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President Trump Blasts Tom Steyer After Impeachment Ad Campaign

Tom Steyer

October 27, 2017

OAN Newsroom

President Trump is blasting hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, after he launched a national campaign calling for the President’s Impeachment.
In a tweet early Friday morning, the President called Steyer unhinged, adding the billionaire has been fighting his administration’s agenda from the beginning.
Steyer’s advertisement began running on multiple media outlets last week, urging viewers to call their members of congress to bring articles of impeachment.

Conservative website The Free Beacon funded initial Fusion GPS Trump opposition effort

Paul Singer 

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, was the first to hire the firm that conducted opposition research on Donald J. Trump — including a salacious dossier describing ties between Mr. Trump and the Russian government — website representatives told the House Intelligence Committee on Friday.

According to people briefed on the conversation, the website hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in October 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.

In April 2016, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee also retained Fusion GPS to research any possible connections between Mr. Trump, his businesses, his campaign team and Russia. Working for them, Fusion GPS retained a respected former British spy named Christopher Steele.He went on to produce a series of memos that alleged a broad conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the 2016 election on behalf of Mr. Trump. The memos, which became known as the “Steele dossier,” also contained unsubstantiated accounts of encounters between Mr. Trump and Russian prostitutes, as well as real estate deals that were intended as bribes.

The Free Beacon is funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, according to an associate of Mr. Singer. The associate said Mr. Singer, a leading Republican donor, was not aware of the dossier or Mr. Steele’s involvement until January, when BuzzFeed published the dossier.

The Free Beacon has a history of employing so-called opposition research firms to assist in news articles critical of targets ranging from Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton.

The opposition research project that ultimately produced the controversial Trump-Russia dossier was initially backed by the conservative Washington Free Beacon website, it was revealed late Friday.

Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti and chairman Michael Goldfarb said in a statement that the publication had retained Fusion GPS to "provide research on multiple candidates in the [2016] Republican presidential primary," as well as Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Continetti and Goldfarb denied that the Free Beacon "had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele," the former British spy who compiled the now-infamous file. The dossier, which was published by BuzzFeed in January, contained unverified and lurid allegations about dirt the Russians had on then-candidate Donald Trump and his campaign’s possible connections to Moscow.
Free Beacon's connection with Fusion GPS was first reported by the Washington Examiner. According to the Examiner's report, lawyers for the Free Beacon told the House Intelligence Committee that the website funded the research between the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2016.
At some point after that, Fusion GPS was retained by Mark Elias, an attorney representing the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. Fusion GPS hired Steele after the Free Beacon left the project.
Committee spokesman Jack Langer told Fox News that the Free Beacon "has issued a statement asserting that it had no involvement with Christopher Steele or the dossier he compiled from Russian sources. The Beacon has agreed to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee to help the Committee verify this assertion."
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid more than $9 million to Elias’ firm, Perkins Coie, which, in turn, retained the political consultants who commissioned the research.
But it’s unclear how much of that $9 million went toward the dossier. And it’s unclear who exactly at the Clinton campaign and DNC might have known how it was being spent.
In their statement, Continetti and Goldfarb denied having any knowledge "of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign."
"We stand by our reporting, and we do not apologize for our methods," they added. "We consider it our duty to report verifiable information, not falsehoods or slander, and we believe that commitment has been well demonstrated by the quality of the journalism that we produce."
The Washington Free Beacon was initially founded as a project of the conservative nonprofit group Center for American Freedom, as an alternative to liberal news sites run by progressive nonprofits.
The Center for American Freedom was organized as a 501(c)4 and did not reveal its donors, but a person close to Goldfarb said Singer was an early backer of the project. Later, the Free Beacon was spun-off into a for-profit website.

Goldfarb was deputy communications director on John McCain's presidential campaign.

Singer has been a major player in Republican politics in recent years and maintains ties to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and several powerful Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan.
A representative to Singer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Singer was backing Rubio's presidential bid at the time of the Free Beacon's involvement. Rubio's team insisted this week that they had no knowledge of the dossier. Singer's close associate Dan Senor also served as Speaker Ryan's chief adviser during the 2012 president campaign.

Mattis: US will not accept a nuclear North Korea

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a stern warning to North Korea on Saturday: Despite its ongoing missile and nuclear programs, it is simply no match for the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

“Make no mistake,” Mattis said during a news conference in Seoul, “any attack on the United States or our allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons by the North will be met with a massive military response that is effective and overwhelming.”

