9:12 AM 7/20/2019 - Gap continues to widen between Trump and intelligence community on key issues
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9:12 AM 7/20/2019 - Gap continues to widen between Trump and intelligence community on key issues
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9:02 AM 7/20/2019 – #Trump and #IntelligenceCommunity | @ABC @CBSNews @NBCNews @CNN @MSNBC @nprnews @NYTimes @WashingtonPost @TheHill @Politico @FoxNews | Trump and Trumpism – Review Of News And Opinions
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Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, July 19, 2019
Attorney General William Barr’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign is focused on Obama-era intelligence chiefs and the role they played in surveilling Trump campaign workers.
Barr’s review of the Obama-era conclusion that Russia interfered in the election to benefit then-candidate Donald Trump “sets up a struggle between the nation’s top spies and Trump’s skeptical Republican allies,” security correspondent Rowan Scarborough noted in a July 18 report for The Washington Times.
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Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, July 19, 2019
Attorney General William Barr’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign is focused on Obama-era intelligence chiefs and the role they played in surveilling Trump campaign workers.
Barr’s review of the Obama-era conclusion that Russia interfered in the election to benefit then-candidate Donald Trump “sets up a struggle between the nation’s top spies and Trump’s skeptical Republican allies,” security correspondent Rowan Scarborough noted in a July 18 report for The Washington Times.
“On one side are President Trump’s past two CIA directors and his current chief of national intelligence (Dan Coats). All have publicly endorsed the January 2017 intelligence community assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.”
The 2016 election intelligence assessment came from two Obama loyalists who have since become Trump’s most ardent critics on CNN and MSNBC: former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Also signing off was another fierce Trump critic, then-FBI Director James Comey.
Brennan and Clapper have accused the president of being an agent for Russia. The Mueller report determined there was no collusion between Trump and his associates and Russia.
On the other side are Republicans in Congress who “wonder whether FBI informants were put into place for the sole purpose of getting a Trump ally to say something that could justify an investigation,” Scarborough noted.
Coats has all but acknowledged that Barr is conducting a wide-ranging investigation of intelligence agency activities.
Following President Trump’s announcement in May that he had granted Barr wide powers to collect information and declassify material, Coats issued his own statement in response.
“Much like we have with other investigations and reviews,” the statement read, “the intelligence community … will provide the Department of Justice all of the appropriate information for its review of intelligence activities related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.”
Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said he found great fault in how Obama appointees wrote the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russia’s intentions.
“While the committee found that most ICA analysis held up to scrutiny, the investigation also identified significant intelligence tradecraft failings that undermine confidence in the ICA judgments regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic objectives for disrupting the U.S. election,” Nunes said in a 2018 committee report.
Barr appointed John Durham, the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, to head the investigation.
Fred Fleitz, who served inside the White House as national security adviser John Bolton’s chief of staff, has written a series of columns casting doubt on the ICA assessment of Putin’s role in the 2016 election.
Fleitz, a member of the WorldTribune.com board of advisors, is being considered as a possible replacement for Coats as Director of National Intelligence. Coats’s job is reportedly in jeopardy because of testimony this year on North Korea, a White House adviser told The Washington Times.
Coats reportedly angered the president by telling Congress that U.S. intelligence agencies don’t believe North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un will give up his nuclear weapons, despite the president’s groundbreaking diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang and its leader.
Axios first reported this month on Coats’ shaky status, and Fleitz has been interviewed in the Oval Office by Trump and Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
Former intelligence officials told The Washington Times it appears Trump’s order on Barr’s powers will allow the Justice Department to hunt for any documentation of a political motive in writing the Russian assessment. The report’s authors said they had “high confidence” in their findings.
Intelligence Brief __________ Replace The Media
2016 presidential election, Barr investigation focusing on coordination by Obama intelligence chiefs, Dan Coats, Intelligence Community Assessment, James Clapper, James Comey, John Brennan, Trump-Russia, William Barr, WorldTribune.com
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by WorldTribune Staff, May 15, 2019 While appointing highly-respected U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of alleged spying on the 2016 Trump campaign, Attorney General William Barr also will be hands-on as the Department of Justice investigates the investigators. Barr remains “directly involved in the probe,” which he…
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Jewel Samad—AFP
6:57 AM 7/20/2019
U.N. Urges Stronger ‘Global Response’ to Terrorism, Organized Crime
Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠ | Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠ – on RSS Dog| Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠ – In Brief | Trump Investigations News In Brief – http://feed.informer.com/share/CGD4YTZW07 | Trump Investigations News – Page Link – News In Brief | Tweets | Videos | Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠ – Page
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| U.N. Urges Stronger ‘Global Response’ to Terrorism, Organized Crime ‹ Newsweek Pakistan | ||
Security Council says united front needed to identify and eliminate all such threats
The U.N. Security Council called on Friday for a better-coordinated “global response” to international terrorism and organized crime by working together to identify and eliminate such threats.
