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As Gulf states cut ties with Qatar, Trump team debates Muslim Brotherhood terror designation

There’s a battle inside the Trump administration over what to do about the Muslim Brotherhood, the group at the center of Monday’s pivotal decision by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to cut ties with Qatar over allegations it supports terrorism, experts familiar with the situation say.
The debate reaches deep inside Washington politics, where Qatar has poured money in recent years, deepening a rift in American policy circles over what to do about the Muslim Brotherhood. The immensely influential group has long been considered a supporter of terrorism by several key American allies including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The camps inside the White House, according to sources, break down to two groups: On one side is a political group led by Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and the other side is led by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Generals McMaster and Mattis are said to be concerned about America’s deep military commitment to Qatar, where the U.S. operates a key airbase; Bannon is said to want to push for an official designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Arab nations cut ties with Qatar in new Mideast crisis
When asked if the U.S. is considering changing its position, a State Department official told Fox News: “The Muslim Brotherhood is not a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
The sources say there was a high-level White House meeting between the two factions about two months ago, and the Bannon team gave way amid significant pushback. And it wasn’t just from the national security team.
“The real pushback was in the public. Several dozen analysts writing pieces online how this would destroy our diplomatic relations and diminish American influence around the world,” said Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, “they argued it would look Islamophobic.”
For example, the prestigious Brookings Institute, which considers itself non-partisan, said “there is not a single American expert on the Muslim Brotherhood who supports designating them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
Shadi Hamid, a Brookings Senior Fellow, wrote on the Institute’s website that most Islamists belong to “mainstream Muslim groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Hamas denies Qatar to expel leaders, but says some to move
“Mainstream Islamist groups accept the nation-state and work within the structures of the nation-state,” he wrote. “These groups are not stoking revolution or orchestrating terrorist attacks.”
Experts who have had close ties to Bannon worry that such analysis is getting through to the president.
“There is now a real danger that President Donald Trump, who came to office promising a very different approach to the whole phenomenon of what he called radical Islamic terrorism at the time, and is now calling Islamist extremism, is being subjected to some of the same seduction that the Brothers were able to engage in during past presidents,” said Frank Gaffney of the right-leaning Center for Security Policy.
Gaffney argued that such influence is suspect because Brookings, like some other big Washington think-tanks, has taken millions in funding from Qatar, the country accused of supporting terrorism by many of its neighbors. Qatar gave Brookings a $14.8 million, four-year donation in 2013, and has helped fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world.
“I think at best they are useful idiots when it comes to what the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to do,” Gaffney told Fox News, “at worst they are absolutely on board with it.”
Schanzer could not speak specifically about Brookings, but “what I can say is that Qatar spends a lot of money to make sure their perspective is heard in Washington.”
He says that’s problematic “because at the very least certain aspects of the discussion are being omitted because of a patron-client relationship.”
Those aspects of the discussion involve a growing belief among prominent former officials that at least some factions of the Brotherhood deserve greater scrutiny than the U.S. has subjected the group to in recent years.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served six presidents, including President Obama, recently told Fox News that the terrorist group Hamas is a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is generally regarded as the ideological forerunner of both al-Qaeda and ISIS,” Gates said. “It seems to me, by and large, if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, maybe it's a duck.”
Gaffney goes even further, “I think what we’re dealing with is not terrorism anymore. What the Brits are facing is an actual Islamic insurgency.”
But the Brotherhood is not a “homogeneous” organization, said Schanzer.
“The Brotherhood in Tunisia is a political, non-violent organization and the Prime Minister of Morocco is in a Muslim Brotherhood arm,” he said, “On the other hand you’ve got two violent factions in Egypt and the Brotherhood in Yemen has long standing ties to Al Qaeda. These are the kinds of differences that a treasury designation process could highlight.”
That’s why Gates cautions the Trump administration to get more information before an official declaration of the Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“I'm not sure we've investigated potential financial channeling from using Muslim Brotherhood resources and their networks to channel money to terrorist groups,” Gates said, “And I think if that's not already being done, that's a potential lucrative intelligence target.”
Schanzer agrees. He told Fox News there is a possible compromise solution.
“Task Treasury to research the various factions of the Brotherhood to determine which are supporting terrorism,” he said, “let the intelligence do the talking, and potentially lower the political temperature.”

