
“knowingly and willfully” mishandle
classified information. Yet, in his infamous
news conference on July 5, 2016, Comey
declared that Clinton never “intended to
violate laws governing the handling of
classified information.”
That doesn’t matter, Jarrett says, because that’s not the
legal standard.
.
470
“The standard is whether Clinton
committed intentional acts that violated the
law. Clearly, she intended to set up a
private server, and she intended to use it
exclusively for all her communications as
secretary of state, which would necessarily
include classified documents,” he wrote.
Clinton has admitted to deliberately setting up her own
personal server.
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the swamp was
working overtime to protect who they believed would be
their next boss.
 Trump "Chats Amicably" With Putin,
Sides With Russia Over "Election Interference"
By Tyler Durden
Nov 11, 2017 10:01 AM
All eyes were on Trump and Putin again as the two leaders
bumped into each other at the APEC meeting on Saturday.
They patted each other on the back several times, and
Putin whispered something in Trump’s ear. The US leader
listened attentively leaving reporters to guess what the two
discussed.
Shortly after, President Trump again dismissed allegations
of Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. election, following
his first brief meeting with Russian president Vladimir
Putin at the APEC conference after their first encounter in
July. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said
that he believes Vladimir Putin's denials about election
meddling - over allegations raised by US intel agencies
including the CIA, NSA, and FBI which claim that Russia
actively worked to meddle in the election - which are an
“artificial Democratic hit job” and did not want to press
further because he thinks the U.S. and Russia can work
together on issues that include North Korea, Syria and
Ukraine. He also said that interference talk "gets in the
way and that’s a shame," because people will die because
of it.
Trump said Putin had told him again that he hadn’t
meddled in the election:
“I really believe that when he tells me that,
he means it,” Trump said of the
accusations.
“I think he’s very insulted by it, which is not
a good thing for our country.” Trump
repeated that “there was no collusion,
everybody knows there was no collusion”
and called it a "pure hit job" and said that
“rhis is really an artificial barrier that’s put in
471
front of us for solving problems with
Russia. I think it’s a shame that something
like can destroy a very important potential
relationship between two countries that are
very important countries. Russia could
really help us.”
Putin likewise dismissed suggestions Russia influenced the
elections through political advertising. Tech companies,
including Facebook, have said some Russian-bought
political content spread on their platforms around the time
of the election. “There is no confirmation of our mass
media meddling in election campaigns – and there can’t be
any,” Putin said.
Trump also said he didn’t speak to Putin about North
Korea during APEC summit, and was focused on Syria
and Ukraine.
While there was no official meeting between the two
presidents scheduled, Trump said he and Putin spoke at
picture- taking last night and at a roundtable today. “We
spoke intermittently.” Scheduling and unspecified protocol
issues were to blame for the fact that a mooted sit-down
meeting with Trump did not happen in Danang, Putin said.
They were also seen chatting amicably as they walked to
the position where the traditional APEC summit photo was
being taken at a viewpoint looking over the South China
Sea.
Pictures from the APEC meeting also showed Trump
walking up to Putin at the summit table and patting him on
the back. They also shook hands at the summit dinner on
Friday evening.
 "We’ll have a meeting” in the future Trump
said, while adding cryptically that a deal to
support a political solution to Syria’s conflict
would save “tremendous numbers of lives”.
“We did it very quickly,” Trump told
reporters aboard Air Force One after
leaving the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit in the resort of
Danang for Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital. “We
seem to have a very good feeling for each
other, a good relationship considering we
don’t know each other well.”
Talking to journalists on Saturday after the meeting, Putin
said that the absence of a separate, official meeting with
the US president at the summit further proves that there is
an ongoing crisis in relations between the two nations.
“It means that US-Russia relations are still
in a state of crisis." Moscow is, however,
ready “to turn the page and move on, look
into the future and solve problems
important both to the people of the US and
Russia,” including issues within the “sphere
of security, and of economic interaction,
which has dropped to virtually zero.”
Asked whether he experienced Trump’s trademark
"intense handshake" habit, the Russian leader replied:
“I know nothing about his habits, we are not
so well acquainted, but the US president
conducts himself in the best possible way,
is a well-mannered person and comfortable
to deal with.”
Ahead of APEC, the Kremlin and the White House gave
conflicting reports on the possibility of a meeting between
the two leaders, before eventually stating that there will
not be an official meeting this time around. Nonetheless,
Putin and Trump met and shook hands at a dinner on
Friday night, and again at the start of the main meeting of
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders on
Saturday.
Eyebrows were raised when Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson questioned the necessity of the Russian and US
presidents sitting down for a meeting. “The view has been
if the two leaders are going to meet, is there something
sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a
formal meeting?” he told a press briefing in Beijing on
Thursday. Tillerson’s statement comes at a time when US-
Russian relations have reached one of the lowest points in
decades.
On Saturday, the two leaders agreed on a joint statement
confirming their commitment to Syria’s sovereignty,
independence, and territorial integrity.
472
“Moscow and Washington agree there is no
military solution to the conflict,” the text of
the joint statement,
published on the Kremlin’s website, said. Putin and Trump
have called on all parties to the Syrian conflict to
“take an active part in the Geneva political
process and support efforts aimed at
ensuring its success.”
***
Courtesy of Axios, here is the exchange between Trump
and reporters on Air Force One
Reporter: Did Russia's attempts to meddle in US
elections come up in the conversations?
Trump: "He said he didn't meddle, he said he didn't
meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many
times."
Reporter: Today?
Trump: "I just asked him again. He said he absolutely
did not meddle in our election, he did not do what they
are saying he did."
Reporter: Do you believe him?
Trump: "Well, look, I can't stand there and argue with
him, I would rather have him get out of Syria, I would
rather get to work with him on the Ukraine rather than
arguing about whether or not... that whole thing was
set up by the Democrats. Look at Podesta, look at all
the things that they have done with the phony dossier.
Those are the big events. But Putin said he did not do
what they said he did. But we have a good feeling
toward getting things done. If we had a relationship
with Russia, that would be a good thing. In fact it
would be a great thing, not a bad thing, because he
could really help us on North Korea. We have a big
problem with North Korea and China is helping us.
And because of the lack of the relationship that we
have with Russia, because of this artificial thing that's
happening with this Democratic-inspired thing. We
could really be helped a lot with Russia having to do
with North Korea. You know you are talking about
millions and millions of lives. This isn't baby stuff, this
is the real deal. And if Russia helped us in addition to
China, that problem would go away a lot faster."
Reporter: On election meddling, did you ask him
the question?
Trump: "Every time he sees me he says I didn't do
that and I really believe that when he tells me that, he
means it. But he says I didn't do that. I think he is very
insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.
Because again, if we had a relationship with Russia,
North Korea which is our single biggest problem right
now, it would help a lot. I think they are doing very well
with respect to China, they have cut off financing, they
have cut off lots of oil and lots of other things, lots of
trade and it's having a big impact. But Russia on the
other hand may be making up the difference. And if
they are, that's not a good thing. So having a
relationship with Russia would be a great thing
especially as it relates to North Korea."
"Hillary had her stupid reset button that she spelled
the word wrong, but she does not have what it takes
to have that kind of relationship where you could call
.
473
or you could do something. But this is really an
artificial barrier that's put in front of us for solving
problems with Russia. He says that very strongly, he
really seems to be insulted by it and he says he didn't
do it. He is very, very strong in the fact that he didn't
do it. You have President Putin very strongly,
vehemently says he has nothing to do with that. Now,
you are not going to get into an argument, you are
going to start talking about Syria and the Ukraine."
 Putin Describes US Restrictions
On Russian Media As An ‘Attack On Free Speech’
© Sputnik/ Mikhail Klimentyev
22:00 11.11.2017(Updated 22:05 11.11.2017)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, attending the 2017
APEC forum in Vietnam, remarked that US restrictions on
Russian media outlets are an attack on free speech.
Wrapping up his visit to the 2017 Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation Summit in Vietnam, Russian President
Vladimir Putin commented that
"An attack on our media in the United
States is an attack on freedom
of speech, without a doubt. We're
disappointed."
"We will have to formulate some kind
of response and it will mirror," any
constraints implemented by lawmakers
in Washington on Moscow-based media
outlets operating on US soil, the Russian
president added.
"I want to draw your attention to the fact
that there is no — and there can't be —
confirmation that Russian media meddled
in election campaigns," Putin said
to reporters at the conclusion of the
November 10-11 APEC forum in Da Nang,
Vietnam.
.
474
Plans currently being drawn up in the Federal Assembly —
Russia's parliament — include new legislation that could
be introduced as early as next week classifying US media
outlets with offices in Russia as ‘foreign agents.'
The Russian president tempered his
remarks by suggesting a more even-
handed response, however.
"What is being discussed in the State
Duma [Russia's lower house of parliament],
I saw it yesterday, it might be a little too
harsh," Putin suggested, "but it's natural,
because at the level of the legislative arm
you often hear extreme views, harsh
judgment and tough proposals."
If US media outlets operating on Russian soil are
legislatively required to be labeled as ‘foreign agents'
in the country, then foreign media would be mandated
to regularly provide detailed reports to the Kremlin
concerning employees and where the money comes
from to keep those offices afloat.
Both Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News — Moscow-
based media outlets staffing reporters, editors and
journalists on US soil — have been requested by the US
Congress, under an obscure 1938 clause designed to limit
the influence of Nazism, to register in the United States as
‘foreign agents.'
The US security community has claimed that RT and
Sputnik attempted to sway the outcome of the 2016 US
presidential election, assertions that the two broadcasting
outlets, as well as the Kremlin, have consistently denied.
 The Trump Collusion Case Is
Not Getting The Clinton Emails Treatment
By Andrew C. Mccarthy
November 11, 2017 4:00 AM
Robert Mueller on Capitol Hill in 2013.
(Reuters file photo: Yuri Gripas)
If the Justice Department is hell-bent on making a case, it
plays an intimidating game of hardball.
In July 2016, the Obama administration announced its
decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for felony
mishandling of classified information and destruction of
government files. In the aftermath, I observed that there is
a very aggressive way that the Justice Department and the
FBI go about their business when they are trying to make a
case — one profoundly different from the way they went
about the Clinton emails investigation. There, they tried
not to make the case.
That observation bears repeating today, as we watch
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of any
possible Trump-campaign collusion in Russia’s alleged
interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Mueller is
