On Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) confirmed that congressional Democrats may seek to subpoena the impending full report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in the event newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr chooses to redact or otherwise only partially release the much-anticipated document.
“The public will feel rightly that there is a coverup” if details are withheld, [Blumenthal] told CNN Thursday.
Blumenthal, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he hopes the Republican-led panel would be among the congressional committees that seek to compel the release of any details that aren’t forthcoming. The subpoenas could seek the full report or even Mueller himself. “A Senate or House committee can subpoena anyone,” he said.
As Bloomberg notes, Mueller is expected to submit his report’s final prosecutorial decisions to Barr as early as next week. Barr, as Attorney General, then retains ultimate discretion as to how to act (or not) upon the report’s conclusions and recommendations.
As Roll Call notes, Barr has been noncommittal as to whether he would permit Mueller to testify before Congress, as well as whether he would resist a hypothetical subpoena for Mueller’s report.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, echoed Barr’s comments last month. As CNN reported, at the time, Nadler told Anderson Cooper at the time: “If necessary, our committee will subpoena the report. If necessary, we’ll get Mueller to testify. The American people need the information here.”
As The Daily Wire reported earlier today, CNN appears to be actively attempting to lower its viewers’ expectations as to what to expect from the Mueller report’s impending release:
Asked by “New Day” host Alisyn Camerota Wednesday if he believed the Mueller investigation would find “enough” to take down Trump, former National Intelligence Director and rabid anti-Trump CNN analyst James Clapper attempted to temper the audience’s expectations.
“That’s the big question,” Clapper said. …”I think the hope is that the Mueller investigation will clear the air on this issue once and for all. I’m really not sure it will, and the investigation, when completed, could turn out to be quite anti-climactic and not draw a conclusion about that.”
The Mueller investigation has been dominating news cycles for much of the past week, due in no small part to the firestorm caused by fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s remarkable “60 Minutes” interview with Scott Pelley, in which McCabe claims that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had openly discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment after President Trump’s firing of then-FBI Director James Comey. Last week, The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti reported:
The New York Times reports that McCabe claims “top Justice Department officials were so alarmed by President Trump’s decision in May 2017 to fire James B. Comey, the bureau’s director,” that they reached out to individual Cabinet members to judge their receptiveness to triggering the removal clause of the 25th Amendment, which allows the Cabinet to “vote out” a president who is incapacitated or otherwise unable to fulfill the duties of his job.
McCabe also claims that Comey’s firing “prompted Mr. McCabe to order the bureau’s team investigating Russia’s election interference to expand their scope to also investigate whether Mr. Trump had obstructed justice.”
For some inexplicable reason, February 2019 has turned into the month where blackface photos in college yearbooks come back to haunt people. Just weeks after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam‘s blackface controversy, reports surfaced that USA Today Editor-in-Chief Nicole Carroll actually edited the 1988-89 Arizona State University yearbook that featured two images of people dressed in blackface.
According to The Wrap, Carroll published a lengthy apology on Thursday for her role in editing the images in the yearbook, which featured two people at a Halloween party dressed as Mike Tyson and Robin Givens. She denounced the images as “horrible” while apologizing for any “hurt” she may have caused.
“The 1988-89 yearbook I edited at Arizona State University included a photo of two people at a Halloween party dressed as Mike Tyson and Robin Givens. It is horrible, and of course the photo should not have been published,” wrote Carroll. “I am sorry for the hurt I caused back then and the hurt it will cause today.”
Carroll said she had no memory of the photo and learned of its existence as part of a “USA Today Network review of yearbooks” from that era.
“The image was discovered as part of a USA Today Network review of yearbooks from that time. I was shocked as I had no memory of that photo,” she continued. “I want to apologize publicly. As journalists, we must hold ourselves accountable as we do others, and it is important to call myself out for this poor judgment.”
As noted by The Wrap, Caroll’s blackface controversy adds to the litany of blackface controversies that have erupted throughout Black History Month, which has embroiled the likes of “The View” co-host Joy Behar and high profile fashion brands.