The council unanimously adopted the Peru-drafted resolution, which calls for increased cross-border collaboration in efforts to investigate and dismantle the links between terrorist groups and organized crime networks. The resolution asks states to “enhance coordination of efforts at all levels in order to strengthen a global response to linkages between international terrorism and organized crime, whether domestic or transnational.”
The nature and scope of such linkages could be better understood by combining research, the resolution explained, adding that states should “accelerate the timely exchange of relevant operational information and financial intelligence” regarding terrorist networks’ actions. Additionally, financial intelligence could help states better understand the “nature and scope” of potential links between terrorism and organized crime.
The resolution also called for states to “investigate, disrupt and dismantle organized crime networks” in accordance with national legislation regarding money laundering, corruption and bribery in addition to terrorism.
While speaking, Russia urged its allies in the Security Council not to politicize the question of links between organized crime and terrorism, though without specifying why. The country emphasized that the work must continue after the resolution’s first steps had been taken.
This is not the Council’s first attempt at cracking down on international terrorism. In March, it ordered countries worldwide to step up the fight against terrorism financing by ensuring they have laws that make it a serious crime to fund terrorist acts.
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Newsweek Pakistan.| Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠ | ||
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| U.N. Urges Stronger ‘Global Response’ to Terrorism, Organized Crime ‹ Newsweek Pakistan | ||
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| U.N. Urges Stronger ‘Global Response’ to Terrorism, Organized Crime ‹ Newsweek Pakistan | ||
Jewel Samad—AFPSecurity Council says united front needed to identify and eliminate all such threats
The U.N. Security Council called on Friday for a better-coordinated “global response” to international terrorism and organized crime by working together to identify and eliminate such threats.
The council unanimously adopted the Peru-drafted resolution, which calls for increased cross-border collaboration in efforts to investigate and dismantle the links between terrorist groups and organized crime networks. The resolution asks states to “enhance coordination of efforts at all levels in order to strengthen a global response to linkages between international terrorism and organized crime, whether domestic or transnational.”
The nature and scope of such linkages could be better understood by combining research, the resolution explained, adding that states should “accelerate the timely exchange of relevant operational information and financial intelligence” regarding terrorist networks’ actions. Additionally, financial intelligence could help states better understand the “nature and scope” of potential links between terrorism and organized crime.
The resolution also called for states to “investigate, disrupt and dismantle organized crime networks” in accordance with national legislation regarding money laundering, corruption and bribery in addition to terrorism.
While speaking, Russia urged its allies in the Security Council not to politicize the question of links between organized crime and terrorism, though without specifying why. The country emphasized that the work must continue after the resolution’s first steps had been taken.
This is not the Council’s first attempt at cracking down on international terrorism. In March, it ordered countries worldwide to step up the fight against terrorism financing by ensuring they have laws that make it a serious crime to fund terrorist acts.
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| ‘Send Trump and His Mob Back to Their Dark Corner’ | ||
“We have long had ugly margins in this country, but we are a fundamentally decent people, with shared values. We treasure our identity as a nation of immigrants,” Comey tweeted on Thursday afternoon. “With our voices and our 2020 votes, we must send Donald Trump and his mob back to their dark corner.”
Chants about deporting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) came as President Trump rattled off a laundry list of critical statements made by the far-left congresswoman during a campaign rally Wednesday in Greenville, North Carolina. He recalled her minimizing of the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks, mocking the threat from Al-Qaeda, and pushing leniency for a would-be ISIS recruit.
President Trump also blasted Omar’s fellow “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). “She described contemporary America as – that’s you, that’s me, that’s all of us– as ‘garbage,’” the president said of Ocasio-Cortez’s previous remarks about his supporters. “Remember ‘deplorables’? That sounds worse. I think that’s worse. But we’ll save it for whoever’s going to be the nominee.”
President Trump has been in a war of words with the “Squad” since challenging them over the weekend to leave the U.S. if they continue with their attacks on the country. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how,” he said of the freshman congresswomen Sunday.
Democrats expressed outrage over the remarks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) referring to them as “xenophobic.”
“Trump knows that when we stand together and fight for racial, social, economic and environmental justice, we have the power to defeat him. So the demagogue is doing what he knows best: Divide and conquer through hate,” 2020 White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said of the remark.
Fellow Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said of the comments that it was important to continue “calling out his racism, xenophobia, and misogyny is imperative.” She also claimed the president’s remarks show he’s “desperate” to shore up support ahead of the 2020 election.
On Thursday, President Trump disavowed the chants of “send her back,” telling reporters in the Oval Office that he was “not happy” about them.
“I felt a little bit badly about it, but I will say this: I did start speaking very quickly… I was not happy with it. I disagree with it, but, again, I didn’t say that; they did,” he said.
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| Service resuming after 7 New York City subway lines stopped | ||
NEW YORK (AP) — About a third of New York City’s subway lines were suspended for more than an hour during a hot Friday evening commute, stranding some passengers underground and sending others searching for alternate ways home.
The stoppage affected the No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 trains that serve swaths of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. It also halted the S shuttle train that links Grand Central Terminal and Times Square — two of the city’s busiest stations.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority warned that there would still be “extensive delays” in the system, which serves more than 5 million people per day, even after service began to resume Friday night.
