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Secy Pompeo says the U.S. is Prepared to Find Common Ground with Russia

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claims the U.S. is prepared to find a ‘common ground’ with Russia.
On Sunday, Pompeo held continued talks with his Russian counterparts in the city of Sochi, to discuss issues affecting both nations.
During the meeting, Pompeo also urged Moscow to work with Ukraine in hopes of bringing peace to the country.
Officials hopes improving U.S.-Russian relations will set an example, and help the Kremlin repair its relationship with its western neighbor.
“Our two nations share proud histories and respect to one another’s cultures. We seek a better relationship with Russia and we urge that it work alongside us to change the trajectory of the relationship which will benefit each of our peoples,” Pompeo said.
He also reportedly discussed reports of Russian election interference, saying similar acts would not be tolerated during the 2020 election cycle.

Pres. Trump Responds to Rep. Amash’s Impeachment Call

President Trump is firing back at GOP Representative Justin Amash after he accused the President of obstructing justice.
In a message to Twitter Sunday, President Trump called the lawmaker a total ‘lightweight’ who only opposes Republican ideas to make his name known.

Never a fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy. If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump,….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2019

This comes after Amash made headlines Saturday for becoming the first GOP Congressman to signal for impeachment.
He also accused the Attorney General of ‘deliberately misrepresent(ing) Mueller’s report.’
While the Special Counsel’s report conclusively found no collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russians, House Democrats are still largely divided on impeachment.
The lawmaker has been a vocal critic of the Administration, and voted with a Democrat majority in February to overturn the President’s Emergency Declaration at the U.S.-Mexico border, A move which was unsuccessful.

Jimmy Carter finds renaissance in 2020 Democratic scramble

Jimmy Carter is again a kingmaker in the next run for the White House.
It’s quite a turnabout for a man who largely receded from party politics after his presidency, often without being missed by his party’s leaders in Washington, where he was an outsider even as a White House resident.
“Jimmy Carter is a decent, well-meaning person, someone who people are talking about again given the time that we are in,” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said in an interview. “He won because he worked so hard, and he had a message of truth and honesty. I think about him all the time.”
Klobuchar credited Carter with being “ahead of his time” on several issues, including the environment and climate change (he put solar panels on the White House), health care (a major step toward universal coverage failed mostly because party liberals thought it didn’t go far enough) and government streamlining (an effort that angered some Democrats at the time).
But she also alluded to how his presidency ended: a landslide loss after gas lines, inflation-then-unemployment, and a 14-month-long hostage crisis in Iran. “Their administration was not perfect,” she said.

Now, six administrations later, former President Jimmy Carter, the longest-living chief executive in American history, is re-emerging from political obscurity at age 94 to win over his fellow Democrats once again. (AP)

Klobuchar is one of at least three presidential hopefuls who has ventured to the tiny town of Plains, Georgia, to meet with Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, who is 91. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, also have visited with the Carters and attended the former president’s Sunday School lesson in Plains.
“An extraordinary person,” Buttigieg told reporters after meeting Carter. “A guiding light and inspiration,” Booker said in a statement. Klobuchar has attended Carter’s church lesson, as well, and says she emails with him occasionally. “He signs them ‘JC,’” she said with a laugh.
Carter carved an unlikely path to the White House in 1976 and endured humbling defeat after one term. Now, six administrations later, the longest-living chief executive in American history is re-emerging from political obscurity at age 94 to win over his fellow Democrats once again.
A peanut farmer turned politician then worldwide humanitarian, Carter is taking on a special role as Democratic candidates look to his family-run campaign after the Watergate scandal as the road map for toppling President Trump in 2020.
To be sure, more 2020 candidates have quietly sought counsel from Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. Several have talked with Bill Clinton, who left office in 2001. But those huddles have been more hush-hush, disclosed through aides dishing anonymously. Sessions with Carter are trumpeted on social media and discussed freely, suggesting an appeal that Obama and Clinton may not have.
Unlike Clinton, impeached after an affair with a White House intern, Carter has no #MeToo demerits; he and Rosalynn, married since the end of World War II, didn’t even like to dance with other people at state dinners. And unlike Obama, popular among Democrats but polarizing for conservatives and GOP-leaning independents, Carter is difficult to define by current political fault lines.
He’s an outspoken evangelical Christian who criticizes Trump’s serial falsehoods, yet praises Trump for attempting a relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Carter touts his own personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, another Trump favorite. “I have his email address,” Carter said in September.
He confirms that he voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, over Hillary Clinton in Georgia’s 2016 presidential primary. In 2017, Carter welcomed Sanders, who’s running again this year, to the Carter Center for a program in which the two men lambasted money in politics. Carter called the United States “an oligarchy.”
Yet Carter has since warned Democrats against “too liberal a program,” lest they ensure Trump’s re-election.
Carter is enough of an enigma that he is the only living president not to draw Trump’s ire or mockery, even if Republicans have caricatured Carter for decades as a failure. Trump and Carter chatted by phone this spring after Carter sent Trump a letter on China and trade. Both men said they had an amiable conversation.
Klobuchar recalled Carter telling her that “family members would disperse to different states and then they would all come back on Friday, go back through the questions they had gotten.” Then “he would talk about how he would answer them” so they’d all be prepared on their next trips, she said.
It was “a different era,” Klobuchar added, recalling that Carter said he felt “high-tech because they had a fax machine on his plane.” Indeed, Klobuchar, born in 1960, wasn’t old enough to vote for Carter until he sought a second term. Booker, 50, recalls voting for Carter, but in a grade-school mock election. Buttigieg, 37, wasn’t even born when Carter left office.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Trey Gowdy: Brennan, Clapper and Comey know full well dossier was used in the intelligence assessment

Former congressman Trey Gowdy talked to Maria Bartiromo Sunday and discussed the infamous Christopher Steele Dossier, what it is and why it is important find the extent of its use.
"I mean people use the word dossier and how such an official sound to it. I mean let's just call it for what it is. It's a series of rank hearsay compilations put together by an FBI source who was later defrocked. Paid for by the Democrat National Committee then oh by the way Christopher Steele hated Donald Trump too so that we can call it a dossier. It sounds official," Gowdy said on "Sunday Morning Futures."
"It's really something the National Enquirer would blush if they printed so we know that it was used four times by the United States government."
Attorney General William Barr told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer in the interview aired Friday that one portion of the investigation into the Russia probe's orgins, which he has tapped U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead, would cover the time period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, saying “some very strange developments” took place during that time.
Barr specifically was referring to the early January 2017 briefing intelligence officials gave then-president-elect Trump at Trump Tower, and “the leaking of information subsequent to that meeting.” At that meeting, Trump was briefed by intelligence and law enforcement officials on Russian election meddling -- and was also informed by former FBI Director James Comey about the now-infamous anti-Trump dossier which included salacious allegations against him. Details which were later leaked to the press.
The former House Oversight Committee chairman and House Judiciary Committee member accused the Obama-era intelligence officials of not being upfront when it comes to the dossier's use.
"What we're trying to figure out is whether or not it was used a fifth time and the intelligence assessment and you got Brennan, Clapper and Comey all three who know full well whether or not it was used in the intelligence assessment but... they're giving you different versions, right," Gowdy said.
"So there is information that exist in December of 2016 and I hope anyone who has access to it... Senator Burr, Durbin, whoever is open minded. Go look at that. And I think it will help you understand whether or not that dossier, that unverified hearsay, was used... five times or just four times by the United States government is pretty bad. If it was just four times it's really bad, if it was five."
Fox News' Brooke Singman and Liam Quinn contributed to this report.