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NYT story on Manafort's Russia ties omits reporting on Clinton's Moscow speech

The New York Times published an extensive report Monday examining Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work for a pro-Russian party in Ukraine – but despite pointing to it as a “rising issue” in the presidential campaign, glossed over its own past reporting on the Clintons’ Russian connections.
The latest article detailed ledgers purportedly showing more than $12 million earmarked for Manafort by the pro-Russian party. According to the Times, investigators claim they were part of an illicit off-the-books operation, though Manafort denies ever getting such payments.
The Times noted that Manafort’s “involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine” has been reported before – but said American relationships there have emerged as a “rising issue” in the presidential campaign.
Yet the article focused on Trump and Manafort’s ties, without harkening back to another extensive Times report in April 2015 on, among other details, a $500,000 payment to Bill Clinton for a controversial Moscow speech.
The payment came from “a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting” the stock of a company called Uranium One, which reportedly was taken over by the Russians between 2009 and 2013 – and had donor links to the Clinton Foundation.
According to the Times’ own reporting, among other donations, the company’s chairman used his family foundation to direct $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department also was among the agencies to sign off on the Russian takeover of what had been a Canadian company.
The report on the dealings, which Fox News also reported on at the time, was based in part on the findings of Peter Schweizer, author of the anti-Clinton book “Clinton Cash.”
The Clinton campaign at the time pushed back on any suggestion that Hillary Clinton took action to support foundation donor interests, calling the idea “utterly baseless.”

Italian restaurant under fire for selling 'Black Olives Matter' merchandise

An Italian restaurant in New Mexico is under fire after making merchandise with a slogan that mimics the Black Lives Matters Movement.
KOAT-TV reported Monday that Paisano’s in Albuquerque is selling “black olives matter” shirts and hats after making national headlines for putting the phrase on a sign outside the restaurant.
Paisano’s owner Rick Camuglia said he emblazoned the phrase on the restaurant's main sign to sell a new recipe: a tuna dish with black olive tapenade.
Camuglia posted pictures of the dish and the sign on Facebook, drawing complaints he was being insensitive and trivializing a movement aimed at trying to stop police shootings of black residents.
Within hours of Paisano’s post, Camuglia told Fox News last month the page was flooded with negative comments and the restaurant was inundated with phone calls.
“People were calling us racist. Saying we were a white supremacist restaurant. Some got really derogatory and just started cursing me out.”
Camuglia insisted he was not trying to stir racial tensions and was only trying to sell food.
He said that people from all over the world has called his restaurant to show him support.
"It's gone so viral. We've gotten calls from Australia, Spain, France, you name it," Camuglia said.
He said that he put the slogan on hats and T-shirts because people who supported the restaurant wanted to by a souvenir of sorts from the restaurant.
Camuglia also told the station that business is booming.
"People have filled the restaurant and told us to leave up the sign," Camuglia said. "That's great, you know, because a lot of people make a living off working for this restaurant."

House Republicans detail perjury allegations against Clinton

House Republicans have detailed perjury allegations against Hillary Clinton, citing the apparent conflict between her 2015 congressional testimony about her email practices and the FBI's conclusions announced in July, according to a letter to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
"The four pieces of sworn testimony by Secretary Clinton described herein are incompatible with the FBI's findings,"  House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., wrote to US Attorney Channing D. Phillips. "We hope this information is helpful to your office's consideration of our referral."
The Justice Department Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs, Peter Kadzik, confirmed in an August 2 letter to both committees they had the perjury investigation request and the department would "take appropriate action as necessary."
The one-page response offered no timeline nor specific commitment to act on the allegations.
According to the Justice Department website, Kadzik, "led the successful effort to confirm Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates."  Both women were central players handling the Clinton email matter.
Chaffetz and Goodlatte, who have direct oversight for the FBI, wrote to the US Attorney that Clinton testified under oath before the Benghazi Select Committee, where she also took questions about her email practices from Republican congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio.