a former FBI director and top Justice Department
prosecutor. To say he is going about the collusion caper
aggressively would be an understatement. The earth is
being scorched by the stunningly large team he has
assembled, which includes 16 other prosecutors (among
them, Democratic party donors and activists) along with
dozens of investigators (mostly from the FBI and IRS).
At the end of October, Mueller announced the first charges
in the case. In the intensive commentary that followed,
another investigative development attracted almost no
attention. But in terms of Mueller’s seriousness of purpose,
it speaks just as loudly as the George Papadopoulos guilty
plea and the indictment of Paul Manafort and Richard
Gates.
475
Mueller succeeded in convincing a federal judge to force
an attorney for Manafort and Gates to provide grand-jury
testimony against them. As Politico’s Josh Gerstein
reports, just as the charges against these defendants were
announced with great fanfare, the U.S. district court in
Washington, D.C., quietly unsealed a ruling compelling
the testimony of the lawyer — who, though not referred to
by name in the decision, has been identified by CNN as
Melissa Laurenza, a partner at the Akin Gump law firm.
Interestingly, the jurist who rendered the 37-page
memorandum opinion is Beryl A. Howell, who served for
years as a senior Judiciary Committee adviser to the
fiercely partisan Democratic Senator Pat Leahy (of
Vermont) before being appointed to the bench by President
Obama. Howell is now the district court’s chief judge.
Why do I think that, in choosing to set up shop in
Washington, Mueller and his team noted the district
court’s local rule that vests the chief judge with
responsibility to “hear and determine all matters relating to
proceedings before the grand jury”? (See here, Rule 57.14
at p. 168.)
And why do I think that the Trump collusion case is not
getting the kid-glove Clinton emails treatment?
Lest we forget, President Obama had endorsed Mrs.
Clinton, his former secretary of state and his party’s
nominee, to be president. Moreover, Obama had
knowingly participated in the conduct for which Clinton
was under investigation — using a pseudonym in
communicating with her about classified government
business over an unsecure private communication system.
Obama prejudiced the emails investigation. Long before it
was formally ended, he publicly pronounced Clinton
innocent. He theorized that she had not intended to harm
the United States. Even if true, that fact would be
irrelevant — it is not an element of the statutory offenses
at issue, under which several military officials, who also
had no intent to harm our country, have nevertheless been
prosecuted. (It also had nothing to do with her quite
intentional destruction of thousands of emails, many
relating to government business — also a serious crime.)
As night follows day, the FBI and the Justice Department
relied on Obama’s errant and self-interested rationale in
dropping the case against Clinton and her accomplices.
What did Obama’s subordinates do after he patently
interfered in the investigation? Well, then-FBI director
James Comey began drafting a statement exonerating
Clinton months before the investigation ended — i.e.,
before over a dozen key witnesses, including Clinton
herself, had been interviewed. Indeed, it has now been
reported that Comey’s draft initially declaimed that
Clinton had been “grossly negligent” in handling classified
information — an assertion that tracked the language of
one of the statutes Clinton violated. Later, in the statement
he made publicly on July 5, 2016, Director Comey instead
used the term “extremely careless” — substantively
indistinguishable from “grossly negligent,” but the
semantic shift appeared less tantamount to a finding of
guilt.
In the aftermath, we extensively examined the Clinton
investigation’s hyper-sensitivity to the attorney-client
privilege.
Note that the lawyer for Manafort and Gates was forced to
testify against her clients based on the theory that she had
participated — however unwittingly — in their scheme to
cover up their lobbying efforts on behalf of a Ukrainian
political party. Aggressively, Mueller’s team contended
that even if the lawyer had not intended to help her clients
mislead the government, their use of her services was
intended to dupe the government. That, Mueller argued,
brought their communications with the lawyer under the
crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege.
Chief Judge Howell agreed. As a result, the lawyer’s
communications with Manafort and Gates lost their
confidentiality protection, such that Mueller could compel
her to reveal them to the grand jury.
Compare that with the Justice Department’s treatment of
the lawyers representing Mrs. Clinton and her
accomplices. Actually, I shouldn’t really put it that way
because . . . Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers were her accomplices.
As we’ve previously explained, the Justice Department
refused to invoke the crime-fraud exception to explore
what advice Clinton lawyers gave her information
technology contractor before he supposedly took it on
himself to delete and destroy her emails.
Furthermore, the Justice Department and the FBI tolerated
unlawful arrangements whereby subjects of the
investigation were permitted to act as private lawyers in
the probe regarding matters in which they had been
involved as government officials. Perhaps more
astonishingly, subjects of the investigation — such as
Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, who participated
directly in the process by which Clinton decided which
emails to surrender to the State Department and which to
withhold as “private” — were permitted to act as attorneys
for the principal subject of the investigation, Clinton
herself.
476
This arrangement was not merely unethical; it would have
badly compromised the case if there had been any real
intention to prosecute. As the highly experienced
government investigators and attorneys involved had to
know, if there had been an indictment, prosecutors would
have been accused both of bringing the witnesses together
to get their story straight, and of undermining Clinton’s
right to prepare a defense by having government witnesses
participate in the formulation of her legal strategy.
While Mueller’s prosecutors subpoenaed Manafort’s
lawyer to the grand jury to testify against him, the Obama
Justice Department largely shunned the grand jury while
colluding with lawyers representing the Clinton emails
subjects. The FBI, for example, was foreclosed from
pursuing obvious lines of inquiry in an interview of Cheryl
Mills.
Even though Manafort was cooperating with congressional
investigators, providing them with hundreds of pages of
documents, Mueller did not request documents from him
and his lawyers. Instead, his prosecutors and investigators
obtained a search warrant to rifle through Manafort’s
Virginia home, which they executed in a predawn raid,
reportedly breaking in with guns drawn while the
Manaforts were sleeping and not allowing Mrs. Manafort
to get out of bed before checking her for weapons.
In stark contrast, the Obama Justice Department would not
even issue grand-jury subpoenas to compel the production
of physical evidence — such as the private laptop
computers used by Clinton’s subordinates to store her
emails (a number of which contained classified
information). Instead, investigators politely asked lawyers
to turn over pertinent items, and they made extraordinary
agreements to restrict the information they would be
permitted to look at (such as an agreement that prevented
agents from looking at information on the Mills and
Samuelson computers during the time frame when
attempts to obstruct congressional investigations may have
occurred).
It is worth noting that, very similarly, the Obama Justice
Department and the FBI did not seize the servers of the
Democratic National Committee, even though much of the
collusion case hinges on the conclusion that these servers
were hacked by Russian operatives. Instead, the FBI
politely requested that the servers be surrendered so the
Bureau’s own renowned forensic investigators could
examine them. When the DNC refused, the Justice
Department did not issue a subpoena or obtain a search
warrant; to the contrary, the FBI and DOJ agreed to accept
the findings of CrowdStrike, a private investigative firm
retained by the DNC’s (and the Clinton campaign’s)
attorneys.
Manafort has been charged with multiple felonies for
failure to register as a foreign agent, an offense the
government almost never prosecutes — the Justice
Department’s practice is to encourage foreign agents to
comply with the law rather than indict them for failing to
do so. By contrast, the FBI and Justice Department
rationalized their failure to charge Clinton for mishandling
classified information by claiming that her offense was so
rarely prosecuted that it would be unfair — it would smack
of invidious selective prosecution — to charge her with
even a single offense. Clinton’s homebrew server system
stored well over 2,000 emails that contained classified
information, including over 100 that were undeniably
classified at the time they were sent. Eight of those
involved chains of communications classified as top secret,
the classification the government assigns to information
the mishandling of which could be expected to cause
“exceptionally grave damage” to national security (and
seven of these were designated as “special access
program,” meaning mishandling could be expected to
expose critical intelligence programs and endanger the
lives of intelligence sources).
George Papadopoulos is a low-level subject of the
collusion investigation who did not commit any crimes in
his many contacts with Russia-connected sources. Yet
Mueller induced him to plead guilty to a felony count of
lying to investigators about the timing of his first meeting
with such a source. In stark contrast, while a number of
Clinton subordinates asserted their Fifth Amendment right
to refuse to answer questions on the ground that truthful
answers could incriminate them, none of them was
prosecuted. Instead, the Obama Justice Department gave
them immunity.
Mueller alleges that Manafort lied to the Justice
Department when he finally (in late 2016 and early 2017)
filed paperwork under the Foreign Agent Registration Act
(FARA). Although Congress has made the making of false
statements in FARA submissions a misdemeanor, Mueller
charged Manafort with both this misdemeanor offense and
a separate felony (under the statute that generally makes
lying to government investigators a crime). Thus, he
turned a single offense into two crimes and drastically
inflated the potential penalty — well beyond what
Congress intended for the offense.
477
By contrast, several subjects of the Clinton emails
investigation made blatant misrepresentations in FBI
interviews but were not prosecuted at all. For example,
Secretary Clinton’s former top aides, Cheryl Mills and
Huma Abedin, claimed not to have known about Clinton’s
private server system when they were working for her at
the State Department — even though there is an email
exchange in which they discussed it (and Abedin had an
email address on the system).
For her part, Mrs. Clinton claimed not to know what the
designation “[C]” means in classified documents. As a
longtime consumer of classified information, Clinton
obviously knew it means “confidential.” Upon becoming
secretary of state, Clinton signed an acknowledgment that
she had been indoctrinated in the rules and procedures
governing the secure handling of classified information. In
it, she represented that she had read and understood an
executive order — signed by her husband when he was
president — that describes the levels of classification,
including confidential. Yet, Clinton ludicrously told
interviewing agents she thought “[C]” might have
something to do with putting information in alphabetical
order.
Clinton further claimed that she could not recall the
indoctrination in the handling of classified information.
Not only had she signed the acknowledgment; she had also
written in her memoir, Hard Choices, about the
extraordinary measures national-security officials are
required to take when reviewing and storing classified
information.
In addition, Mrs. Clinton also testified under oath at a
congressional hearing that she had provided the State
Department with “all my work-related e-mails.” She knew
she had done this, she explained, because her lawyers
carefully “went through every single e-mail.” Both of these
statements were patently false.
But that’s the way it goes. Often, the Justice Department is
so hell-bent on making the case, it will play an
intimidating game of hardball if that’s what it takes. On
rare occasions, though, it works just as hard to not make
the case — to see no evil. We can all be thankful, I’m sure,
that politics has nothing to do with it.
 Trump Slams Intel Chiefs
After Meeting With Putin: "They're Political Hacks"
By Tyler Durden
Nov 11, 2017 1:20 PM