The agency blamed the suspension on a failure in the computer system that powers the signals on those lines. Spokesman Tim Minton said in an emailed statement that there is no indication the stoppage was related to a loss of power or to the heat.
The temperature above ground was still above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) when trains stopped at around 6 p.m. Friday, though meteorologists estimated that it felt like 100 degrees. Minton said it did not appear that trains lost power during the stoppage.
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7:23 AM 7/20/2019 – TRUMP AND TRUMPISM: “Send them to the Dark Corner”, tweeted James Comey. I agree, absolutely. And do this ASAP. The key word in Comey’s tweet is the “Mob”: loud, clear, and beyond the reasonable doubts.
And after completing this task, we will analyse, how this phenomenon was allowed to occur, and so spectacularly, despite the multiple warning signs. This is the real wake-up call. And this epic, historical fight: Civilization vs. The New Mob, is very real too. This is what is called the “cornerstone”. The accurate historical assessment is the must.
M.N.
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7:23 AM 7/20/2019 – TRUMP AND TRUMPISM – SITE REVIEW – Trump and Trumpism – Donald Trump and his political movement
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| realDonaldTrump on Twitter: You can add 10% or 15% to this number. Economy doing better than EVER before! twitter.com/realdonaldtrum… |
You can add 10% or 15% to this number. Economy doing better than EVER before! twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
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· · · · · · · · ·
Jewel Samad—AFP
Security Council says united front needed to identify and eliminate all such threats
The U.N. Security Council called on Friday for a better-coordinated “global response” to international terrorism and organized crime by working together to identify and eliminate such threats.
The council unanimously adopted the Peru-drafted resolution, which calls for increased cross-border collaboration in efforts to investigate and dismantle the links between terrorist groups and organized crime networks. The resolution asks states to “enhance coordination of efforts at all levels in order to strengthen a global response to linkages between international terrorism and organized crime, whether domestic or transnational.”
The nature and scope of such linkages could be better understood by combining research, the resolution explained, adding that states should “accelerate the timely exchange of relevant operational information and financial intelligence” regarding terrorist networks’ actions. Additionally, financial intelligence could help states better understand the “nature and scope” of potential links between terrorism and organized crime.
The resolution also called for states to “investigate, disrupt and dismantle organized crime networks” in accordance with national legislation regarding money laundering, corruption and bribery in addition to terrorism.
While speaking, Russia urged its allies in the Security Council not to politicize the question of links between organized crime and terrorism, though without specifying why. The country emphasized that the work must continue after the resolution’s first steps had been taken.
This is not the Council’s first attempt at cracking down on international terrorism. In March, it ordered countries worldwide to step up the fight against terrorism financing by ensuring they have laws that make it a serious crime to fund terrorist acts.
Read the whole story
· ·
“We have long had ugly margins in this country, but we are a fundamentally decent people, with shared values. We treasure our identity as a nation of immigrants,” Comey tweeted on Thursday afternoon. “With our voices and our 2020 votes, we must send Donald Trump and his mob back to their dark corner.”
Chants about deporting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) came as President Trump rattled off a laundry list of critical statements made by the far-left congresswoman during a campaign rally Wednesday in Greenville, North Carolina. He recalled her minimizing of the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks, mocking the threat from Al-Qaeda, and pushing leniency for a would-be ISIS recruit.
President Trump also blasted Omar’s fellow “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). “She described contemporary America as – that’s you, that’s me, that’s all of us– as ‘garbage,’” the president said of Ocasio-Cortez’s previous remarks about his supporters. “Remember ‘deplorables’? That sounds worse. I think that’s worse. But we’ll save it for whoever’s going to be the nominee.”
President Trump has been in a war of words with the “Squad” since challenging them over the weekend to leave the U.S. if they continue with their attacks on the country. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how,” he said of the freshman congresswomen Sunday.
Democrats expressed outrage over the remarks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) referring to them as “xenophobic.”
“Trump knows that when we stand together and fight for racial, social, economic and environmental justice, we have the power to defeat him. So the demagogue is doing what he knows best: Divide and conquer through hate,” 2020 White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said of the remark.
Fellow Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said of the comments that it was important to continue “calling out his racism, xenophobia, and misogyny is imperative.” She also claimed the president’s remarks show he’s “desperate” to shore up support ahead of the 2020 election.
On Thursday, President Trump disavowed the chants of “send her back,” telling reporters in the Oval Office that he was “not happy” about them.
“I felt a little bit badly about it, but I will say this: I did start speaking very quickly… I was not happy with it. I disagree with it, but, again, I didn’t say that; they did,” he said.
Read the whole story
· ·
NEW YORK (AP) — About a third of New York City's subway lines were suspended for more than an hour during a hot Friday evening commute, stranding some passengers underground and sending others searching for alternate ways home.