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"Secretary Clinton stated 'there was nothing marked classified on my emails, either sent or received," the letter states. However,  FBI Director James Comey said July 5 that a "very small number of the emails containing classified information bore the markings indicating the presence of classified information."  At least three emails had a (C) for Confidential which is the lowest level of classification. Fox News first reported in June that classified markings existed, despite Clinton's public claims.
The letter continued, "Contrary to her sworn testimony, Secretary Clinton's lawyers did not read each email in her personal account to identify all the work related messages."
Clinton told Jordan that her team "went through every single email." The FBI Director said his investigators found that Clinton's lawyers did not read all the emails, and relied on a narrow set of search terms to identify which emails were work-related.
"The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all her e-emails," Comey said July 5. Instead, they "relied on header information and used search terms."
Clinton also testified to Congress there was only one server.
But the FBI Director said investigators found "Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department and used numerous mobile devices to review and send e-mail on that personal domain."
The congressmen emphasized that while Clinton told Congress, and the public, she turned over all her work-related emails, the FBI found otherwise. 
"I provided you, with all my work related emails, all that I had.  Approximately 55,000 pages. And they are being publicly released," Clinton testified.  But FBI investigators found "several thousand work related emails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014."
In the course of its investigation, the FBI recovered most but not all of the deleted records. The search included  “the laborious review of the millions of email fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decomissioned in 2013."
A retired assistant FBI director, and 28-year-veteran of the bureau, said a perjury review is generally straightforward for agents.
"They look at the transcript of the testimony they provided in light of what they know to be, suspect to be the truth. They investigate both sides and take the aggregate and turn it over to the prosecuting authority for a decision,"  Steven Pomerantz said.
"Since the Director (Comey) already established what she (Clinton) said and the investigation is complete, it would be a relatively simple matter to make a decision about perjury... given the history of this, it's hard to say - it would seem to me a matter of weeks not months in this case."
A violation of 18 USC 1621 can lead to a fine, imprisonment up to five years, or both though legal experts said the crux of the case will rely on showing intent.
When Comey testified July 7, Clinton's campaign said some of his statements vindicated the candidate's public statements.
 “In his testimony today, Comey has reconciled most every apparent contradiction between his remarks Tuesday and Clinton's public statements,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said on Twitter.

GOP concerned after polling trends signal Trump's coattails could harm congressional candidates

McConnell needs to Retire?

While Donald Trump is making Republican Party elders nervous amid concerns over his lack of discipline and grassroots infrastructure, another major problem may be brewing -- as polling trends signal the potential damage the campaign could do to Republican congressional candidates and GOP control of Congress.
"Just about everybody has recognized that the Republican Party is deeply divided, and really, it's in a mess," said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "And I think Donald Trump would agree because he's not getting the kind of support that he thinks he deserves."
Sabato cited a range of races where a Trump coattail effect could make a difference.
"Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa) is very vulnerable, Sabato said.  “Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is less vulnerable; he's doing better than others but he's still nervous about it.  Senator Mark Kirk (R-Il)...  it's hard for anybody to see how he wins."
Sabato also counted among the vulnerable: Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in Florida, Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and John McCain (R-Az).  And he added this ominous warning: "There could be others popping up on the screen."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell touched on the issue last week when he told a Louisville, Ky. civic group, "What we're looking for here is a candidate who settles down and follows the script and makes the election about Hillary Clinton."

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But it's not just tepid support from party elders  frustrated with Trump's lack of discipline that's raising concern.  It's the Trump campaign's poor grass roots organization, as well as Trump's reliance on social media  at the expense of paid  TV ads.
Swing states that he must win are not polling well in his favor.  A Marist NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll late last week  showed Trump behind Clinton by 5 percent in Florida,  by 9 percent in North Carolina, by 13 percent in Virginia and by 14 percent in Colorado.
One GOP pollster sees a threshold for a down ballot disaster in key swing states. "If he's losing by 4 or 5 points, even 6 points, we can make up that difference," said Ed Goeas. "It's when it starts inching up towards 8, 9, 10 percent difference that you can't make up the difference."
Sabato agreed. "If you're in a competitive race, you're going down. You're not going to be able to survive a 10 percent margin."
Still, Trump continues to pull in big crowds and Nov. 8 remains a long way off. Unpredictable events can change the race. "If he's at the top of his bandwith and she's at the bottom, he can win this election,"  Goeas said.
But that's contingent on Trump doing something that he's not been able to do yet - stay on message in attacking Clinton.  The good news for Trump is that she ranks second to last in favorability of any presidential candidate in history. The bad news for Trump - he ranks dead last in the same category.