While President Donald Trump was effectively forced to
cancel a formal meeting with Russian President Vladimir
Putin due to the glare of the Mueller indictments - despite
the fact that the charges had seemingly little to do with his
campaign - the two leaders still took a minute to chat on
the sidelines of an Asia Pacific conference in VIetnam on
Saturday. Photos captured Putin ominously whispering a
message into his surrogate’s ear, before posing for a few
photos alongside other world leaders, with one photo
featuring a much discussed handshake between Putin and
Trump.
standing and arguing about whether or
not— because that whole thing was set up
by the Democrats."
Of course, this isn’t the first time Trump has lashed out at
his own intelligence community over its finding that
Russia actively intervened to try and sway the November
2016 election in Trump’s favor. It’s also not the first time
he’s said he believes Putin’s claim that Russia had nothing
to do with the hacks.
Two days ago, the DOJ declared that Russia Today would
need to register as a Foreign Agent, or its staff would risk
arrest in the US.

Afterward, when reporters asked if he was worried about

the Mueller probe, Trump repeated his allegation that the
investigation is a ‘hoax’, with the president calling the FBI
a “bunch of hacks,” according to the New York Post.
President Trump on Saturday brushed off allegations that
“They’re political hacks,” Trump said of
Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, and implied he
the former CIA director John Brennan,
would take Vladimir Putin’s word on the matter more
former Director of National Intelligence
seriously than the opinions of some US intelligence
James Clapper, and former FBI chief
officials.
James Comey, who have said that the
evidence of Russian meddling is clear.
Meanwhile, the CIA has reaffirmed that
“You have Brennan, you have Clapper the Russia interference narrative
and you have Comey. Comey’s proven remains the official position of the US
now to be a liar and he’s proven to be a intelligence community by issuing a
leaker. So you look at that,” Trump said. rebuttal to the president’s statement.
“And you have President Putin very
strongly, vehemently says he had nothing
Trump also said the suspicions about Putin are hurting his
to do with that."
ability to develop a closer relationship with the leader in
order to have more productive discussions on North Korea,
But he fell short of saying that he took Putin’s word. the Hill reported.