The stoppage affected the No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 trains that serve swaths of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. It also halted the S shuttle train that links Grand Central Terminal and Times Square — two of the city's busiest stations.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority warned that there would still be "extensive delays" in the system, which serves more than 5 million people per day, even after service began to resume Friday night.
The agency blamed the suspension on a failure in the computer system that powers the signals on those lines. Spokesman Tim Minton said in an emailed statement that there is no indication the stoppage was related to a loss of power or to the heat.
The temperature above ground was still above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) when trains stopped at around 6 p.m. Friday, though meteorologists estimated that it felt like 100 degrees. Minton said it did not appear that trains lost power during the stoppage.
The breakdown came as the city geared up for scorching temperatures throughout the weekend, but it generally did not result in chaos. Passengers were directed to other subway lines and the bus system — and many may have escaped the city early to get a start to the weekend.
At the World Trade Center No. 1 line station, a clerk issued refund tickets and directed people to other nearby lines. Passengers — many of them visitors to New York — seemed to take the developments in stride.
"It's about what I expected," said Derek Lloyd, who's from Hanover, Massachusetts, near Boston and its transit system. "I don't know that ours is much better," he said with a smile.
On a line that was running, passengers packed into one car that didn't appear to have air conditioning. Sweat glistened on riders' skin as they sought relief, fanning themselves and one another.
One woman noted, "This is dangerous."
It was the second time in the past week that New York subway riders got stuck underground. Last Saturday, a power outage that stretched across 30 Manhattan blocks from the Upper West Side to Times Square left passengers stranded till trains were manually moved into stations and doors opened. The outage was blamed on a system that failed to isolate a faulty distribution cable.
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In a piece published by Lawfare on Friday evening, former FBI director James Comey wrote more than a dozen questions he would ask former special counsel Robert Mueller at an upcoming congressional hearing.
Comey was fired by President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017, and the chain of events stemming from Comey's dismissal led to the appointment of Robert Mueller to investigate any coordination between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and potential obstruction of justice.
Roughly 22 months later, Mueller turned in his report. A redacted version was released on April 18, and Mueller made his only public remarks on the two-volume, 448-page report in late May.
Next week, Mueller will appear before two committees in the House of Representatives: The Judiciary Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Each lawmaker will have five minutes to question the former special counsel, and Comey has a few suggestions.
"If I were a member of Congress with five minutes to question Robert Mueller, I would ask short questions drawn from the report's executive summaries," Comey wrote in the only non-question sentence published.
Mueller previously stated that the report he turned into the Justice Department should be considered his testimony, and he will not expand beyond what is in the 448-page report.
Comey's questions are separated by volume, and they each correspond to a page in Mueller's report.
Some pinpoint specific details: "Did you find that, despite the fact that candidate Trump said he had 'nothing to do with Russia,' his organization had been pursuing a major Moscow project into the middle of the election year and that candidate Trump was regularly updated on developments? (vol 1, p. 5: vol 2, p. 19)," Comey asks at one point.
Some of his questions are broader, but answer big questions that the American public, many of whom didn't read the report, may want answers to: "Did you reach a judgment as to whether the president had committed obstruction of justice crimes?"
- "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion."
- "[W]hile the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges."
- "The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that 'the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions' in violation of the constitutional separation of powers.'"
- "[I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
Mueller will testify publicly on Wednesday, July 24, beginning at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
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The charges against financier Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking are of course one of the biggest stories in the country these days, and Israel and its friends have been an ongoing theme in the case.
Epstein, a 66-year-old former hedge fund manager, supported many Jewish causes and Zionist organizations, and was on the board of the Wexner Foundation, which is devoted to Israel. He had friendships with many Israel supporters, from Alan Dershowitz to Howard Rubenstein to Ehud Barak to Larry Summers. And there is speculation that Epstein, a mysterious international figure, had links to Israeli intelligence.
Dershowitz, Epstein’s former lawyer, says Israel is a factor in the case. Two days ago Dersh published an op-ed for Newsmax aimed at preempting the New Yorker’s anticipated expose of his role in the case(one of Epstein’s victims says that she was compelled to have sex with Dershowitz. He denies the charges, but he has admitted getting a massage at Epstein’s mansion.). Dershowitz says the New Yorker is trying to hurt Netanyahu.
Here is Dershowitz’s blockbuster lead:
I recently learned, from a source close to The New Yorker magazine, that its editor, David Remnick, has commissioned a hit piece against me for the explicit purpose of silencing my defense of President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the State of Israel. Remnick despises Trump and Netanyahu, and is well known for his strong anti-Israel bias. Remnick explicitly told people that I must be silenced because mine has been the most persuasive voice in favor of what Remnick feels pose dangers to values he holds dear, and that he will use the credibility of The New Yorker to accomplish this goal.
This doesn’t seem very plausible. Remnick can be very critical of Israel but he is a liberal Zionist. Connie Bruck is said to be the reporter on the case and though she has a pretty good track record (exposing Adelson) she is married to an Israel devotee, former Rep. Mel Levine.
Also, if Netanyahu is so hurt by the case, why is he pushing for an investigation of Epstein in the election campaign, so as to hurt his rival, Ehud Barak?
Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak, the former PM who is now trying to stage a comeback in Israel, has become an issue in the Israeli campaign, the New York Times reports. Epstein made what appear to be shadowy investments with Barak.
Ehud Barak, 77, a former prime minister and defense minister, received some $2.3 million in payments from [the Wexner] foundation associated with Mr. Epstein from 2004 to 2006, and Mr. Epstein invested a reported $1 million in a limited partnership established by Mr. Barak in 2015 . . .“I never took part in any party or event with women or anything like that,” Mr. Barak said, adding that in Mr. Epstein’s house he had met the heads of leading American universities, philanthropists, Nobel Prize winners, older women from academia, business and law, and political figures from the Clinton, Obama and Trump circles . . .Mr. Barak does not dispute having received some $2.3 million in three installments from the Wexner Foundation, an Ohio-based nonprofit, and its founder, Leslie H. Wexner, a retail mogul and a former close associate of Mr. Epstein’s and an investor in his financial company.Mr. Epstein was a trustee of the Wexner Foundation and one of its main donors.The payments were registered as compensation for research, but Mr. Barak has refused to divulge any details about the research, saying that doing so could harm his future business…Rabbi Elka Abrahamson, the president of the Wexner Foundation, which provides development training for Jewish volunteer leaders and Israeli public figures, has declined to say what the research payments were for.
One of Epstein’s investments in Barak, in 2015, would seem to have intelligence applications.
Israeli news media has reported that the investment was about $1 million. Mr. Barak’s company, Carbyne, formerly known as Reporty Homeland Security, specializes in emergency response geo-location and live video-streaming…
This brings up the intelligence angle. Federal investigators found an Austrian passport in Epstein’s NY mansion with a fake name and listing an address in Saudi Arabia that Epstein reportedly used to enter four countries, “France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia.”
The scandal at the heart of the new prosecution is that Epstein served only a year or so in jail on Florida solicitation charges in 2007-2008, even as his lawyers cut a non-prosecution plea deal from the feds on more serious charges. Dershowitz was a lawyer on that team. Former US attorney Alexander Acosta cut that deal, and resigned as Labor Secretary last week when it became an issue.
As the Daily Beast reports, Acosta said he went light on Epstein because of an intelligence connection.
He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about this.)
The speculation about Epstein’s connections includes the fact that he was associated closely with a woman who allegedly helped bring him girl victims, Ghislaine Maxwell, who (as this news aggregator notes), “is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, the media mogul who died under mysterious circumstances in 1991. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh alleged in his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy that Maxwell was tied to the Israeli Mossad. Hersh was sued for the allegation, but then received an apology.”
Gabe Sherman mentions Mossad in Vanity Fair:
One theory circulating among prominent Republicans is that Epstein was a Mossad agent. Another is that the George W. Bush White House directed Acosta not to prosecute Epstein to protect Prince Andrew on behalf of the British government, then the U.S.’s closest ally in the Iraq war.
In Epstein’s 2004-2005 address book (published by Gawker) Israel has a listing among several countries (including Switzerland, Italy, France, Kenya, and Brazil). The Israel file includes future-prime-minister Ehud Olmert.
Several Israel supporters are in that address book, including former Murdoch news exec Gary Ginsberg, who wrote speeches for Netanyahu and is on the board of the Genesis Foundation, which gives prizes to Israel’s friends. Also Ron Perelman, a financier and supporter of Israel.
The only thing we can be sure of in this case is that more names are likely to come out, and more speculation about how Epstein became such a wealthy international player when his financial chops were questionable to say the least.
Thanks to David Samel, Donald Johnson, and Adam Horowitz.
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The charges against financier Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking are of course one of the biggest stories in the country these days, and Israel and its ...
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Judge’s Order in Russian Troll Case Further Undermines Credibility of Mueller Report The Epoch Times
A federal judge in Washington issued an order in late May finding that special counsel Robert Mueller broke ...
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The life of Seth Rich, a 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer, ended nearly a year ago when he was shot to death near his house in Washington, DC. Then came the tragic and bizarre afterlife: Since July, Rich has been the focus of intense right-wing conspiracy theories that have only escalated as the Trump administration’s scandals have deepened.
As the police have repeatedly stated, there is no evidence that Rich’s death was anything other than the consequence of a botched robbery. But some people, especially on the right, believe Rich was murdered by the Clintons for knowing too much about something. The most recent theories claim that Rich, not the Russians, was responsible for leaking the emails, published in WikiLeaks, that revealed Democratic party leaders had talked disparagingly about Bernie Sanders.
Thanks to an erroneous Fox News story last week, which was finally retracted on Tuesday, Rich recently became the focus of an intense media blitz from conservative outlets — many of which were eager for something to talk about besides the scandals swirling around Donald Trump.
Fox News’s Sean Hannity was one of the most enthusiastic rumormongers, devoting segments on three separate occasions last week to Rich. Even after Fox News retracted its story, Hannity promised he would continue to investigate. “I retracted nothing,” he said defiantly on his radio show Tuesday.
