Tag: UKRAINE

Justice Department ends investigation of Tony Podesta, Vin Weber without charges

Image: Tony Podesta

By Tom Winter and Adiel Kaplan

Federal prosecutors have ended an investigation into Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta and former Republican Congressman Vin Weber in a case connected to lobbying for Ukraine and Paul Manafort without filing criminal charges, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell NBC News.

The investigation by the Southern District of New York, which focused on whether several prominent Washington lobbyists violated foreign lobbying rules, grew out of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s inquiry into the finances of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is now serving a 7.5 year sentence in federal prison.

Manafort had organized a public relations campaign for a non-profit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, which promoted Ukraine’s image in the West from 2012 to 2014. Podesta’s Democratic-leaning lobbying firm, the Podesta Group, was one of many firms that worked on the campaign, including Weber’s firm, Mercury Public Affairs.

NBC News was the first to report in 2017 that Podesta and his firm had been ensnared in Mueller’s probe because of their work on the campaign.

Podesta is the chairman of the Podesta Group and the brother of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton‘s former presidential campaign chairman. John Podesta has not been affiliated with the Podesta Group since the 1990s and was not a subject of the investigation.

Both firms were being investigated for possibly failing to file Foreign Agents Registration Act reports for their work with the ECMU and on behalf of Ukraine, NBC News has previously reported.

According to an October 2017 indictment, the two lobbying firms were paid $2 million from offshore accounts controlled by Manafort for their work on the campaign.

In a statement to NBC News, Vin Weber’s attorney said they had been notified the investigation was over.

“As we have previously stated, at all times Mr. Weber acted in good faith and in keeping with the legal advice his company received from its outside counsel,” Weber’s attorney Robert Trout said.

“We are obviously pleased by this development,” Trout added.

Podesta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

The dropping of the investigation comes on the heels of the not guilty verdict in the trial of former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig, another case that Mueller’s office had passed to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

In that case, the New York attorneys decided not to prosecute, sources said, and the case was ultimately brought by federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., only to result in an acquittal for Craig.

Several people briefed on the Podesta and Weber probe told NBC News they thought that the investigation into the two lobbyists had a better chance of succeeding than the probe into Craig, but in the end the legal hurdles would’ve been too high.

0

RNC Calls on Joe Biden to Follow President Trump’s Example and Release Transcripts of Calls to Ukraine Pertaining to His Money Laundering Scheme

By Jim Hoft

Earlier today President Trump announced he would release the full, unredacted transcript of his phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from July.

President Trump“I am currently at the United Nations representing our Country, but have authorized the release tomorrow of the complete, fully declassified and unredacted transcript of my phone conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine. You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call. No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo! This is nothing more than a continuation of the Greatest and most Destructive Witch Hunt of all time!” Trump said in a pair of tweets Tuesday afternoon.

CAP

This afternoon the RNC called on Joe Biden to release the transcripts of his calls to Ukraine pertaining to the money laundering scheme to his son Hunter Biden.

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel released the following statement in response to Joe Biden’s baseless call for impeachment:

“First it was the Russia hoax. Now it’s the Ukraine hoax.”

“Once again, Joe Biden has shown he is just as extreme as the rest of the 2020 Democrats who are desperate to bring President Trump down. Instead of backing a baseless impeachment effort, Biden should be answering for the only scandal that exists: Why a corrupt Ukrainian company paid his son $50,000 a month to lobby the Obama-Biden administration, and why Biden threatened the Ukrainians if they failed to fire a prosecutor investigating the company.”

“Now that the President has authorized the release of the transcript of his call with President Zelensky, we call on Biden to release the transcripts of his calls as Vice President with Ukrainian and Chinese leaders while his son was conducting shady business deals in those countries.”

0

Report: Pelosi to Announce Impeachment Inquiry Against Trump

CAP

By Joshua Caplan

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday will announce a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump in the wake of his interest in the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in Ukraine, according to a Washington Post report.

The expected announcement comes as more than two-thirds of House Democrats now say they support impeachment in light of President Trump confirming that he suggested Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky probe Hunter Biden during a congratulatory telephone call in July. Pelosi will reportedly announce the new inquiry after the Democratic caucus’ meeting at 4:00 p.m. EST.

