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Cabinet members attend rare meeting at CIA headquarters amid Iranian threat

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:44 PM PT — Friday, May 10, 2019

Details of a secret meeting are beginning to surface, while Iran continues to retaliate against U.S. efforts for denuclearization.
Last week, various important officials — including National Security Adviser John Bolton, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — met together to discuss matters in Iran. The cabinet officials met outside the White House Situation Room, which is reportedly extremely rare.
The National Security Council would not comment as to what was discussed during the meeting, but sources have said it was likely about covert operations given the meeting’s location at CIA headquarters.
The officials met just days after the U.S. fast-tracked an aircraft carrier and bombers to the Persian Gulf. According to sources close to the matter, Intelligence was warned Tehran approved proxy forces to attack U.S. personnel and assets in the region.

President Trump confirmed it was a matter of national and foreign security.
“Well, they were threatening…we have information that you don’t want to know about,’ he stated. “They were very threatening…we have to have great security for this country and for a lot of other places.”
It’s been one year since President Trump left the Iran Nuclear agreement, which offered Tehran relief on sanctions in exchange for a curbed nuclear program. Instead, the president took a hard-line approach with the Middle Eastern country and reintroduced tough penalties in hopes to put enough pressure on them to stop their nuclear program.
However, Iran has only scaled back on their obligations to the nuclear deal. On Wednesday, they threatened to resume uranium production unless other global powers in the pact agreed to help them skirt the sanctions.
“Under the terms of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action we agreed that we would keep enrichment to the level of 3.67,” stated Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. “We will stop adhering to this and there will no longer be a set level for enrichment of uranium.”

Worshippers chant slogans against the United States and Israel during a rally after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, May 10, 2019. A top commander in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said Friday that Tehran will not talk with the United States, an Iranian news agency reported — a day after President Donald Trump said he’d like Iranian leaders to “call me.” (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Hours after the announcement, a White House official responded saying the U.S. is willing to put more sanctions on Iran very soon if they follow through. Analysts say more sanctions could be detrimental for Iran’s economy, which is already doing poorly.
Earlier this week, the National Security Council stated the White House is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but they are fully prepared to fight back if prompted by an attack on the U.S. or its allies.
President Trump said he is still willing to negotiate deals with Iran if they abandon their nuclear program.

Concha: Some press covering Trump's leaked tax returns showing 'the worst kind of bias'

Media reporter Joe Concha said Friday that some of those in the media who are covering the contents of President Trump's 1985-1994 tax returns are exhibiting "the worst kind of bias."
Concha said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that many outlets are expressing a "bias of omission" in neglecting to report that New York City newspapers and other outlets comprehensively reported on those turbulent times for the former real estate mogul.
"You don't get the other side of the story, which is [that] he was very transparent about it on TV and in books," Concha said. "You're being sold a bill of goods here that this is a new revelation - when it was anything but new."
Concha added that anyone who watched "The Apprentice" would've seen the opening segment, in which Trump spoke about losing billions of dollars and yet was able to "come back."
"This was his whole story," Carlson said. "He bragged about it endlessly... This was his redemption story."
Concha said that the reporting on the tax returns often exhibited the same "means to an end" mentality that was prevalent in the aftermath of the 2016 "Access Hollywood" tape leak.
On that recording, which was recorded several years prior, Trump is heard making coarse remarks about women to Billy Bush
"Everybody concentrated, and rightly so, on the contents of [the tape]. But then there was another part of that story: How exactly did that tape get out of NBC and into the hands of the Washington Post, two days before a presidential debate...," Concha said.

Giuliani cancels Ukraine trip, says he'd be 'walking into a group of people that are enemies of the US'

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, said Friday on "Fox News @ Night" that he will not be traveling to Ukraine as previously announced.
Giuliani, a former Republican mayor of New York City, said that he believed he would be "walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president, and in some cases, enemies of the United States and in one case, an already convicted person who has been found to be involved in assisting the Democrats with the 2016 investigation.
"There was a great fear that the new [Ukrainian] president would be surrounded by, literally, enemies of the president [of the United States] who were involved in that and people who are involved with other Democratic operatives," he told host Shannon Bream.
"I'm convinced from what I've heard from two very reliable people tonight that the president [Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky] is surrounded by people who are enemies of the president [Trump], and people who are -- at least [in] one case -- clearly corrupt and involved in this scheme," Giuliani said.
Giuliani said that his decisions had nothing to do with the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Bream asked about "pushback" Giuliani received for announcing his original decision to go, including from U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who demanded that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee open an inquiry into the situation.
"Rudolph Giuliani, the President’s personal lawyer, has apparently held meetings with Ukrainian officials in the United States and plans to travel to Ukraine for further discussions," Murphy wrote, in a letter to committee chairman Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, according to NBC News.
"As far as we know, none of these meetings are being coordinated with the U.S. State Department or other government agencies," Murphy wrote.
Giuliani said that he would welcome Murphy's proposed hearing, saying that he could lay out what he said was alleged "unbelievably incriminating evidence about members of the [Democratic National Committee], members of the Clinton campaign who were involved in gathering information there that was negative to the Trump campaign."
The former mayor also pointed to evidence that 2020 hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden improperly pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the country's parliament to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, in March 2016.
At the same time, Biden's son, Hunter, served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings -- which was owned by an oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky, who in turn was being investigated by that same prosecutor.
Shokin was soon voted out by the Ukrainian parliament. After leaving office, Biden admitted on video that he had threatened that the U.S. would pull $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Shokin was terminated.
"That stinks, the facts are stubborn, and eventually this is going to have to be investigated," Giuliani said, adding that in order to prevent any "political suggestions" he is going to "step back and just watch [the situation] unfold."
Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.