“Brands like GucciandBurberryhave been forced to apologize for racially insensitive clothing designs,” notes The Wrap. “A Katy Perryshoe designwas also yanked. ‘The View’co-host Joy Beharcame in for heat after an old photo of her dressed as a ‘beautiful African woman’ began making the rounds.”
There can be no debate about whether or not such images are racist and hurtful. They are.
It was recently brought to my attention that I was involved in publishing such a photo when I was in college.
The 1988-89 yearbook I edited at Arizona State University included a photo of two people at a Halloween party dressed as Mike Tyson and Robin Givens. It is horrible, and of course the photo should not have been published.
I am sorry for the hurt I caused back then and the hurt it will cause today.
Clearly the 21-year-old me who oversaw the book and that page didn’t understand how offensive the photo was. I wish I had.
Today’s 51-year-old me of course understands and is crushed by this mistake.
I want to apologize publicly. As journalists, we must hold ourselves accountable as we do others, and it is important to call myself out for this poor judgment.
Also, I want to continue to grow from this.
As a journalist and editor, I have long championed diversity and inclusion in our newsroom and in our news coverage. I initiated USA TODAY’s current diversity committee. In Arizona, before I arrived at USA TODAY, our newsroom held frequent meetings with diverse communities, asking them to critique our work and help us do better. They always did.
Throughout my career, I’ve had, and will continue to have, newsroom conversations about how we can further educate ourselves and our readers about race, history and prejudice, as well as the serious issues facing women, the LGBTQ community and all marginalized groups.
And we’ll keep talking about how we are doing in recruiting and retaining journalists of color. We cannot cover America if we do not reflect America.
CNN host Don Lemon ran defense for Jussie Smollett on his show last night, claiming that it’s not the actor’s “fault” that he lost in the court of public opinion.
Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi announced that Smollett was “under arrest and in custody of detectives” this morning. His bail hearing is set for 1:30pm local time.
Smollett launched a media firestorm at the end of last month when he claimed he was assaulted by two individuals who shouted “this is MAGA country” and had a noose placed around his neck.
However, evidence soon emerged clearly suggesting Smollett had paid two Nigerian brothers who worked on the show Empire with him to stage the attack.
Despite some on the left deleting old tweets that signaled vehement support for Smollett and with others keen to avoid talking about the issue altogether, Don Lemon appeared to double down by absolving Smollett of blame.
During a segment on his show last night, the CNN host said Smollett had “lost the fight in the court of public opinion”.
“He lost that because of how – not his fault – maybe people were – I don’t know what they were saying to him, maybe because of his representatives, who knows – but it was handled poorly,” said Lemon.
CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson pushed back, commenting, “I don’t know if it’s not his fault, Don.”
“You think it’s his fault, you think he was doing what he wanted?” asked Lemon.
If the allegations are proven true, quite how anyone but Smollett himself is to blame for staging a hate crime which according to some could have kicked off racial violence in America is somewhat baffling.
Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Smollett’s lawyers say they will “mount an aggressive defense,” with the actor potentially facing jail time.
The reporter was banned without explanation after reporting on PayPal’s morally ambiguous enforcement decisions.
PayPal banned Big League Politics reporter Luke Rohlfing from its platform mere months after he exposed the online payment processor’s funding of an illegal immigration group that has provided services to those that encourage illegal immigration.
Rohlfing says he did not use his PayPal account to receive donations, receive payments, or otherwise conduct business as a reporter, but simply used it to expedite payments and increase security on various websites. Still, PayPal said in its email to Rohlfing notifying him of his account’s termination that the decision was based on his “activities” and relating to his “usage of PayPal services.”
The email also instructed him to remove all mention of PayPal as a payment processor from his website, even though Rohlfing has no website.
As Rohlfing continued to press her for information, the representative identified only as Elaine responded “For more details regarding the WHY [sic] of this action that PayPal took regarding your account, you may submit a subpoena to our corporate address.”
Rohlfing has already begun communicating with a lawyer, and says he plans to pursue legal action against PayPal.