“Well, look, I can’t stand there and “We could really be helped a lot with
argue with him,” Trump said. “I would Russia having to do with North Korea,”
rather have him get out of Syria, to be Trump said.
honest with you. I would rather … get to
work with him on the Ukraine rather than
478
 “You know you are talking about
millions and millions of lives. This
isn’t baby stuff, this is the real deal.
And if Russia helped us, in addition to
China, that problem would go away a
lot faster."
Trump and Putin met Saturday on the sidelines of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders'
Meeting in Danang, Vietnam. Though they didn’t have a
“formal” meeting scheduled, Trump says they will issue a
.
479
joint statement later in the day. What that statement is
about is unclear.. Trump said the two leaders had “two or
three very short conversations” during the larger forum
and discussed Syria.
Predictably, Trump said Putin is “very
insulted” by the suggestion Moscow
attempted to hack the election.
Because presumably, if Putin had done it, he would’ve
done a much better job...
 Did Dossier Trigger
The Trump-Russia Probe?
By Byron York
Nov 12, 2017, 9:15 PM
What is absolutely clear is that, beyond any investigation, the dossier
has proven enormously useful politically to the president's adversaries.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into
the Trump-Russia affair shortly after receiving the first
installment of an anti-Trump dossier from a former British
spy working for the Hillary Clinton campaign. What
congressional investigators want to know is whether that
was a coincidence or not.
The first report in the dossier compiled by former MI6
agent Christopher Steele was dated June 20, 2016.
Steele told the left-leaning publication Mother Jones that
he took the first part of his dossier to the FBI "near the
start of July."
James Comey, when he was FBI director, told members of
the House Intelligence Committee the Trump-Russia
investigation began "in late July."
So the timeline is: The first dossier report was June 20,
Steele approached the FBI near the start of July, and the
FBI began its investigation in late July.
Steele's first dossier installment, the June 20 document,
cited a "senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure" and a
"former top level Russian intelligence officer still active
inside the Kremlin." It reported that "Russian authorities
had been cultivating and supporting US Republican
presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP for at least 5
years" and that "the TRUMP operation was both
supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir
PUTIN." Also citing a "senior Russian financial official"
and a "close associate of TRUMP who had organized and
480
managed his recent trips to Moscow," the dossier said
Russians had been feeding Trump "valuable intelligence"
on Clinton "for several years." The report also said
"TRUMP's (perverted) conduct in Moscow included
hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton hotel,
where he knew President and Mrs. OBAMA (whom he
hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia,
and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a
number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers'
(urination) show in front of him." The action was all
captured by hidden cameras, the dossier said.
The FBI was very interested in Steele's report, according to
Mother Jones' David Corn, who was personally briefed by
Steele:
The former intelligence officer says the response from the
FBI was "shock and horror." The FBI, after receiving the
first memo, did not immediately request additional
material, according to the former intelligence officer and
his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI
asked him for all the information in his possession, and for
him to explain how the material had been gathered and to
identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the
bureau several memos — some of which referred to
members of Trump's inner circle. At that point, he
continued to share information with the FBI. "It's quite
clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on,"
he says.
Corn's report suggested the FBI was surprised by the
dossier report's contents, which in turn suggested the FBI
wasn't already on the case when Steele approached the
bureau near the start of July.
Not long after, on July 7, Carter Page, whom Trump had
named to a little-used foreign policy advisory board, began
a three-day visit to Moscow, where he gave a public
commencement speech to a university known as the New
Economic School.
In a dossier report dated July 19, Steele wrote that Page
had met in Moscow with Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft,
the giant Russian oil company, and, separately, with Igor
Divyekin, a senior figure in the Putin government. Sechin
was known to be very close to Putin and was also under
U.S. sanctions. According to Steele's dossier report, Page
and Sechin discussed ending U.S. sanctions against Russia.
(A later dossier entry said Sechin offered Page billions of
dollars to have Trump lift those sanctions.) Page and
Divyekin allegedly discussed "a dossier of 'kompromat' the
Kremlin possessed on TRUMP's Democratic presidential
rival, Hillary CLINTON, and its possible release to the
Republican's campaign team."
The dossier information made its way from Steele to the
FBI to Capitol Hill. On August 27, the Senate's then-
Minority Leader, Harry Reid, wrote a letter to Comey
noting "a series of disturbing reports" about whether "a
Trump advisor who has been highly critical of U.S. and
European sanctions on Russia…met with high-ranking
sanctioned individuals while in Moscow in July of 2016,
well after Trump became the presumptive Republican
nominee."
Steele continued to file dossier reports to the Clinton
campaign and, apparently, to the FBI during the July-
August-September-October time frame -- in other words,
the period leading up to the November 8 presidential
election. There were reports dated July 30; August 5, 10,
and 22; September 14; and October 12, 18, 19, and 20.
The challenge -- for Steele and for Fusion GPS, the
opposition research firm that hired him with funding from
the Clinton campaign -- was to get the dossier's charges
out in public, where they might influence the presidential
race.
As the election approached, the Clinton campaign, through
Fusion GPS, directed Steele to give the dossier information
to a few journalists. At the "end of September," and again
in October, according to British court papers, Steele
personally briefed reporters from the New York Times,
Washington Post, CNN, the New Yorker, and Yahoo.
The allegations in the dossier were basically impossible for
journalists to verify. Most of the publications did not
report the information. But on September 23, Yahoo's
Michael Isikoff reported that "U.S. officials" had "received
intelligence reports" from a "well-placed Western
intelligence source" that Carter Page had met with Sechin
and Divyekin during Page's July trip to Moscow. Isikoff
wrote that some American officials were "taken aback" by
the report that Page had met Sechin and Divyekin and
were "seeking to determine" whether Page had "opened up
private communications with senior Russian officials" on
the sanctions issue. The allegations "have been discussed
with senior members of Congress," Isikoff added, quoting
from Reid's August 27 letter to Comey.
The Clinton campaign tried to publicize the report, but the
dossier news did not really catch on. So in late October,
according to those British court papers, with election day
fast approaching and the allegations still not out, Fusion,
acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign, directed Steele
481
to brief Mother Jones. David Corn's article, which stayed
away from the most incendiary parts of the dossier, was
published on October 31, 2016.
One day earlier, on October 30, Harry Reid tried again to
push the information into public view with a letter to
Comey stating that the FBI possessed "explosive
information about close ties and coordination between
Donald Trump, his advisors, and the Russian government."
Of course, Comey knew what the FBI possessed. The point
of Reid's letter was to get it out in public as the election
approached. Again, there was some attention paid, but
November 8 came and went without Americans excitedly
discussing something called the Trump dossier.
Now, with multiple investigations underway, some
officials are trying to reconstruct the events of June
through October 2016. Were the allegations in the dossier
accurate in the first place? If they were, did involvement
go to the highest levels of the Trump campaign? But if
they weren't, was it a situation in which the Clinton
campaign, through its hired foreign agent Steele, fed the
FBI bad information for the purpose of having it leaked to
the press in time to hurt Trump before the election?
On the question of accuracy, it's just not clear what in the
dossier has been verified and what hasn't. If one reads the
dossier to be making the broad point that Russia tried to
interfere in the 2016 election -- well, that's true. And
indeed, some commentators have claimed that the dossier
"checks out." But if one reads the dossier in all its
damaging details and looks for confirmation -- well, that
confirmation can be hard to find.
Page, for example, in testimony to the House Intelligence
Committee on November 2, denied meeting with Sechin
and Divyekin in Moscow, and it's not clear there is any
evidence, beyond the dossier, that he did. Trump executive
Michael Cohen has strongly denied the parts of the dossier
about him, and it's not clear there is any evidence, beyond
the dossier, to prove him wrong. And of course, on what is
perhaps the dossier's key big-picture allegation –
"There was a well-developed conspiracy of
cooperation between [the Trump campaign]
and Russian leadership" -- the jury is still
very, very out.
Still, there's one more important factor to be considered in
assessing the dossier's role in the FBI investigation.
According to papers released as part of his plea of guilty to
lying to investigators, Trump volunteer advisor George
Papadopoulos admitted having contacts with possible
intermediaries to high-ranked Russians who are said to
have offered assistance to the Trump campaign. That
happened beginning in March, 2016 and continued for a
few months. What is not known is whether the FBI knew
about Papadopoulos' activities as they happened, or
whether the bureau found out about them later, and in any
event whether or not the Papadopoulos matter was, along
with the dossier, part of the FBI's decision to start a
counterintelligence investigation. It does seem clear that
the Papadopoulos affair did not prompt the FBI to start a
counterintelligence probe in March, or April, or May, or
June of 2016.
What is absolutely clear is that, beyond any investigation,
the dossier has proven enormously useful politically to the
president's adversaries. At that House Intelligence
Committee hearing on March 20, 2017, for example, at
which Comey announced the existence of the
investigation, Democrats spent a lot of time raising very
specific allegations from the dossier. Carter Page's name
was mentioned 28 times, and Sechin's 11 times. Comey
said he could not discuss the allegations in public. But
.
482
Democrats made the dossier a centerpiece of their case
against Trump.
Now the moving parts, as far as the dossier is concerned,
are the Mueller investigation and Congress. With Mueller,
it's impossible to determine whether he is using the dossier
and if so, in what way. For its part, Congress is trying to
uncover the dossier story — what did the FBI do to try to
verify it? Did agents use it as a basis for seeking wiretaps?
— but getting information out of the FBI, as well as
Fusion GPS, has been like pulling teeth, even after a
House subpoena.
Ultimately more will become public. But if the past
months have shown anything, it is that the FBI will not
reveal its secrets, even to its legitimate congressional
overseers, without a fight.
 Trump Rolls Back Rhetoric
On Russia Meddling After Criticism
Sun Nov 12, 2017 09:33AM
US President Donald Trump adjusts his earphone as he attends a
press conference at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi on November 12,
2017. (Photo by AFP)
US President Donald Trump has
expressed confidence in the US
intelligence agencies’ conclusions over
alleged Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election, only hours after
saying he believed the words of his
Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on
the issue.
Trump made the remarks during a press conference in
Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday.
The US president met briefly with Putin at the APEC
summit in Vietnam during which the Russian president
rejected the accusations of Moscow’s meddling in the
2016 US presidential vote.
“Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t
do that,’ and I really believe that when he
tells me that. He means it,” Trump said on
Saturday.
However, US intelligence chiefs insist that Russia played a
role in determining the outcome of the race for the White
House.
American intelligence agencies claimed in January that
Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election to
try to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary
Clinton.
The intelligence agencies said Moscow’s interference
included a campaign of hacking and releasing
embarrassing emails, and disseminating propaganda via
social media to discredit her campaign.
.
483
On Sunday, Trump was asked to clarify comments he had
made the day before about Putin's insistence that Moscow
had never tried to influence the US presidential election.
"I believe he feels he and Russia did not
meddle in the election," Trump said.
"As to whether or not I believe it or not, I'm
with our agencies. I believe in our...
intelligence agencies," he added.
Trump is haunted by an investigation into accusations of
his campaign’s collusion with Russia.
Trump's election campaign manager Paul Manafort and
campaign aide Rick Gates have already been indicted on
Russian-involved financial charges. Trump has rejected the
allegations as a hoax.
Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller, a
former director of the FBI, is investigating whether Trump
election officials cooperated with those Russian efforts.
Sources familiar with Mueller’s investigation said he has
used his broad authority to investigate links between
Trump associates and foreign governments, as well as to
determine whether the president or any of his aides tried to
obstruct justice.
Trump has repeatedly denied allegations that his campaign
colluded with Russians and has condemned the
investigations. Putin has also denied the allegations.
Trump has denounced the federal investigation led by
Mueller as a "witch hunt."
 Trump Says US Should Team
Up With Russia To Solve Global Issues
According To The President, Moscow And Washington Need To
Team Up To Solve Syrian, North Korean,
And Ukrainian
Problems
November 12, 8:39 UTC

Earlier Trump told journalists about his conversation with

Russian President Vladimir Putin when the latter
categorically rejected even a hypothetical possibility of
Moscow's interference in the US electoral process.