Rich’s family has been begging right-wing news outlets to stop spreading unfounded rumors about him, but by now the situation seems to have gotten out of control.
In death, Rich has become a martyr to the right, buoyed by a host of characters each with their own ulterior motives: There is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who wants to downplay the connections between WikiLeaks and the Russians; there are the Clinton haters, who want to spread the idea that the Clintons are murderers; there are the Trump supporters, who want to minimize the idea that Russian hackers helped deliver the election to their candidate; and there are the talking heads on Fox News, who last week needed something other than negative Trump stories to make conversation about.
We might not know who killed Seth Rich, but we do know who turned his legacy into a textbook study of where fake news comes from, how it spreads, and the victims it creates.
Seth Rich was murdered in a senseless act of violence
Seth Rich worked in Democratic politics for most of his career. He grew up and went to college in Omaha, Nebraska, where as a student he volunteered on two Democratic Senate campaigns. After graduating, he moved to Washington, DC, for a job at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a progressive opinion research and consulting firm. He was later hired by the Democratic National Committee, where he worked on a project to help people find where to vote.
On Sunday, July 10, Rich was shot to death about a block from where he lived in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of DC. Gunshot detection microphones place the time of the shooting at around 4:20 am. Rich had last been seen at around 1:30 am leaving Lou’s City Bar in Columbia Heights, about a 40-minute walk from where he lived.
It is unclear exactly what happened during those three intervening hours. The Washington Post reported that, according to his parents, cellphone records show that Rich called his girlfriend at 2:05 am and talked to her for more than two hours. He hung up just minutes before he was shot.
The police found Rich on the sidewalk with multiple gunshot wounds, at least two in the back. He still had his watch, his cellphone, and his wallet. There were signs of a struggle: bruises on his hands, knees, and face, and a torn wristwatch strap. According to the police report, he was still “conscious and breathing.” Family members say they were told that Rich was “very talkative,” though it is not publicly known if he was able to describe his assailant or assailants. Rich died a few hours later in the hospital.
The police suspected Rich had been the victim of an attempted robbery. Bloomingdale is a gentrifying part of Washington that still suffers from violent crime. In 2016, there were 24 reported robberies with a gun that occurred within a quarter-mile of the street corner where Rich was shot.
The first conspiracy theories grew out of the “Clinton body count” rumor
Almost immediately after news of Rich’s death, conspiracy theories began circulating on social media. A few factors helped make Rich a target of speculation:
- The murderers left behind Rich’s valuables. (Though, by that same paranoid logic, wouldn’t a professional hitman have taken Rich’s wallet and phone in order to make it look like a regular mugging?)
- Rich worked at the DNC, where in December there had been a minor scandal involving a software glitch that allowed the Bernie Sanders campaign to access private voter data collected by the Clinton campaign.
- Hillary Clinton had just clinched the nomination after a surprisingly bruising primary, and there were still sore feelings in the air.
- There’s a long-running conspiracy theory that the Clintons have assassinated dozens of their political enemies.
If those facts don’t seem to add up to a coherent story, well, you’re thinking too hard. Conspiracy theories don’t operate logically. They start from an assumption — for instance, “the Clintons are shady” — and spiral outward in search of corroboration.
On Reddit, for instance, one user wrote a 1,400-word post listing things that he found “suspicious.” Here were some of the stray facts the redditor claimed were evidence of a hit job by the DNC or the Clintons:
- Rich’s former employer, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, once did some consulting work for British Petroleum. (“Is it possible that Mr. Rich was aware of the public's disdain for oil industry/fracking?”)
- Rich once worked on Ben Nelson’s campaign for senator. (“[Nelson] contributed a crucial vote to help pass Obamacare back in 2009.”)
- The political conventions were coming up. (“The TIMING of this tragedy seems too 'coincidental’”)
It’s unclear what any of these facts have to do with the Clintons, but somehow the Reddit user concluded: “given his position & timing in politics, I believe Seth Rich was murdered by corrupt politicians for knowing too much information on election fraud.”
Others on Twitter and the trolling website 4chan also speculated that Rich might have crossed the Clintons in some way. Rich’s death seemed to fit in with the “Clinton body count” theory, which dates to the 1990s and claims that the Clintons are so vindictive that they hire hitmen to murder people they don’t like.
People who believe the Clintons are murderers often point to deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, who suffered from clinical depression and died of a gunshot wound to the mouth in 1993. Several investigations all ruled Foster’s death a suicide, but some conservatives insisted there must have been foul play. They claimed that Foster, who was looking into the Clintons’ taxes, may have uncovered evidence of corruption in connection to the Whitewater controversy, a guilt-by-association scandal involving friends of the Clintons’.
The “Clinton body count” theory has endured over the years simply because people don’t live forever. Any time someone dies who was connected to the Clintons — and since Bill Clinton was the president of the United States, literally thousands of people were in his orbit — this theory is dredged up again by the tinfoil hat crowd. And then it slowly fades.