This action comes only months after Rohlfing exposed PayPal for allowing an organization that openly encourages and provides material support to migrant caravans seeking to enter the United States illegally to use its platform.
In the past month, President Donald Trump has been faced with the challenge of dealing with a caravan of illegal immigrants storming the border. The caravan, mostly coming from Central America, is being organized by a group called Pueblo Sin Fronteras, translated to “People Without Borders.”
While there is no surefire way to track the exact funding of the group, it clearly has support with at least good media coverage from media outlets with ties to George Soros. But it is clear who is facilitating the transactions from supporters, and that is PayPal.
Big League Politics informed PayPal about the group hosting a link to a PayPal account accepting donations to support the caravans.
PayPal promised to contact Rohlfing via email to discuss their decision to allow a group that advocates breaking the law to exist on its platform, but never did. Instead, Rohlfing was summarily banned from the payment processor months later.
Speaking to his compatriots at Big League Politics, Rohlfing explained that in his view, “PayPal is demonstrating yet again that they are left-wing authoritarians with an axe to grind,” expanding that, “First they banned users from purchasing legal firearms, and now they are shutting down anyone who reports news they don’t like.”
“Make Peter Thiel in charge of PayPal again,” Rohlfing concluded.
Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller’s confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans.
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The preparations are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost two-year investigation.
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The precise timing of the announcement is subject to change.
The scope and contours of what Barr will send to Congress remain unclear. Also unclear is how long it will take Justice officials to prepare what will be submitted to lawmakers.
But with President Donald Trump soon to travel overseas for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Justice officials are mindful of not interfering with the White House’s diplomatic efforts, which could impact the timing.
The Justice Department and the special counsel’s office declined to comment.
Barr has said that he wants to be as “transparent” as possible with Congress and the public, “consistent with the rules and the law.”
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Under the special counsel regulations, Mueller must submit a “confidential” report to the attorney general at the conclusion of his work, but the rules don’t require it to be shared with Congress, or by extension, the public. And, as Barr has made clear, the Justice Department generally guards against publicizing “derogatory” information about uncharged individuals.
As a result, one of the most pressing questions Barr will face in the coming weeks is the extent to which Mueller’s findings should be disclosed to Congress.
The regulations require Mueller to explain in his report all decisions to prosecute or not prosecute matters under scrutiny. Barr would also need to inform Congress if the Justice Department prevented the special counsel team from pursuing any investigative steps.
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Trump said Wednesday that it’s “totally up to Bill Barr” as to whether Mueller’s report comes out while he is overseas in Vietnam next week.
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“That’ll be totally up to the new attorney general. He’s a tremendous man, a tremendous person, who really respects this country and respects the Justice Department, so that’ll be totally up to him,” Trump told reporters in the White House.
Speculation about the end of the probe has been running rampant in Washington. NBC News reported recently the probe would be done by mid-February.
Life after Mueller
While the Mueller investigation may soon come to a close, there continue to be court cases that will be handled by other federal prosecutors.
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In addition, Mueller has referred certain matters that fell outside the scope of the Russia probe to other US Attorneys to pursue. Some of those investigations have already been revealed, including the investigation in New York into former Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen. That probe has spawned subsequent federal investigations in New York into the Trump Organization and the Trump Inaugural Committee. It is possible the special counsel’s team has referred other matters that have not yet come to light.
For close watchers of the federal courthouse and the Mueller team, small changes have added up in recent weeks.
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On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, special counsel’s office employees carried boxes and pushed a cart full of files out of their office — an unusual move that could foreshadow a hand-off of legal work.
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At the same time, the Mueller prosecutors’ wo
-rkload appears to be dwindling. Four of Mueller’s 17 prosecutors have ended their tenures with the office, with most returning to other roles in the Justice Department.
And the grand jury that Mueller’s prosecutors used to return indictments of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and several Russians hasn’t apparently convened since January 24 the day it approved the criminal charges against Stone.
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Even with these signs of a wrap up, the DC US Attorney’s office has stepped in to work on cases that may continue longer than Mueller is the special counsel.