When asked to comment on his own statements about

Putin, Trump said that though he relies on the US
intelligence services, he considers it necessary to get along
with Russia and China.

According to President, Moscow and Washington need to

team up to solve global issues, such as Syrian, North
© Mikhail Klimentyev / Press-service of the RF / TASS president
Korean, and Ukrainian problems, and to tackle terrorism.

HANOI, November 12. /TASS/. US President Donald
Trump considers it necessary to get back to cooperation
with Moscow, which will be beneficial for the country and
for the whole world, he said at a joint press conference
with his Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quang on
Sunday.
.
Trump and his high-profile advisers have denied
accusations of illegal contacts with Russian officials
during last year’s presidential election. Moscow also has
denied claims of its meddling in the US presidential
election.

484
 MSNBC's Reid Still Thinks
17 Intel Agencies Backed Russia Election-Meddling Report
By Tom Blumer
November 13, 2017 10:35 AM EST
With Twitter doubling its character limit to 280 from 140,
the establishment press can now cram twice as much fake
news into a single tweet.
MSNBC's Joy Reid did exactly that in a Saturday morning
tweet by mischaracterizing the scope of the intelligence
community's assessment of "Malicious Cyber Activity"
relating to the 2016 presidential election, and by falsely
claiming that President Trump said that he personally
believes Russian President Vladimir Putin's contention that
there was no such meddling.
Here is Joyless Joy's tweet (HT Twitchy):
Well, ma'am, "to be clear," it was never "17
agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence
community."
It was three or four, depending on whether one includes
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in
addition to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency
in the report-publishing group.
The New York Times and the Associated Press made that
crystal clear in a "correction" and a "clarification,"
respectively, the outlets issued in late June.
First, the Times, as noted at a related NewsBusters
post (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Correction: June 29, 2017
A White House Memo article on Monday about President
Trump’s deflections and denials about Russia referred
485
incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that
said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year’s
presidential election.
The assessment was made by four
intelligence agencies — the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, the
Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the National
Security Agency. The assessment was
not approved by all 17 organizations in
the American intelligence community.
Now, the AP:
At that late-June NewsBusters post, Kristine Marsh noted
that the Times was over seven weeks late in posting their
respective "correction" and "clarification" (as, obviously,
was AP):
Obama appointee, former Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper
contradicted the media’s narrative when
he testified May 8, saying only “three”
intelligence agencies actually made this
assessment, not 17.
Sadly, it's not altogether unreasonable that
Reid would still believe the "17 agencies"
lie.
That's because the Associated Press, apparently because it
issued a "clarification" and not a correction, has failed to
revise many other stories carrying the bogus "17 agencies"
claim — even when carried in dispatches filed during the
period covered by the clarification, and even, in one
instance, after the clarification was issued.
The following report dated June 22, which is within the
April 6 - June 29 period covered in the clarification, is still
present at the AP's main national web site, and still peddles
the "17 agencies" myth — twice:
Additionally, a still-available dispatch published on June
30, the day of the AP's clarification and the day after its
April 6-June 29 scope, insists that the assessment was
made by all 17 agencies:
Beyond that, neither the Times nor the AP have recognized
that there was a considerable degree of irregularity in those
three agencies' input and their ultimate assessment:
This process drastically differed from
the Intelligence Community’s normal
procedures.
Hand-picking a handful of analysts from just three
intelligence agencies (The other 14 "were kept in the
dark." — Ed.) to write such a controversial assessment
went against standing rules to vet such analyses throughout
the Intelligence Community within its existing structure.
The idea of using hand-picked
intelligence analysts selected through
486
some unknown process to write an
assessment on such a politically
sensitive topic carries a strong stench
of politicization.
You don't say?
What can be said is that the Associated Press and the New
York Times are utterly disinterested in ensuring that its
stories accurately reflect the historical record — and that's
before investigating how many subscribers' sites are still
carrying AP stories containing the "17 agencies" lie. This
doesn't excuse Joy Reid's ignorance, but it may go a long
way towards explaining it.
As to Reid's second claim, Trump's most recent statement
makes it clear that she is wrong here as well.
Answering a reporter's question to clarify things once and
for all — as if he hasn't already — Trump said the
following:
Transcript:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: What I said — I'm surprised that there's
any conflict on this —
what I said there is that I believe he
(Putin) believes that,
and that's important for somebody to believe. I believe that he
feels that he and Russia didn't meddle in the election.
As to whether I believe it or not, I'm with
our agencies, especially as currently
constituted with their leadership.
I believe in our intel agencies, our intelligence agencies. I've
worked with them very strongly. There weren't 17, as was
previously reported. There were actually four, but they were
saying there were 17, there were actually 4.
But as currently led by fine people, I
believe very much in our intelligence
agencies.
In case fever swamp visitors here can't discern the actual
meaning of the actual words Trump used, The President said that
Putin believes what he's saying. That is not the same as Trump
believing it. Additionally, Trump saying that he trusts his current
intel leaders isn't the same as saying he trusts the arguably
cooked intel with shaky to non-existent evidence produced by
people in the previous administration. Remember, that work was
done outside of normal channels and was directed by Obama
administration officials who were all shown or have been shown
to be very dishonest about very important matters:
 Former Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper, who in Senate testimony claimed the NSA
was “not wittingly” collecting data on Americans, when
they had been for years.
 Former CIA Director John Brennan, concerning his
agency spying on Congress in 2014.
487
 Former FBI Director James Comey, who "personally
directed the leak to a reporter of a memo he kept
regarding that detailed a conversation he had with
President Trump").
Longtime left-leaning blogger Ann Althouse
observed that Trump's answer was "a lot
more nuanced than what you read in the
mainstream news reports," as in
"Clearly stated nuance. You don't
usually get that."
The press, which thrived on seeing absurd nuances in former
President Obama's remarks for eight years, now can't recognize
nuance, or for that matter the clear meaning of English words. It's
as if they turned off their nuance detectors on January 20, and
replaced them with distortion enhancers.
 IRONY Alert! Joyce Carol Oates Unwittingly
Makes In-Kind Donation To Trump Re-Election Campaign
By Doug P.
Posted At 10:25 Am On November 13, 2017

The liberal elite sometimes like to remind everybody that

it’s wrong to stereotype an entire group of people. Well,
unless that group of people is considered deplorable:

Does Oates realize that’s basically an in-kind donation to

somebody she loathes?

Hillary Clinton tried that and, well, it didn’t work out so

well for her. at least Oates’ tweet will be held in high
esteem by her fellow liberals, but they might not see the
irony.

488
.