Earlier Tuesday, President Trump said he ordered White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to withhold tens of millions of dollars in military aid from Ukraine a week before he telephoned Kiev’s leader.

See the source image

Before making his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City Tuesday, the president told reporters he gave the order because he felt other allied nations weren’t providing enough.

“As far as withholding funds, those funds were paid,” President Trump said. “They were fully paid.”

“I want other countries to put up money. I think it’s unfair that we put up the money,” he added. “Then other people call me. They said, ‘Oh, let it go.’ And I let it go. But we paid the money, the money was paid.”

While still at the United Nations, President Trump later announced that he would release the full transcript of his phone call with Zelensky.

“I am currently at the United Nations representing our Country, but have authorized the release tomorrow of the complete, fully declassified and unredacted transcript of my phone conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine,” the president tweeted.

“You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call. No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo! This is nothing more than a continuation of the Greatest and most Destructive Witch Hunt of all time!” he added.

CAP

Though numerous congressional Democrats are now demanding an impeachment inquiry to be opened due to the Trump-Zelensky call, it remains unclear if the president broke the law by asking for an inquiry to be made into the Biden family. Further, the alleged “whistleblower” who reportedly claims to possess knowledge of the president pressuring Zelensky, did not hear the pair’s conversation first hand.

As Breitbart News reported earlier this year, Biden forced out former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin as he was investigating an energy company called Burisma Holdings, which was paying Biden handsomely as a member of its board. The former vice president even boasted to the Council of Foreign Relations last year that he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless the prosecutor was fired. (He did not tell the audience about his son’s role.) Conservatives claim Biden obstructed justice to protect his son — who enriched himself using his father’s prestige.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham hit out at reports regarding Pelosi’s expected announcement, saying in a statement “the Democrats continue to weaponize politics when they should be working on behalf of their constituents, which is nothing new.”

“President Trump is working hard on behalf of our country here in NYC while they continue to scream the word impeachment. Nothing new here,” added Grisham.

The UPI contributed to this report.

0

Deep State Bumbler Accidentally Exposes Himself Spreading Conspiracies about Russia Over 8Chan

A FBI spook disseminated falsehoods accusing Russians for being behind an anti-Semitic shooting.

By Shane Trejo

The federal government recently unsealed the application for a search warrant that has revealed by accident that a federal official was spreading conspiracy theories about Russia on the 8chan message board.

The case relates to John Earnest, a white nationalist who allegedly posted an anti-Semitic manifesto and a series of threats on the site before going on a terrorist rampage at a California synagogue.

For the affidavit to the search warrant application, FBI Special Agent Michael J. Rod wanted all “IP address and metadata information about Earnest’s original posting and the postings of all of the individuals who responded to the subject posting and/or commented about it. Additionally, agents seek information about any other posting coming from the IP address used by Earnest to post the subject posting.”

Rod’s request displayed several screen caps from the day when the terrorist attack took place. It is unclear whether or not the shooter posted in that particular string of posts, but an “Anonymous” poster is marked as “(You).” This indicates “Anonymous” was the deep state spook spreading disinformation in these interactions.

Rod, in yet another showing of FBI incompetence, exposed himself as posting on 8chan with the user ID of “8f4812.” The thread was saved on archive.is, and Rod was shown spreading conspiracy theories demonizing Russia in multiple posts.

He suggested without evidence that Russia was involved in Earnest’s anti-Semitic rampage:

Guys. Read my posts. I believe that thw ahooter did post on here but there is also more. Ive been here all day. There are at least two others that are posting in a bot, shilllike fashion to promote this. This theead never would have made the first page, where I found it this morning.
think there is outside involvement. Likely Russian.
In the posts not attributed the man himself, these two not only hyped this thread in an awkward way, they continued an odd pattern of posts to keep this thread alive. Look at the parallel language and style. pol does not talk like that.
Look at the memes chosen in these posts. Not even a fucking clown.
While I believe John may have been motivated by hia own beliefs and reasons, I believe that there are other forces at work here that may have provoked him.
The original link leads to a Tarrants Lads group In russian.
He may have been rightfully upset with the way the world is, but he may have been manipulated into this by something that is not.
I’d blame Mossad, the CIA and FBI too, but this time I am not so sure. We know all three of them can meme because we are shilled all day long by them.
He chose a crappy pistol. Anyone would have planned a litte more thoroughly. If BT is a hero to him as he describes, he would have learned from this mistakes, or at a minimun made an effort to emulate him and do the same. To walk in there completey unprepared with a single pistol sends off even more red flags,
This is very unusual. This is not the typical (((conspiracy))) and I am worried. I dont believe this is the end of this.
I hope some one else takes it upon themselves to investigate what I posted above as well.

He doubled-down on his conspiracies, which were ultimately rejected by a poster on 8chan as being “extremely fake.”

This was posted by one of the shills that
knew of the shooting prior. Notice screen shot is at 20:00. That correlates with ukraine and western russia if you do the math

Seriosuly, one of you has to dig on this. Please review this thread. There is some russian/ukranian involvement.

Current Events Inquiry points out that the FBI has been caught in seedy campaigns before, such as in 2015 when an FBI agent texted Muslim extremist Elton Simpsonto “tear up Texas”before he attempted a massacre at a Draw Muhammad event in Garland, Texas or in the 1960s when the FBI made paramilitary thug Howard Berry Godfrey their informant as he committed acts of terror and violence.

The fact that the FBI is online agitating and lying about Russia should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller has brought incredible shame to the rule of law before finally coming to an end in March.

Screen Shot 2019-06-21 at 10.10.34 AM

President Trump needs to drain the swamp at the FBI before the disgraced agency sows more discord and damages the credibility of the U.S. intelligence community even further.

 

0

Russia Hoax 4-Eva: House Intel Committee Subpoenas Michael Flynn

Screen Shot 2019-06-13 at 10.39.07 AM

By Joshua Caplan

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday subpoenaed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and former Trump Deputy Campaign Manager Rick Gates for documents and testimony.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the panel’s chairman, claims the pair have been uncooperative in Congress’s “oversight” investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“As part of our oversight work, the House Intelligence Committee is continuing to examine the deep counterintelligence concerns raised in Special Counsel Mueller’s report, and that requires speaking directly with the fact witnesses,” Schiff said in a statement. “Both Michael Flynn and Rick Gates were critical witnesses for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, but so far have refused to cooperate fully with Congress.”

The California Democrat continued: “That’s simply unacceptable. The American people, and the Congress, deserve to hear directly from these two critical witnesses. We hope these witnesses come to recognize their cooperation as being with the United States, not merely the Department of Justice.”

Flynn and Gates are to turn over documents to the committee by June 26th and sit for an interview, under oath, on July 10th, the subpoena states.

Flynn admitted to making false statements to the FBI regarding conversations he shared with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2017, while Gates pleaded guilty to false statements and conspiracy charges related to political consulting efforts he and onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort undertook for Ukraine. The trio was charged as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into now-debunked collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

The development comes a day after Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor, hired seasoned lawyer Sidney Powell as his new counsel as he awaits sentencing.

The former Assistant U.S. Attorney is an outspoken critic of the Mueller probe and has called Andrew Weissmann, often referred to as the special counsel’s “pit bull,” the “poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct.”

The move came after court filings revealed last week that Flynn terminated his lawyers Stephen Anthony and Robert Kelner of Covington & Burling LLP, as his counsel.

President Trump praised Powell’s hiring on social media Thursday morning, calling her a “great lawyer.”

“General Michael Flynn, the 33 year war hero who has served with distinction, has not retained a good lawyer, he has retained a GREAT LAWYER, Sidney Powell. Best Wishes and Good Luck to them both!” the president tweeted.

 

0

Impeccable record, good with email: Why shouldn’t Hillary Clinton give speech on cyber security?

CAP

She’s only just learnt that you can use separate emails for work and home, but Hillary Clinton is to deliver a keynote address at the Cyber Defense Summit. RT looks at the expertise offered by the ex-presidential candidate.