That office has joined onto some of the Mueller’s team’s casework, including the cases against Stone, a Russian social media propaganda conspiracy, and in an ongoing foreign government-owned company’s fight against a grand jury subpoena.
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Mueller and his prosecutors are still reporting to work as frequently as ever — with some even coming in on recent snow days and Presidents’ Day. But also visiting them more often than ever before are the prosecutors from the DC US Attorney’s Office and others in the Justice Department who’ve worked on the Mueller cases.
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In one court case, against Concord Management for its alleged support for the social media conspiracy prosecutors told a judge in January there’s still a related “matter occurring before the grand jury.”
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In other cases, including Manafort’s, the Mueller team has made heavy redactions to its recent public court filings, including to protect pending investigations and people who haven’t been charged with crimes.
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used a political action committee (PAC) to funnel campaign funds back to her boyfriend, according to reports.
Republican strategist Luke Thompson first made known on Twitter last week that Ocasio-Cortez’s boyfriend Riley Roberts had a house.gov email address and was designated as one of her “Staff,” therefore “drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime.”
The revelation was met with fierce opposition by Ocasio-Cortez and her Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarti, who accused Thompson of “doxxing” Roberts despite the information being publicly available, and failed to explain why Roberts would need such access.
“Per the House Admin office, a family member can, in special circumstances, get a house.gov email address,” Thompson reported Wednesday.
“But Roberts is not a family member, and although AOC referred to him as her partner in November of last year, she omitted him from her mandatory candidate financial disclosures for 2017 and 2018. Perhaps they’ve gotten married since. If so — if he is her spouse now — we should see his finances disclosed along with hers in her 2019 disclosure form due in May. But to be clear, AOC did not disclose Roberts’s finances as a spouse during her campaign.”
As Chakrabarti noted, Roberts also isn’t an unpaid volunteer and “isn’t doing any government work.”
Additionally, instead of producing the appropriate evidence to refute Thompson’s claims, the mainstream media attempted to provide cover for Ocasio-Cortez using their own talking points.
“Instead of asking if Roberts had been supplied with the badge and pin appropriate to a Congressional spouse, evidence of which her office should have been able to produce easily, AOC’s worshipful stenographers in the press went into overdrive witlessly repeating her talking-points,” Thompson wrote.
Former chairman of the House Oversight Committee Jason Chaffetz said Friday that such an arrangement was “inappropriate.”
“It’s totally naïve and inappropriate – you wouldn’t allow it in most companies, let alone the House of Representatives. There should be real consequences,” he told Fox News.
“When I was in the House, my scheduler would forward my wife my schedule once a week. But you’re not allowed unfettered access. And he isn’t even her spouse…It should be referred to the ethics committee for further investigation,” he added.
It gets deeper: Chakrabarti co-founded a PAC called Brand New Congress LLC in 2017, which Ocasio-Cortez paid for “strategic consulting” for her campaign.
Brand New Congress LLC then hired Roberts as a “marketing consultant” for AOC’s campaign, paying him approximately $6,000.
“Why would Chakrabarti, a founding engineer at Stripe and a wealthy veteran of Silicon Valley, be hiring a no-name ‘UX Experience’ guy with little discernible marketing experience to serve as Brand New Congress PAC’s sole marketing consultant?” Thompson asked.
“The answer seems to be that Chakrabarti was funneling money paid to him by AOC’s campaign back to Roberts and by extension to AOC,” Thompson wrote.
In effect, Chakrabarti likely reimbursed AOC through Brand New Congress LLC to mitigate her campaign’s mounting debt, he says.
“Regardless of whether or not Roberts was officially AOC’s spouse at that time, it seems probable Chakrabarti was reimbursing her for her campaign expenses off-books. Brand New Congress PAC simply served as a pass-through to do so,” Thompson continued.
After Ocasio-Cortez won in the 2018 midterms, she then hired Chakrabarti as her Chief of Staff.