489
 Mocking Trump Doesn’t Prove Russia
Is Guilty Of Hacking Democrats’ Emails
Written By Ray Mcgovern
November 13, 2017 At 6:41 Am
President Trump is getting mocked for
“trusting” Vladimir Putin’s denial about
“meddling” in U.S. politics — and not
accepting Official Washington’s
groupthink — but ridicule isn’t
evidence.
(CN) — If the bloody debacle in Iraq should have taught
Americans anything, it is that endorsements by lots of
important people who think something is true don’t
amount to evidence that it actually is true. If endorsements
were the same as evidence, U.S. troops would have found
tons of WMD in Iraq, rather than come up empty.
So, when it comes to whether or not Russia “hacked”
Democratic emails last year and slipped them to
WikiLeaks, just because a bunch of people with fancy
titles think the Russians are guilty doesn’t compensate for
the lack of evidence so far evinced to support this core
charge.
But the reaction of Official Washington and the U.S.
mainstream media to President Trump saying that Russian
President Vladimir Putin seemed sincere in denying
Russian “meddling” was sputtering outrage: How could
Trump doubt what so many important people think is true?
Yet, if the case were all that strong that Russia did “hack”
the emails, you would have expected a straightforward
explication of the evidence rather than a demonstration of
a full-blown groupthink, but what we got this weekend
was all groupthink and no evidence.
For instance, on Saturday, CNN responded to Trump’s
comment that Putin seems to “mean it” when he denied
490
meddling by running a list of important Americans who
had endorsed the Russian-guilt verdict. Other U.S. news
outlets and politicians followed the same pattern.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on
the House Intelligence Committee and a big promoter of
the Russia-gate allegations, scoffed at what Trump said:
“You believe a foreign adversary over your
own intelligence agencies?”
The Washington Post’s headline sitting atop Sunday’s lede
article read:
“Trump says Putin sincere in denial of
Russian meddling: Critics call that
‘unconscionable.’”
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on
the Senate Intelligence Committee and another Russia-gate
sparkplug, said he was left “completely speechless” by
Trump’s willingness to take Putin’s word
“over the conclusions of our own combined
intelligence community.”
Which gets us back to the Jan. 6 “Intelligence Community
Assessment” and its stunning lack of evidence in support
of its Russian guilty verdict. The ICA even admitted as
much, that it wasn’t asserting Russian guilt as fact but
rather as opinion:
“Judgments are not intended to imply that
we have proof that shows something to be
a fact. Assessments are based on collected
information, which is often incomplete or
fragmentary, as well as logic,
argumentation, and precedents.”
Even The New York Times, which has led the media
groupthink on Russian guilt, initially published the
surprised reaction from correspondent Scott Shane
who wrote:
“What is missing from the public report is
what many Americans most eagerly
 anticipated: hard evidence to back up the
agencies’ claims that the Russian
government engineered the election attack.
… Instead, the message from the agencies
essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’”
In other words, the ICA was not a disposition of fact; it
was guesswork, possibly understandable guesswork, but
guesswork nonetheless. And guesswork should be open to
debate.
Shutting Down Debate
But the debate was shut down earlier this year by the oft-
repeated claim that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies
concurred in the assessment and how could anyone
question what all 17 intelligence agencies concluded!
However, that canard was finally knocked
down by President Obama’s own Director
of National Intelligence James Clapper who
acknowledged in sworn congressional
testimony that the ICA was the product of
“handpicked” analysts from only three
agencies – the CIA, FBI and National
Security Agency.
In other words, not only did the full intelligence
community not participate in the ICA but only analysts
“handpicked” by Obama’s intelligence chiefs conducted
the analysis – and as we intelligence veterans know well, if
you handpick the analysts, you are handpicking the
conclusions.
For instance, put a group of analysts known for their
hardline views on Russia in a room for a few weeks,
prevent analysts with dissenting viewpoints from weighing
in, don’t require any actual evidence, and you are pretty
sure to get the Russia-bashing result that you wanted.
So why do you think Clapper and Obama’s CIA Director
John Brennan put up the no-entry sign that kept out
analysts from the State Department and Defense
Intelligence Agency, two entities that might have
significant insights into Russian intentions? By all rights,
they should have been included. But, clearly, no dissenting
footnotes or wider-perspective views were desired.
If you remember back to the Iraq WMD intelligence
estimate, analysts from the State Department’s intelligence
bureau, known as INR, offered unwelcome dissenting
views about the pace of Iraq’s supposed nuclear program,
inserting a footnote saying they found it too difficult to
predict the fruition of a program when there was no
reliable evidence as to when – not to mention if – it had
started.
491
DIA also was demonstrating an unusually independent
streak, displaying a willingness to give due consideration
to Russia’s perspective. Here’s the heterodox line DIA
took in a major report published in December 2015:
“The Kremlin is convinced the United
States is laying the groundwork for regime
change in Russia, a conviction further
reinforced by the events in Ukraine.
Moscow views the United States as the
critical driver behind the crisis in Ukraine
and the Arab Spring and believes that the
overthrow of former Ukrainian President
Yanukovych is the latest move in a long-
established pattern of U.S.-orchestrated
regime change efforts.”
So, not only did the Jan. 6 report exclude input from INR
and DIA and the other dozen or so intelligence agencies
but it even avoided a fully diverse set of opinions from
inside the CIA, FBI and NSA.
The assessment – or guesswork – came
only from those “hand-picked” analysts.
It’s also worth noting that not only does Putin deny that
Russia was behind the publication of the Democratic
emails but so too does WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange
who has insisted repeatedly that the material did not come
from the Russians. He and others around WikiLeaks have
strongly suggested that the emails came as leaks from
Democratic insiders.
Seeking Real Answers
In the face of Official Washington’s evidence-free
groupthink, what some of us former U.S. intelligence
analysts have been trying to do is provide both a fuller
understanding of Russian behavior and whatever scientific
analysis can be applied to the alleged “hacks.”
Forensic investigations and testing of relevant download
speeds, reported by members of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), have undermined the
Russia-did-it groupthink. But this attempt to engage in
actual evaluation of evidence has been either ignored or
mocked by mainstream news outlets.
Still, the suggestion in our July 24 VIPS memo that
President Trump ask current CIA Director Mike Pompeo
to take a fresh look at the issue recently had some
consequence when Pompeo contacted VIPS member
William Binney, a former NSA Technical Director, and
invited him to explain his latest research on
the impossibility of the Russians extracting the Democratic
emails via an Internet hack based on known download
speeds.
In typically candid terms, Binney explained to Pompeo
why VIPS had concluded that the intelligence analysts
behind the Jan. 6 report had been making stuff up about
Russian “hacking.”
When news of the Binney-Pompeo meeting broke last
week, the U.S. mainstream media again rejected the
opportunity to rethink the Russia-did-it groupthink and
instead treated Binney as some sort of “conspiracy
theorist” with a “disputed” theory, while attacking
Pompeo’s willingness to discuss Binney’s findings as
“politicizing intelligence.”
Despite the smearing of Binney, President Trump appears
to have taken some of this new evidence to heart,
explaining his dispute with open-mouthed White House
reporters on Air Force One who baited Trump with various
forms of the same question:
“Do you believe Putin?” amid the new
jeering about Trump “getting played” by
Putin.
Trump’s demeanor, however, suggested increased
confidence that the Russian “hacking” allegations were the
“witch hunt” that he has decried for months.
Trump also jabbed the press over its earlier false claims
that “all 17 intelligence agencies” concurred on the
Russian “hack.” And Trump introduced the idea of a
different kind of “hack,” i.e., Obama’s political appointees
at the heads of the agencies behind the Jan. 6 report.
Trump said,
“You hear it’s 17 agencies. Well it’s
three. And one is Brennan … give me a
break. They’re political hacks. … I mean,
you have Brennan, you have Clapper,
you have [FBI Director James]
Comey. Comey is proven to be a liar and
he’s proven to be a leaker.”
Later, in deference to those still at work in intelligence,
Trump said,
“I’m with our [intelligence] agencies as
currently constituted.”
While Trump surely has a dismal record of his own
regarding truth-telling, he’s not wrong about the checkered
record of the triumvirate of Clapper, Brennan and Comey.
Clapper played a key role in the bogus Iraq-WMD
intelligence when he was head of the National Geo-spatial
Agency and hid the fact that there was zero evidence in
satellite imagery of any weapons of mass destruction
492
before the Iraq invasion. When no WMDs were found,
Clapper told the media that he thought they were shipped
off to Syria.
In 2013, Clapper perjured himself before Congress by
denying NSA’s unconstitutional blanket surveillance of
Americans. After evidence emerged revealing the falsity of
Clapper’s testimony, he wrote a letter to Congress
admitting,
“My response was clearly erroneous – for
which I apologize.”
Despite the deception, he was allowed to stay as Obama’s
most senior intelligence officer for almost four more years.
Clapper also has demonstrated an ugly bias about
Russians. On May 28, as a former DNI, Clapper explained
Russian “interference” in the U.S. election to NBC’s
Chuck Todd on May 28 with a tutorial on what everyone
should know about “the historical practices of the
Russians.” Clapper said, “the Russians, typically, are
almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor,
whatever, which is a typical Russian technique.”
Brennan, who had previously defended torture as having
been an effective way to gain intelligence, was CIA
director when agency operatives broke into the computers
of the Senate Intelligence Committee when it was
investigating CIA torture.
Former FBI Director Comey is infamous for letting the
Democratic National Committee arrange its own
investigation of the “hacking” that was then blamed on
Russia, a development that led some members of Congress
to call the supposed “hack” an “act of war.” Despite the
risk of nuclear conflagration, the FBI didn’t bother to do
its own forensics.
And, by his own admission, Comey arranged a leak to The
New York Times that was specifically designed to get a
Special Prosecutor appointed to investigate Russia-gate, a
job that fell to his old friend Robert Mueller, who has had
his own mixed record as the previous FBI director in
mishandling the 9/11 investigation.
There are plenty of reasons to want Trump out of the
White House, but there also should be respect for facts and
due process. So far, the powers-that-be in Washington – in
politics, the media and other dominant institutions, what
some call the Deep State – have shown little regard for
fairness in the Russia-gate “scandal.”
The goal seems to be to remove the President or at least
emasculate him on a bum rap, giving him the bum’s rush,
so to speak, while also further demonizing Russia and
exacerbating an already dangerous New Cold War.
The truth should still count for something. No one’s Trump – like bête noire Putin – never tells the truth, and
character should be assassinated, as Bill Binney’s is being that to believe either is, well, “unconscionable,” as The
now, for running afoul of the conventional wisdom that Washington Post warns.

493
 WOW! Fusion GPS Worked With Russia
To Plot Banker’s Murder — New Details Emerge
About Donald Trump Jr. Meeting
By Joshua Caplan
Monday, November 13, 2017

Fusion GPS, the firm behind the

infamous ‘Trump dossier,’ allegedly
assisted the Russian government in an
attempt to “imprison or murder,”
banker Bill Browder, “a London-based
banker who spearheaded the Magnitsky
Act, a sanctions law vehemently
opposed by the Russian government,”
reports the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross.
Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian attorney who attended
the Trump Tower meeting, is who provided both Chaika
and Trump Jr. with the Fusion-generated information on
Browder. She took a four-page report into the June 9, 2016
Trump Tower meeting, which was attended by Jared
Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Daily Caller reports:

Browder made the allegation in response to the recent

revelation that Fusion GPS and its founder Glenn Simpson
compiled what he says is false information about him that
was given to Yuri Chaika, Russia’s prosecutor general, and
to Donald Trump Jr. during the infamous June 2016
Trump Tower meeting.