At first it seemed the speculation about Seth Rich would die down quickly as well. But then 12 days later, on July 22, WikiLeaks published thousands of private emails from the DNC, and Rich became a politically useful distraction.
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks supercharged the Seth Rich rumors
A month before Rich was murdered, the DNC admitted that Russian hackers had broken into its computer network, gaining access to all of the DNC’s emails. The thought of Russian interference in American politics was infuriating to Rich, according to one person “who was very close” to him, the Washington Post reported: “It was crazy. Especially for Seth. He said, ‘Oh, my God. We have a foreign entity trying to get involved in our elections?’ That made him so angry.”
When WikiLeaks released its dump of DNC emails on July 22, the obvious explanation was that it had obtained those emails from the Russian hackers. This connection was later confirmed by top US intelligence agencies, who concluded “with high confidence” that DNC servers were hacked by top Russian government hackers, who had then given the emails to WikiLeaks. “Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity,” the US intelligence report explained, as well as for its connection to the Russian propaganda outlet Russia Today.
But WikiLeaks has repeatedly denied its ties to Russia, and ever since last summer it has used Seth Rich as a way to distract from claims that it abetted Russian interference in the US election. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had his own reasons to fear a Clinton presidency — as secretary of state, Clinton wanted to indict Assange for his involvement in releasing the millions of US diplomatic cables leaked by Chelsea Manning.
On Dutch television in August 2016, Assange hinted that Rich, not Russia, may have been the source for the WikiLeaks emails. "Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material, and often very significant risks,” he said. “As a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington."
“Was he one of your sources then?” the anchor asked.
“We don’t comment on who our sources are,” Assange replied.
“Then why make the suggestion about a young guy being shot in the streets of Washington?” the anchor replied.
Pressed repeatedly for clarification, Assange concluded that “others, others have suggested that. We’re investigating to understand what happened in that situation with Seth Rich. I think it’s a concerning situation; there’s not a conclusion yet.”
As part of its “investigation,” WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 prize in August for information about Rich’s murder.
This is the point where Seth Rich became a prop in a game of international espionage.
Trump supporters and the alt-right amplified the theory that Rich was some kind of Democratic whistleblower or leaker, even though the facts didn’t really fit this pattern. He didn’t have access to the DNC emails, and he had never shown any prowess at hacking — being a data analyst involves a very different set of skills. Besides, the DNC wasn’t the only organization that was hacked: Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s personal emails, for instance, were stolen separately, as were the emails at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Nevertheless, many on the right were inspired by the WikiLeaks insinuations and started to concoct their own conspiracy theories about Rich’s murder. In August, former House speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told a conservative talk show host that Rich’s death was suspicious. “First of all, of course it’s worth talking about,” he said. “And if Assange says he is the source, Assange may know. That’s not complicated.”
That same month, Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed, without evidence, that Rich was murdered “on his way to meet with the FBI to discuss election fraud.”
To Trump supporters, the claim that Rich had been murdered by the Clintons had twofold appeal: It reinforced the rumor that the Clintons were shady operatives, and it distracted from the mounting evidence that Russia had interfered with the US election — possibly in collusion with the Trump campaign.
In the presidential debate on September 26, Trump famously suggested that it could have been a lone hacker who was responsible for the stolen DNC emails. "It could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds," he said.
Thanks to a weird miscommunication, the conspiracy theory comes back in May
After the election, the conspiracy theories about Seth Rich faded from public consciousness, as the focus turned instead to the FBI’s investigation of connections between Trump staffers and Russian agents. Suspicions still bubbled in right-wing corners of Reddit and on alt-right websites like Gateway Pundit, and Assange continued to claim that it wasn’t the Russians who provided the hacked emails — but most of America had moved on.
But Rich returned to the news last week, when the local TV station FOX 5 DC aired an interview with private investigator Rod Wheeler, who claimed that sources in the FBI told him there was evidence of a connection between Rich and WikiLeaks:
FOX 5 DC: You have sources at the FBI saying that there is information...WHEELER: For sure...FOX 5 DC: ...that could link Seth Rich to WikiLeaks?WHEELER: Absolutely. Yeah. That's confirmed.
Conservative media outlets jumped on the story, which aired the night of Monday, May 15. By Tuesday morning, conservative outlets like Breitbart, the Blaze, and the Daily Caller all had their own pieces relaying Wheeler’s claims.
On Tuesday, Fox News added its own revelation: It claimed that an unnamed “federal investigator” had confirmed that Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks. “I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and Wikileaks,” the source said, according to Fox News. Fox News additionally claimed this source had evidence that Rich had given thousands of DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
This was a two-source story: The report also said that Wheeler had independently corroborated what the anonymous “federal investigator” had told Fox News.
But here’s where it gets confusing. By Tuesday afternoon, Wheeler told CNN that he had misspoken. It turns out he didn’t have any evidence of his own.