“That’s definitely unethical and potentially illegal,” Thompson wrote. “Chakrabarti may have made an illegal campaign contribution in excess of federal limits. Regardless, it raises questions about Chakrabarti’s hiring as AOC’s Chief of Staff after her election.”
A shocking aspect of this is that the mainstream media failed to uncover (or simply ignored) any of this information despite the fact it was publicly available for scrutiny.
For now, it appears AOC is adjusting to the swamp just fine.
Scandal-prone former sitcom star Roseanne Barr let loose against leftist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her ‘green new deal’ with a torrent of obscenities that would impress Gordon Ramsay.
In a video uploaded last weekend entitled “Bug eyed b***hes”, the actress showcased her signature no-holds barred approach to politics. The 2-minute video is a dizzying jaunt between a variety of hot button issues including the environment, immigration and Israel.
While unable to recall Ocasio-Cortez’s name, Barr had a lot of opinions to share about the “Farrakhan loving b***h” who “looks like a realtor”and her “green new deal” in particular.
In between insults and vulgarity, Roseanne criticized the freshman congresswoman’s plan to counter climate change, claiming it would put hundreds of people out of work and “decimate communities.”
Barr then declared that such an outcome was a natural result of “socialism,” calling the economic system a “fake f***ing con”and “ponzi scheme.” Ocasio-Cortez is a proponent of ‘democratic socialism’ like presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.
Roseanne also offered her outlook on immigration, claiming Democrats were motivated to bring in foreigners because “no Americans are going to vote for their ass anymore.”
The star’s indelicate mode of expression has backfired several times throughout her career. Barr even had a reboot of her signature sitcom pulled by ABC after she posted a racist tweet about former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett.
A 2016 DOJ criminal investigation was suppressed and buried by the DOJ/FBI that involved a major NY Democratic power broker, Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.
The investigation revolved around the illegal sale of controlled US Homeland Security technology to Russia and China in the years before the 2016 election.
The DOJ terminated its internal investigation despite clear and irrefutable evidence of criminal activity and hid it from the public!
The Gateway Pundit will expose this scandal in a series of posts this week.
Today is our initial report on this egregious scandal and coverup.
This story begins with the Clintons and their Clinton Foundation. It includes Russia and China, and ends with another FBI/DOJ cover-up of Clinton crimes. The FBI did such a good job covering this up, that it has not been reported – until today.
This story started before the 2016 Presidential election. In and around 2007, Martin L. Edelman a New York attorney with Paul Hastings LLP, a Bill and Hillary Clinton close friend, and one of their largest donor bundlers met Mati Kochavi, who reportedly made his fortune in NYC real estate market. They came up with the idea of forming a group of companies and purchasing other companies that would develop and sell Homeland Security and intelligence solutions in the US and world-wide.
Edelman (below) became the Chairman of the Board and Kochavi the CEO of their company named AGT International.
AGT International – the firm that the Clintons helped create did all it could to generate revenues, even if it meant flagrantly breaking US law. In 2014, AGT described itself on its website as the following:
Today’s world has more devices and sources of information than ever before, but are they truly interconnected? AGT International is revolutionizing public safety and security by connecting previously unlinked devices and data, making relevant information accessible and actionable for decision-makers and citizens alike.
We use our deep domain expertise to collect, analyze and identify the most relevant data; and our solutions provide enhanced visibility to empower people, governments and businesses to predict, visualize and manage cities and other complex environments.
Since its launch in 2007, AGT ($1B annual revenues) has been a pioneer, making the world safer by leading the integration of devices and new information sources. In the last five years we have connected a greater variety of sensors than anyone else in our industry while successfully delivering some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated public safety and security projects.
AGT International leverages three of the most compelling current technology trends to revolutionize public safety and security: the Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics and Cloud Computing. Our advanced proprietary software powers cloud-based knowledge solutions that make connected sensors and data accessible and delivers services that aid complex problem solving.
AGT is privately held with headquarters in Switzerland. The company is proud of its diversity: more than 50 nationalities are represented among its 2,400 employees.