During the joint appearance with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, Mattis acknowledged that the threat of a nuclear missile attack by North Korea was accelerating.
The CIA says North Korea could be just months away from being capable of hitting the U.S. with a nuclear strike, Reuters reported.
Mattis accused the regime of Kim Jong Un of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs -- and vowed to defeat any attack.
He said the North engages in "outlaw" behavior and that the U.S. would never accept a nuclear North. He added that regardless of what the North might try, it is overmatched by the firepower and cohesiveness of the decades-old U.S.-South Korean alliance.
“North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors and the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear weapons programs," Mattis said, adding that U.S.-South Korean military and diplomatic collaboration thus has taken on "a new urgency."
“I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States would accept North Korea as a nuclear power," he said.

"I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States would accept North Korea as a nuclear power."

- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis

As he emphasized throughout his weeklong Asia trip – which comes ahead of President Donald Trump’s own scheduled tour of East Asia next week -- Mattis said diplomacy remains the preferred way to deal with the North.
Mattis's comments in Seoul did not go beyond his recent statements of concern about North Korea, although he appeared to inject a stronger note about the urgency of resolving the crisis.
While he accused the North of "outlaw" behavior, he did not mention that President Donald Trump has ratcheted up his own rhetoric. In August, Trump warned the North not to make any more threats against the United States, and said that if it did, it would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Limits would be lifted
Song, the South Korean minister, told the news conference that he and Mattis agreed that limits on South Korea conventional missile warhead payloads would be lifted. He offered no specifics.
Also discussed were the conditions under which South Korea would be given wartime operational control of its forces. Currently, if war with the North broke out, the South's forces would operate under the U.S.-led U.N. Command.
Trump entered office declaring his commitment to solving the North Korea problem, asserting that he would succeed where his predecessors had failed. His administration has sought to increase pressure on Pyongyang through U.N. Security Council sanctions and other diplomatic efforts, but the North hasn't budged from its goal of building a full-fledged nuclear arsenal, including missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland.
If Trump sticks to his pledge to stop the North from being able to threaten the U.S. with a nuclear attack, something will have to give - either a negotiated tempering of the North's ambitions or a U.S. acceptance of the North as a nuclear power.
The other alternative would be U.S. military action to attempt to neutralize or eliminate the North's nuclear assets - a move fraught with risk for South Korea, Japan and the United States.
At his Seoul news conference, Mattis said the North is, in effect, shooting itself in the foot.
“If it remains on its current path of ballistic missiles and atomic bombs, it will be counterproductive, in effect reducing its security," he said.

The North says it needs nuclear weapons to counter what it believes is a U.S. effort to strangle its economy and overthrow the Kim government.
Second visit to region
This was Mattis's second visit to South Korea since taking office in January. He made a point of going to Seoul and Tokyo on his first overseas trip in February, saying he wanted to emphasis the importance he places on strengthening alliances and partnerships.
On Friday he visited the Demilitarized Zone that forms an official buffer between the two Koreas. He appeared there with Song in what they both called a show of solidarity.
U.S. government officials for decades have confidently but mistakenly predicted the approaching collapse of North Korea, given its economic and political isolation.
Twenty years ago, Mattis's predecessor five times removed, William Cohen, said as he peered into North Korea from inside the DMZ that its communist system was "decaying and dying." His view was widely shared in Washington, but, like others, he underestimated the resilience of Pyongyang's family dynasty, which began with Kim Il Sung.
The current ruler assumed control of the country shortly after his father, Kim Jong-Il, died in December 2011, and has accelerated the country's nuclear and missile programs.

Mueller Russia probe reportedly nets first charges

Charges have reportedly been filed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.  (Associated Press)

The first charges have been filed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, reports said Friday evening.

At least one person could be taken into custody as early as Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

It wasn't immediately clear who could be charged or for what.
Richard Hibey, attorney for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, told Fox News that neither he nor any of his colleagues representing Manafort had been informed of any indictment of their client.
Manafort has been the subject of a longstanding investigation due to his dealings in Ukraine several years ago – for which he didn’t file as a foreign agent until June 2017. Manafort had his house raided by FBI agents earlier this summer and was reportedly wiretapped by investigators – before and after the election.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is another possible target of the probe.
A retired Army lieutenant general, Flynn served as a Trump surrogate during the campaign and briefly served as national security adviser before being fired over his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, who was Russia's ambassador to the United States.
Mueller has reportedly probed whether Flynn was involved in a private effort to get former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's emails from Russian hackers.
MUELLER'S RUSSIA INVESTIGATION: WHAT TO KNOW
The special counsel's office declined to comment on the reports of filed charges. There was no immediate comment from the White House.