CAP

She might make grandma jokes about “wiping” her server with a cloth, but as RT’s Igor Zhdanov notes, there are few people in the world so adept at deleting information, that is potentially of state importance, off a server that even the FBI had no clue about.

And she would have managed to keep multi-million-dollar-earning Wall Street speeches a secret from the world, if it were not for the dastardly Wikileaks. So, there is a cautionary tale she can tell there.

And for the encore Clinton could explain how she cracked the Kremlin’s plan to meddle in the 2016 election and swing the result to Donald Trump, and then infiltrated the media to present her as a somewhat sore loser.

https://www.rt.com/usa/460978-clinton-cyber-security-email/

0

Should HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ have had more actors of color? Twitter suggestion met with ridicule

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.24.59 AM

HBO’s hit new series based on the Chernobyl tragedy has divided opinion online, but the oddest reaction yet has come from a budding UK actor wondering why the show’s creators had not chosen more people of color for the cast.

While the docudrama has come under criticism for various historical inaccuracies, until now, the lack of racial diversity among the actors was not one of those criticisms — for the simple reason that 1980s Ukraine was not exactly a thriving hub of modern-day multiculturalism.

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.26.22 AM

That should have been no reason to leave black and brown actors out though, according to actress Karla Marie Sweet, who tweeted that there are “so many great actors of colour” in the UK who “would’ve been amazing” in the series. Sweet felt “disappointed” to see “yet another hit show with a massive cast” that “makes it looks like PoC don’t exist.”

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.27.15 AM

Just to clear up any confusion, the show “makes it look” like that to reflect the reality of the time and place — and the producers seem to have been at least trying to create an authentic vibe.

Needless to say, Sweet’s tweet didn’t exactly go down well on Twitter, where she was promptly told to “learn history.”

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.28.16 AM

“You didn’t see PoC because they’re not there!”

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.29.08 AM

One user said perhaps the actors were chosen for the same reason that Martin Luther King should probably not be played by a white person — because he was black.

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.30.08 AM

Another said he was taking a screenshot of the thread because “nobody will believe” something so stupid could have been posted.

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.31.00 AM

To be fair, Sweet did at least acknowledge the lack of people of color in the USSR in another tweet, but suggested that since the actors spoke with British accents (it was a British production), the creators should have just thrown accuracy completely out the window and hired a more diverse-looking cast. Emotions like fear, panic and sadness can be “communicated just as effectively” by people of color, she added, missing the point entirely.

‘Chernobyl’ is a blast of a TV series – but don’t call it ‘authentic’

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.32.15 AM

Having actors of another race would “break immersion” for the viewers, another user tried to explain — but ultimately, Sweet didn’t seem open to criticism, later tweeting about the reactions she had received from “racist Twitter.”

Screen Shot 2019-06-03 at 10.34.10 AM

0

Brennan: I’m Still Waiting For Republican Rats To Realize The Trump Ship Is Sinking

By Tim Hains

Former CIA Director John Brennan warned Republicans who support President Trump that they are on a sinking ship, in an appearance Wednesday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” 

“I’m waiting for the Republicans to realize that the Trump ship is a sinking one,” he said.

“There are still rats on that ship, and there are individuals who are not going to separate themselves from Trump. They do so at their own peril. They need to fulfill their obligations, irrespective of their political affiliations. This is now the presidency and institutions of government we rely on to keep us safe and secure.”

MIKE BARNICLE: Last week, there was another continued swipe ordered by the president of the United States, who whatever he says is a megaphone and resonates throughout the country because of the way it is carried, in which he basically said that people like you and several other people in the intelligence community were responsible for trying to participate in a coup, to undermine the presidency of the United States and to remove the president of the United States. What does it do — nevermind to you personally — what does it do to institutions like the NSA, the CIA, the FBI.

JOHN BRENNAN: It continues to show Mr. Trump’s disdain for the intelligence and law enforcement communities, who are trying to do their jobs irrespective of political winds that might be blowing in Washington. It really is demoralizing for Mr. Trump to continue to say there is this “deep state” that tried to launch a coup, and that he is trying to “clean the swamp,” while in fact, it is those professionals within the intelligence community, law enforcement community, who are trying to carry out their duties and responsibilities to the American people. Mr. Trump just continues to go down this road. I think it is having a very damaging impact.