AGT’s International Management Team –
AGT International incurred massive growth and went from $0 to over $8 billion in contracts and $1 billion in revenues in about 5 years. The Clintons were compensated for their support and endorsement by Kochavi and Edelman through payments to the Clinton Foundation. These payments totaled millions of dollars.
AGT Statistics from company presentations –
AGT Introduction – slide detailing company offering and experience –
In 2016 at the time when there was a DOJ investigation into AGT and its illegal actions related to selling its highly sensitive defense and Homeland Security products to Russia and China, AGT updated its website and purged some references to the sensitive nature of its products. The company also shutdown most of its operations in the US.
Edelman and Kochavi were both involved in the business. For example, an AGT Management Meeting that includes executives from all of its business units, included Martin Edelman from Paul Hastings at the top of the list –
AGT’s flagship platform was called “Wisdom” and “Urban Shield”. The C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) system and some of the other derivatives technologies were ITAR regulated.
Former President Bill Clinton endorsed AGT CEO Kochavi through public appearances and by using himself and Hillary to help the venture with political clout and support in the US. For example, in July 2012 President Clinton joined Kochavi and Maria Bartiromo on Wall Street Journal Review promoting Kochavi’s business venture –
Emails released by WikiLeaks show the significance of the relationship between Edelman and Kochavi and the Clintons. In an email dated November 18, 2011, describing the various donors to the Clinton Foundation there is a paragraph describing their relationships –
Mati Kochavi President Clinton recently turned down a 2 year, $8 million offer to become Honorary Chairman of Mati Kochavi’s new media business venture. Mati is a former client of Teneo who we were referred to through Marty Edelman. I went back to Mati and proposed a new structure without any business connectivity other than 4 speeches for $1 million and $250k to the foundation should President Clinton choose to accept it. That would also include any broadcasting of foundation events or anything President Clinton would like exposure for on his website. This offer will be presented to President Clinton in Walker speech invitations which he can choose to decline or accept with no role or relationship with the company.
The email lists over $50 million in donations to the Clintons in return for personal work and lists $66 million more in expected future donations from various sources, including Edelman and Kochavi.
In another email released by WikiLeaks, Edelman sent an email to Hillary Clinton and shared the message that a Middle East Shiek was coming to Washington, D.C. –
Sheikh Muhammid apparently coming 1st week in may. List of visits includes secstate, sectreas. Just heard. Marty
The Sheikh most likely referred to by Edelman, is Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan from the Abu Dhabi Royal family. It’s suspected that the Sheikh provided capital through the Mubadala investment Company to Edelman and Kochavi to start up their AGT venture. Not surprisingly, the Clinton Foundation also received millions in donations from related entities in the Middle East –
Former US President Bill Clinton has been paid $5.625 million since 2011 by Dubai’s GEMS Education to lead the company’s charity arm, according to tax returns released in the US this month [August 2015].
Many Americans are aware of the stories of corruption surrounding the Clinton Foundation since the 2016 election. The Foundation received millions in return for the sale of a significant portion of US uranium to the Russians. Democrat Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton denied any wrong doing during the 2016 debates and even spoke of the Clinton Foundation as a superb philanthropic venture.
Future President Donald Trump disagreed with Hillary and stated that the Foundation was a fraud – the people of Haiti, for example, whom the Clintons had ‘helped’, didn’t want the Clintons back –
Hillary denied “pay to play” involving the Clinton Foundation where the Clintons would demand donations to their ‘Foundation’ and in return promise to perform agreed upon actions for these payments. Hillary was not honest.
The Clintons took in millions from Edelman, Kochavi and Sheikhs in the Middle East. In return the Clintons made promises and performed actions for a price. Unfortunately, the actions taken by the Clintons and the companies and individuals who donated to them were often illegal.
In our next post we’ll discuss these actions that the family of companies known as AGT International took in order to build their business worldwide.
In a third post we’ll discuss how the FBI/DOJ got involved but then suppressed and eventually terminated their investigation shortly before the 2016 Presidential election.
Tom's Blog 