Trump rips DOJ for 'watered down' travel ban, seeks swift court hearing

President Trump called out the Justice Department on Monday morning for pushing a “watered down” version of his controversial travel ban executive order, while also urging the DOJ to seek an expedited hearing in front of the Supreme Court to begin the ban's enforcement.
Trump’s travel ban – placing temporary restrictions on travel from several Muslim-majority countries – has been blocked by the courts since Trump signed the original executive order in January. He signed a revised travel ban in March, and that also was blocked from implementation by judges.
“People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” Trump wrote in the first of four tweets. “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C. The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court - & seek much tougher version!”
“In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!”
A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment on Trump's tweets.
Trump’s tweets come in the wake of Saturday’s deadly London attacks, and an increasing string of Islamist assaults around the globe.
Both versions of the Trump travel ban prompted nationwide protests and fierce Democratic opposition. The ban's themselves were "watered down" versions of Trump's campaign proposal of a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

NSA contractor accused of leaking top secret report on Russian hacking efforts

Reality Leigh Winner IDIOT

A federal contractor was arrested over the weekend and accused of leaking a classified report containing "Top Secret level" information on Russian hacking efforts during the 2016 presidential election.
Reality Leigh Winner, 25, appeared in U.S. District Court in Augusta, Ga., to face one charge of removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet, the Justice Department said Monday.
Winner's arrest was announced shortly after the Intercept website published a story detailing how Russian hackers attacked at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent so-called "spear-phishing" emails to more than 100 local election officials at the end of October or beginning of November.
The Justice Department did not specify that Winner was being charged in connection with the Intercept's report. However, the site noted that the National Security Agency (NSA) report cited in its story was dated May 5 of this year. An affidavit supporting Winner's arrest also said that the report was dated "on or about" May 5.
The Intercept contacted the NSA and the national intelligence director's office about the document and both agencies asked that it not be published. U.S. intelligence officials then asked The Intercept to redact certain sections. The Intercept said some material was withheld at U.S. intelligence agencies' request because it wasn't "clearly in the public interest."
The report said Russian military intelligence "executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016 evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions, according to information that became available in April 2017."
The hackers are believed to have then used data from that operation to create a new email account to launch a spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations, the document said. "Lastly, the actors send test emails to two non-existent accounts ostensibly associated with absentee balloting, presumably with the purpose of creating those accounts to mimic legitimate services."

The document did not name any state.

The information in the leaked document seems to go further than the U.S. intelligence agencies' January assessment of the hacking that occurred.
The Washington Examiner reported that Winner worked for Pluribus International Corporation and was assigned to a U.S. government facility in Georgia. She had held a top-secret classified security clearance since being hired this past February. The affidavit sworn by FBI agent Justin Garrick said that she had previously served in the Air Force and held a top-secret security clearance.
Late Monday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange tweeted his support for Winner.inner's attorney, Titus Thomas Nichols, declined to confirm whether she is accused of leaking the NSA report received by The Intercept. He also declined to name the federal agency for which Winner worked.
"My client has no (criminal) history, so it's not as if she has a pattern of having done anything like this before," Nichols told the Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. "She is a very good person. All this craziness has happened all of a sudden."
Garrick said in his affidavit that the government was notified of the leaked report by the news outlet that received it. He said the agency that housed the report determined only six employees had made physical copies. Winner was one of them. Garrick said investigators found Winner had exchanged email with the news outlet using her work computer.
Garrick's affidavit said he interviewed Winner at her home Saturday and she "admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue" and mailing it to the news outlet.
Asked if Winner had confessed, Nichols said, "If there is a confession, the government has not shown it to me."
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, praised the arrest in an appearance on Fox News' "The Story with Martha MacCallum."
"When you have classified information, you cannot put that out there just because you think it would be a good idea," Chaffetz said. "I want people in handcuffs and I want to see people behind bars."
Chaffetz also criticized federal agencies for failing to protect sensitive information after a series of high-profile leaks.
"They have hundreds of thousands of people that have security clearances," Chaffetz said. "There are supposed to be safeguards in there ... But how many times do we have to see this story happen? They obviously don’t have the safeguards."

President Trump Announces Initiative for Air Traffic Control Reform

President Trump spoke in the East Room of the White House on Monday to kick off a plan for air traffic control reform.
Under the President’s new plan, the air traffic control system would be privatized and run by a non-governmental, non-profit corporation.
A similar plan has been adopted by more than 60 countries around the globe, including Canada.
The Trump administration’s initiative comes after a $7 billion dollar modernization plan by the Obama administration.
“They didn’t know what the hell they were doing,” President Trump said.
The new proposal by President Trump will now go to Capitol Hill where lawmakers will work towards a bill that could ultimately be passed and signed into law.