WILLIE GEIST: What do you think, Director Brennan, happens from here? I think people watching want to know. They say, okay, Mueller didn’t like how the report was characterized by the attorney general. Fine, on the issue of obstruction of justice. Now, what? Is it Mueller sitting before the Senate and answering specific questions about what is inside the report? What is the outcome of this?

JOHN BRENNAN: Barr has to be interrogated.

WILLIE GEIST: That starts this morning at 10:00.

JOHN BRENNAN: And then Bob Mueller has to get in front of Congress, then Congress has to do its job.

And I’m still waiting for the Republicans to realize that the Trump ship is a sinking one. There are still rats on that ship, and there are individuals who are not going to separate themselves from Trump. But they do so at their own peril. And they need to fulfill their obligations, irrespective of their political affiliations. And to do it now rather than to allow this continued sinking of not just the presidency, but of these institutions of government that we rely on to keep us safe and secure.

0

Pulling a Comey: How Mueller dog-whistled Democrats into impeachment of Trump

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.17.19 AM

Robert Mueller is special counsel no more, but he fired a parting shot during his televised statement that has sent Democrats into a frenzy of calls for impeaching President Donald Trump, whether by accident or by design.

At a remarkable press conference on Wednesday – at which he refused to take questions – Mueller sank the theory that Attorney General William Barr somehow misinterpreted his report, and sent a clear message to House Democrats eager to have him testify about the probe that “the report is my testimony.”

‘Case closed!’ Trump tweets nothing’s changed as resigned Mueller says charging him wasn’t an option

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.19.39 AM

Despite years of work, millions of dollars and near-unlimited powers, Mueller’s special prosecutors found zero evidence of collusion or conspiracy – and absent that underlying crime, no grounds to charge the US president with obstruction of justice, even as they wrote up 240 pages of tortured reasoning as to why they wanted to. Case closed, conspiracies put to bed, lots of people with egg on their face, time for the republic to move on, right?

Wrong!

Did you honestly expect people who have gone all in on a conspiracy theory about Russia somehow “stealing” the election from Hillary Clinton – investing not just the past three years, but their entire political and media capital into it – to give up just because there isn’t a grain of truth in it? Instead, they latched onto Mueller’s carefully weasel-worded declaration:

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.20.15 AM

That was no mere misstep, either. Mueller followed that line up with a passage about how his office did not make a determination whether Trump committed a crime because the standing policy of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Not their fault, you see, they had no choice.

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.20.57 AM

Except they did, and they had the avenue to make their claim – but chose not to, knowing that Barr would shoot it down, because he disagreed with their interpretation of obstruction laws long before he became AG. But those are details known to lawyers and honest legal analysts, not the propagandists and conspiracy-peddlers who have spent years whipping the American public into a hysteria not seen since the 1950s.

Mueller’s was a weasel statement, worthy of former FBI boss and his personal friend James Comey – who actually admitted to Congress that he hoped to force the appointment of a special counsel by leaking the memos of his meetings with Trump to the press.

It also seems to have been a dog-whistle to Democrats, who have been arguing ever since the Mueller report was published that it totally proved obstruction of justice and gave them the pretext for impeachment. A variety of party luminaries, such as House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-New York), presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) and firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), now doubled down on the claim.

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.21.55 AM

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.22.43 AM

What happens next is anybody’s guess: Democrats may hope enough Republicans will break ranks to successfully impeach and convict Trump, though that’s no more likely to succeed than any of the schemes to overturn the 2016 election result so far. Or they might hope that impeachment proceedings will mobilize their voters for 2020. Either way, the opposition party and the media aligned with it are determined to keep flogging the dead horse of Russiagate, hoping it will deliver them victory.

Those who believe Mueller’s mission was to “get Trump” will no doubt be happy with the former special counsel’s last move. But Americans who hoped he would clear the air clogged by endless conspiracy theories have every right to feel disappointed.

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.23.35 AM

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