What had happened, apparently, was that earlier in the week, Fox News had contacted Wheeler for its own story on Rich. That was when Wheeler learned that Fox News had a source alleging there was contact between Rich and WikiLeaks. When Wheeler went on local TV on Monday night to talk about Rich, he believed he was giving viewers a “preview” of the Fox News story set to run on Tuesday.
That, at least, is how Wheeler explained the situation to CNN last Tuesday. Somehow, through miscommunication or sloppy reporting, the Fox News report used Wheeler to back up its claims about the Rich-WikiLeaks connection. This was incorrect, Wheeler said. He had no independent knowledge.
"I only got that [information] from the reporter at Fox News," he told CNN.
Yesterday, after leaving it up for a week, Fox News finally retracted its Seth Rich story, which was down to one anonymous source. “The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting,” an editor’s note explained. “Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.”
Conservative media has a field day
It’s unlikely that any of this would have been a big deal had there not been a stunning series of damaging reports about Donald Trump last week.
Among other things, it was revealed that Trump had shared state secrets with the Russians, that he had pressured FBI Director James Comey to drop his investigation into ties between Trump affiliates and Russia, and that the Russia probe had reached a current high-level White House official, who many suspect is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
One way the conservative media minimized all the bad news was to focus on other stories. The latest Seth Rich allegations became a welcome distraction from the constant revelations coming out of the Washington Post and the New York Times.
For instance, while most outlets were covering the revelation that Trump had volunteered classified information to Russians, the alt-right website Breitbart devoted its front page to the Seth Rich conspiracy. Breitbart even slammed the mainstream media for ignoring the rumors about Rich: “Silence from Establishment Media over Seth Rich WikiLeaks Report” was the title of one story.
Fox News in particular devoted outsize attention to the Rich story, repeatedly rehashing the conspiracy theory. On his 10 pm show, Fox pundit Sean Hannity devoted segments to Rich on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday last week. “I'm not backing off asking questions even though there is an effort that nobody talk about Seth Rich,” he said on Friday night.
On Tuesday, even after Fox News retracted the story that ignited the latest round of speculation, Hannity remained convinced that the Seth Rich conspiracy theory had legs. “I am not <a href="http://Fox.com" rel="nofollow">Fox.com</a> or FoxNews.com,” he said on his radio show. “I retracted nothing.”
Later that evening, on his television show, Hannity said that for now, he would stop talking about Rich “out of respect for the family's wishes.” On Twitter, though, he was defiant, claiming that “liberal fascism” was trying to silence his voice.
“Ok TO BE CLEAR, I am closer to the TRUTH than ever,” he tweeted. “Not only am I not stopping, I am working harder.”
“Please retweet,” he added.
Rich was an unlucky victim of the conservative media
The recent attention has reignited the old Seth Rich conspiracy theories, bringing forth even more unsubstantiated claims.
On Fox News’s Sunday morning talk show, Newt Gingrich repeated his belief that Rich, not Russia, was responsible for the DNC hack. “It turns out, it wasn’t the Russians,” he said. “It was this young guy who, I suspect, was disgusted by the corruption of the Democratic National Committee.”
On Monday, Assange issued a cryptic tweet using the hashtag “#SethRich” which fanned the flames even further: “WikiLeaks has never disclosed a source. Sources sometimes talk to other parties but identities never emerge from WikiLeaks. #SethRich.”
And on Tuesday, New Zealand file-sharing entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, who is wanted by the US government for copyright infringement and racketeering, claimed that Rich had personally contacted him in 2014, and that the two had talked about “a number of topics including corruption and the influence of corporate money in politics.”
“I know that Seth Rich was involved in the DNC leak,” Dotcom wrote in a statement.
Rich’s family has repeatedly asked news outlets to stop publicizing these rumors. “Those theories, which some reporters have since retracted, are baseless, and they are unspeakably cruel,” Mary and Joel Rich wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on Tuesday evening.
“Imagine that instead, every call that comes in is a reporter asking what you think of a series of lies or conspiracies about the death,” they wrote. “That nightmare is what our family goes through every day.”
The Riches also pushed back on some of the rumors themselves, stating that the FBI had found no evidence of communication between their son and WikiLeaks, and that Seth had no access to any of the DNC emails that were leaked:
Despite these facts, our family’s nightmare persists. Seth’s death has been turned into a political football. Every day we wake up to new headlines, new lies, new factual errors, new people approaching us to take advantage of us and Seth’s legacy. It just won’t stop. The amount of pain and anguish this has caused us is unbearable. With every conspiratorial flare-up, we are forced to relive Seth’s murder and a small piece of us dies as more of Seth’s memory is torn away from us.
But to conspiracy theorists, the facts have never mattered. Fake news always has ulterior motives, and everybody who amplified the Seth Rich conspiracy theories had their own stake in keeping the lies alive.
Read the whole story
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Description
The murder of Seth Rich occurred on Sunday, July 10, 2016, at 4:20 a.m. in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Rich died from two gunshot wounds to the back. He was murdered by unknown perpetrators for unknown reasons, but police suspected he had been the victim of an attempted robbery. Wikipedia
Date: July 10, 2016
Coroner: Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Washington D.C
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