[…]

It was previously known that the Washington, D.C-based

Fusion GPS’s investigation of Browder was beneficial to
the Russian government and its effort to reverse the
Magnitsky Act. But it was revealed only last week that
information Fusion collected on Browder was shared
directly with Chaika, whose position is the Russian
equivalent of the U.S. attorney general.

[…]

494
Veselnitskaya worked with Simpson, a former Wall Street
Journal reporter, on the anti-Browder project.
Reuters reported on Thursday that Simpson compiled the
research for the Trump Tower memo. And NBC
News reported on Friday that similar research put together
by Simpson was given by Veselnitskaya to Chaika in Oct.
2015.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Fox News revealed
Veselnitskaya met with Glenn Simpson mere hours before
she and three Russians sauntered over to Trump Tower to
meet with Don Jr. and few others from Trump’s campaign.
She then met with Simpson AGAIN after she left Trump
Tower.
But hours before the Trump Tower meeting on June 9,
2016, Fusion co-founder and ex-Wall Street Journal
reporter Glenn Simpson was with Veselnitskaya in a
Manhattan federal courtroom, a confidential source told
Fox News. Court records reviewed by Fox News, email
correspondence and published reports corroborate the
pair’s presence together. The source told Fox News they
also were together after the Trump Tower meeting.
Reuters reported that the memo
Veselnitskaya presented to Don Jr at
Trump Tower was PREPARED BY
FUSION GPS….yes the same firm that
Hillary’s camp paid millions of dollars to for
the garbage Russia dossier.
.
495
The sources told Reuters that the negative information that
Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya wanted to give to
Republican Trump’s campaign at a June 2016 meeting in
New York had been dug up by Fusion GPS in an unrelated
investigation…In an interview with Bloomberg on
Monday, Veselnitskaya said she went to the Trump Tower
meeting with Donald Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared
Kushner, and top campaign adviser Paul Manafort to show
them proof of tax evasion by major Democratic
donors…The memo had been prepared by Fusion.
The news comes amid reports Glenn Simpson, co-founder
of Fusion GPS, the firm behind the Russia dossier is going
to voluntarily speak to the House Intel Committee in a
closed-door meeting next Tuesday per his lawyer.
“Reps. Conaway & Schiff announce an
agreement w/Fusion GPS co-founder
Glenn Simpson to return next Tuesday and
answer questions from the House Intel
Cmte behind closed doors in the ongoing
Russia investigation. Subpoena for
Simpson will be withdrawn once he
appears,” tweeted Fox News reporter
Jason Donner.
 Expert: Bogus Trump ‘Dossier’ Was NOT
‘Just Opposition Research’ But Used By FBI
To Launch ‘Collusion’ Probes
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On November 14, 2017

“This goes against the media narrative, the “This goes against the media narrative, the
Democratic narrative, that this was just Democratic narrative, that this was just
mere opposition research, that this is done mere opposition research, that this is done
all the time” all the time. No, it wasn’t,” he said.
“This was a foreign intelligence officer paid
by the Democrats to work with the
Russians to prepare a dossier to smear a
presidential candidate from the other
party,” he said, referencing former British
spy Christopher Steele, with whom Fusion
GPS contracted to produce the dossier.
“This is not ‘opposition research,’ and if
they somehow got the FBI involved into
investigating members of the other
(National Sentinel) Election 2016: An expert from the
party…Liz, think what would have
Center for Security Policy says that the so-called “Trump
happened if Trump had did this,” Fleitz
dossier” bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign and
said.
the Democratic National Committee through Fusion GPS
last year is much more than “just opposition research.”
Wheeler said if that had happened with Trump as
president, he would have faced allegations that he used the
Fred Fleitz, vice president for Policy and Programs
power of government to help him defeat a political
told One America News Network‘s Liz Wheeler on
opponent.
Monday that the dossier was something other than what
has been portrayed.
Watch the entire interview below or click here.
His observations followed testimony earlier in the day by
former unpaid Trump campaign foreign policy advisor
Carter Page before the House Intelligence Committee on
Monday, in which he denied there was any “collusion”
between campaign officials. Page also said that all
information contained in the dossier on him was false.

Asked if there was any proof of Page’s claims, Fleitz

responded that he couldn’t prove or disprove them.

What he found “astounding,” however, is that “apparently,

FBI investigations of Page were sparked by this dossier,”
Fleitz said.

496
 Report: Hillary Clinton Set
To Finance SECOND Trump Dossier
By Usafeaturesmedia
Posted On November 14, 2017
Aren’t you glad we didn’t elect someone so obsessed with
power?
(National Sentinel) Opposition: The author of several
books detailing malfeasance on the part of Bill and Hillary
Clinton now says the failed Democratic presidential
nominee from 2016 is set to finance a second “Trump
dossier” using the same former British spy who created the
first one.
Writing in the UK’s Daily Mail, author Ed Klein says
Clinton is prepared to double down with the purchase of
yet another dossier that will most likely also be filled with
salacious, sexual allegations against President Donald J.
Trump that cannot be substantiated.
He added that several people connected with Clinton’s
2016 campaign are in secret negotiations with Christopher
Steele, the former MI-5 agent whose last dossier became
the focus of controversy during and after the election a
year ago.
Little in his first dossier has been substantiated, and the
most salacious claims have never been verified.
Nevertheless, Klein says that Clinton is moving ahead with
another dossier that is likely to contain similar allegations
in her continuing attempt to link the Trump campaign with
Russian collusion last year to “steal” the election from her.
.
497
“Hillary’s people have been secretly in
touch with Steele and are close to making
a deal with him on opposition research that
he claims has newly surfaced from his
Russian sources,” one longtime Clinton
advisor said, according to Klein.
“Steele didn’t release this information
before now because it wasn’t available to
him when he put together his first dossier,”
the advisor continued.
Kline, the author of “Guilty As Sin,” a tell-all book of
Clinton corruption, said that the second dossier also
contains “salacious new charges” against Trump, citing a
number of sources familiar with it.
“There are many wealthy people in the anti-
Trump ‘resistance’ who are more than
willing to put up whatever money is
necessary to get this new information,” a
member of Hillary’s inner circle told the
author, as reported by NewsTarget.
The two-time failed Democratic contender told her
president husband, Bill Clinton, that once she gets the
second dossier, she’ll release it to friendly media — much
in the way the first dossier was discovered.
“She’s convinced that Trump made
business deals with Russians with ties to
the Kremlin in return for a promise to offer
the Russians favorable trade conditions,”
one source privy to her conversation with
Bill said.
“Hillary has said that she’ll do whatever it
takes to make sure Trump’s ‘illegitimate
presidency,’ as she constantly refers to it
among friends and campaign associates,
ends in ashes,” said the source.
 Steven Mnuchin: "Nobody Thinks
Russia Had An Impact On The Election"
By Tyler Durden
Nov 14, 2017 3:12 PM

With at least one crucial vote on the White House’s tax the bill...even as issues like the elimination of SALT
reform plan looming later this week, and Special Counsel deductions, the massive expansion of the deficit, and a
Robert Mueller reportedly preparing to indict former possible delay in the onset for corporate tax cuts have
National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and possibly his stoked opposition within the Republican caucus.
son as well, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended
the administration’s approach to both issues during an
appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday,
saying that, while nobody in the administration is denying
that Russia tried to interfere in last year’s election, few
believe Russian intelligence was successful in swaying the
outcome of the vote.

“The president has said he believes in the

intelligence and also believes that Putin
believes what he said, but it’s really time to
move on off this issue. The president was
focused on very important issues like North
Korea and Syria where we have to get
along with and have common goals with -
Russia."
“I’ve seen information I’m not going to
comment on any of the confidential
information I’ve seen....but let me be
clear, nobody thinks this had any
impact on the election. Whatever
occurred, there was no impact, and I
think the American public is ready to
move on to more important issues...like
tax reform and foreign policy and
national security."
Mnuchin, who is in charge of implementing US sanctions
against Russia that were passed over the summer despite
the White House’s objection that they would hamper
efforts to cooperate on combating terrorism, said the
administration isn’t pulling any punches when it comes to
enforcing them.
“First let me just say that we are
absolutely carrying out the sanctions
and that’s something we’re very
focused on."
Moving on to the administration’s tax reform effort,
Mnuchin said he’s not worried about the many
discrepancies between the House and Senate versions of
.
498
Repeating a line he has used many times since the
administration first unveiled its original one-page tax
reform “outline” back in April, Mnuchin said he’s
confident all the kinks will be worked out when the bill
reaches the conference committee consisting of lawmakers
from both the House and the Senate.
“Let me tell you the good news is both the
House and Senate bill have the same
objectives. Obviously we would prefer
that...I’m confident this is one of those
issues when we get to conference will be
resolved between the House and the
Senate."
When asked about the potential fallout should the
administration fail to pass tax reform by its self-imposed
year-end deadline, or if the bill includes certain provisions
that are less favorable to US corporates, Mnuchin said the
administration is “studying the impact. "
“I’m highly confident we’ll get it done and I
think you see that in the market...as for the
effect of delaying for one year...we’re
studying that impact."
Speaker Paul Ryan has said the House plans to vote on its
version of the tax bill on Thursday or Friday after the bill
cleared the powerful Ways and Means committee last
week.
 Sessions Rages, White House Leaks
"Have Reached Epidemic Proportions"
By Tyler Durden
Nov 14, 2017 11:28 AM

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.
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...

"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 Pointing out the selective leaks from the Congressional
Trump has been enraged about the amount of national Committes.

.
499
 ‘Uranium Delirium’; Matthews Lashes Out At Calls To
Investigate ‘Closed Case’ Uranium Deal
By Curtis Houck
November 14, 2017 11:15 PM EST
MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews
reluctantly waded into the Russia uranium
deal story on Tuesday’s show, blasting the
calls for a special counsel to investigate the
“closed case” Obama-era deal and
mocked the story as one that “the right-
wing wants you to think is the biggest
scandal since the Rosenbergs.”
What’s intriguing was Matthews did nothing to directly
refute the story with specific evidence or address the new
stories published last month by The Hill’s John Solomon
and Alison Spann about the Russian attempts to gain
access to the inner circle of Hillary Clinton’s State
Department.
In the first of two teases for the full segment, Matthews
seemed to question the veracity of the Department of
Justice revelation that they’re
“considering whether to recommend a
special counsel” on “the uranium deal,
the one the right-wing wants you to
think is the biggest scandal since the
Rosenbergs.”
The second tease showed an even more annoyed
Matthews, fretting:
I just don’t believe they’re serious about a
special counsel to investigate nothing.
Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with the
uranium deal except in a very kind of
institutional way and, by the way, it was
legally done. Anyway, but what about
500
Trump? We'll see what he's up to. I think
he's pushing Sessions. He said he's very
frustrated with the fact that the Department
of Justice isn't going after Clinton because
he wants them to and that’s why it should
be doing it because he wants them to. He
doesn't understand our Constitution.
Yikes. Care to provide any direct evidence of that, Chris?
The segment in question was entitled “Uranium
Delirium” and featured New York Times reporter Michael
Schmidt and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade.
Matthews set the table with clips from the second
presidential debate and a back-and-forth on Tuesday
between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Republican
Congressman Jim Jordan (Ohio).
Schmidit didn’t seem to render a judgement on the
uranium deal except argue that an investigation into that
would certainly alleviate the pressure the Trump
administration has felt in respect to the Mueller probe.
Going to McQuade, Matthews wondered what she would
do if she were told to
“investigate this decision by this inner
cabinet tasks force.”
“They approved the uranium deal. They
all agreed to it. They all signed it at the
cabinet level. What would be the crime
you would be looking at? What would
be the body of the crime to investigate?
It was all done transparently and correct
— and by the correct procedures,”
Matthews continued.
McQuade stated that she thinks that “the
theory that I have heard is that there's
some sort of bribery count that some
thought that Hillary Clinton approved
this deal in exchange for a large
donation of the Clinton fund, but, you
know, bribery has a five-year statute of
limitations and this all occurred seven
years ago.”
 She conceded that claims of impropriety
“would be difficult even to begin to
investigate” since “so much time has
passed” and “[t]here's a reason we have
a statutes of limitations is because
evidence gets stale.”
“[I]f it is a bribery theory, then you'd
have to show that, in exchange for
anything of value, this donation, she
committed some sort of official act. So,
that official act would have to be some
act to have been taken to approve this
deal and I don't know that there's any
evidence of that,” McQuade later
concluded.
Matthews wrapped up the segment by
voicing this displeasure with the whole
topic, muttering how he doesn’t “see
anything here” and “I think this is a
closed case.”
If Matthews would have had a more serious discussion, he
would have at least reported what my colleague Geoffrey
Dickens did when he summarized the first story by
Solomon and Spann:
On October 17 The Hill’s John Solomon
and Alison Spann reported that “Before the
Obama administration had approved a
controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow
control of a large swath of American
uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial
evidence that Russian nuclear industry
officials were engaged in bribery,
kickbacks, extortion and money laundering
designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic
energy business inside the United States,
according to government documents and
interviews.”
Additionally, The Hill reported that the FBI
had “obtained an eyewitness account —
backed by documents — indicating
Russian nuclear officials had routed
millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to
benefit former President Bill Clinton’s
charitable foundation during the time
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on
a government body that provided a
favorable decision to Moscow, sources told
The Hill.”
In a subsequent story on October 22, the pair revealed that,
amidst the Uranium One deal,
“[a] female Russian spy posing as an
American accountant....used a false
identity to burrow her way into the
501
employ of a major Democratic donor in
hopes of gaining intelligence on Hillary
Clinton’s department.”
This latest dismissal of the Uranium One story was
sponsored by Hardball advertisers DirecTV for Business,
Infiniti, Match.com, and Walgreens.
Here’s the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on
November 13:
MSNBC’s Hardball
November 14, 2017
7:15 p.m. Eastern [TEASE]
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Plus, the Department of Justice is
considering whether to recommend a special counsel — well, at
least they say they are, AG saying that to investigate the uranium
deal, the one the right-wing wants you to think is the biggest
scandal since the Rosenbergs. Is Trump looking to use the
Justice Department to punish his political rivals. What do you
think? Remember what he said before he went Asia? He was
frustrated, that was his word, that he couldn't sic the Department
of Justice on Hillary Clinton.
(....)
7:30 p.m. Eastern [TEASE]
MATTHEWS: Up next, the Justice Department says it’s
considering whether or not to appoint — well, they say they are. I
just don’t believe they’re serious about a special counsel to
investigate nothing. Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with the
uranium deal except in a very kind of institutional way and, by the
way, it was legally done. Anyway, but what about Trump? We'll
see what he's up to. I think he's pushing Sessions. He said he's
very frustrated with the fact that the Department of Justice isn't
going after Clinton because he wants them to and that’s why it
should be doing it because he wants them to. He doesn't
understand our Constitution.
(....)
7:34 p.m. Eastern
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Uranium Delirium]
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to Hardball. Well, Donald Trump
campaigned in part on a promise to pursue a criminal probe
against his opponent, Hillary Clinton. And late yesterday came
the news that the Justice Department may be looking into
whether a special counsel should be set up. It came in response
to a question or a request from Republicans on the House
Judiciary Committee. Assistant Attorney General Steven Boyd
wrote to lawmakers: “The Attorney General has directed senior
federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues raised in your
letters.” Well, that would include, quote, “whether any matters
merit the appointment of a special counsel.” Attorney General
Jeff Sessions, who once told reporters or senators, we do not
punish political enemies in America, seems somewhat reluctant
on that matter today.
(....)
MATTHEWS: Barbara, what would you investigate if you were a
prosecutor in the federal Justice Department and you had to —
you were told, now, investigate this decision by this inner cabinet
tasks force, they approved the uranium deal. They all agreed to
it. They all signed it at the cabinet level. What would be the crime
you would be looking at? What would be the body of the crime to
investigate? It was all done transparently and correct — and by
the correct procedures.
.
502
BARBARA MCQUADE: Well, I believe that the theory that I have
heard is that there's some sort of bribery count that some thought
that Hillary Clinton approved this deal in exchange for a large
donation of the Clinton fund, but, you know, bribery has a five-
year statute of limitations and this all occurred seven years ago.
So, I think it would be difficult even to begin to investigate
something when so much time has passed. There's a reason we
have a statutes of limitations is because evidence gets stale. But
I imagine one could attempt to interview all of the people
involved. But it seems to me we are tasking senior federal
prosecutors on a fool's errand.
MATTHEWS: Well, don't you have to initially establish the fact
that Hillary Clinton put her hand to a document that she had
some briefing on the subject, had some involvement in the
decision to approve that — that sale?
MCQUADE: Yes. You know, if it is a bribery theory, then you'd
have to show that, in exchange for anything of value, this
donation, she committed some sort of official act. So, that official
act would have to be some act to have been taken to approve
this deal and I don't know that there's any evidence of that.
MATTHEWS: I don’t see anything here. I'm sorry to be so short,
but I think this is a closed case.
503