US-China trade talks end with no deal, but Trump puts faith in 'strong' relationship with Xi

Talks between U.S. and Chinese negotiators ended Friday without a trade pact, prompting the Trump administration to possibly further expand its trade war with Beijing and tax its remaining imports, increasing the widening divide between the world's two largest economies.
In a statement Friday evening, a trade representative for the United States said Trump had “ordered us to begin the process of raising tariffs on essentially all remaining imports from China, which are valued at approximately $300 billion.”
Earlier reports said the Trump administration had set a one-month deadline for China to agree to a trade deal or face the punitive tariffs. The threat of additional tariffs -- at 25 percent -- would be placed on $325 billion in Chinese goods, according to Bloomberg. News of the impasse comes hours after the U.S. imposed a second round of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese products as retaliation for China walking back on its commitments.

President Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands in Beijing on No. 9, 2017. After U.S.-China trade talks ended Friday without a deal, Trump said he maintained faith in his "strong" relationship with the Chinese leader. (Getty Images)
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"The relationship between President Xi and myself remains a very strong one, and conversations into the future will continue," Trump said after trade talks wrapped up. "In the meantime, the United States has imposed tariffs on China, which may or may not be removed depending on what happens with respect to future negotiations!"
China’s top negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, said in a Friday interview on China-state television that both sides agreed to keep talking despite what he called “some temporary resistance and distractions."
“For the interest of the people of China, the people of U.S. and the people of the whole world, we will deal with this rationally,” Liu continued. He said negotiations had not broken down but added that China was not willing to make concessions on “principle issues," the New York Times reported.
China has vowed retaliation against the U.S. for the higher tariffs even as talks between the world’s two largest economies continue. No specifics have been released.
Trump justified the tariff hikes in a series of other tweets Friday.
“Talks with China continue in a very congenial manner - there is absolutely no need to rush - as Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S....,” he posted.
In other tweets, he said proposed using income from the tariffs to buy agricultural products from American farmers and that the U.S. sells China only about $100 billion in goods and services, which he called a "very big imbalance," Bloomberg reported.
Friday's trade escalation came as a surprise to many American businesses and consumers who thought a trade deal was within reach.

This graphic shows the increasing US-China trade deficit over time and compares with other top U.S. trade deficits from other counties. (Associated Press )

"Thousands of U.S. companies are affected, and some had millions of dollars on the line," Brian Keare, the field chief information officer at Incorta, who advises companies like Broadcom, Starbucks, and Apple, told Business Insider. "You literally had to make split-second decisions about your logistics and supply chain if you wanted to make sound financial decisions."
White House officials have stressed that both sides were eager to reach a deal. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told FOX Business last week that although they still had “more work to do,” enforcement mechanisms were “close to done.”
“If we get to a completed agreement it will have real enforcement provisions,” he said at the time.

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Anita Hill slams Biden in op-ed, claims Dem might have slowed #MeToo by decades

Anita Hill took aim at Joe Biden once again Thursday, arguing that the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct might have begun sooner if the Democratic Party's 2020 front-runner would have done a better job of handling her claims of sexual harassment against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas more than 30 years ago.
Writing in the New York Times, Hill slammed the former vice president and U.S. senator from Delaware, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 when Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation process.
“If the Senate Judiciary Committee, led then by Mr. Biden, had done its job and held a hearing that showed that its members understood the seriousness of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence, the cultural shift we saw in 2017 after #MeToo might have began [sic] in 1991 — with the support of the government,” Hill, who is now a professor at Brandeis University, wrote.

"If the Senate Judiciary Committee, led then by Mr. Biden, had done its job ... the cultural shift we saw in 2017 after #MeToo might have began [sic] in 1991."
— Anita Hill, writing Thursday in the New York Times

“If the government had shown that it would treat survivors with dignity and listen to women, it could have had a ripple effect,” Hill continued in the Times piece, which was titled, "Let's Talk About How to End Sexual Violence." “Instead, far too many survivors kept their stories hidden for years.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden,left, served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 when Anita Hill, right, testified allegations of sexual misconduct by then-Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas.(Associated Press)

Biden officially announced his bid for the 2020 presidency in April. During a private phone call with Hill beforehand, he reportedly expressed regret over how she was treated during the Thomas confirmation hearings but fell short of apologizing for his own actions.
“Sexual violence is a national crisis that requires a national solution. We miss that point if we end the discussion at whether I should forgive Mr. Biden,” Hill continued in her piece. “This crisis calls for all leaders to step up and say: 'The healing from sexual violence must begin now. I will take up that challenge.'”
In an interview with "The View" after announcing his 2020 candidacy, Biden denied ever treating Hill badly during the 1991 hearings and praised the professor for her contributions toward #MeToo.
"She's one of the reasons why we have the #MeToo movement, she's one of the reasons why I was able to finish writing the Violence Against Women Act, she's one of the reasons why I committed ... there'd never be a Judiciary Committee I was on that didn't have women on it," he said.
Biden himself has not been accused of sexual harassment but since announcing his candidacy he has received backlash for being overly touchy with women and girls over the years.
Fox News' Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report. 

Matt Gaetz says Dems targeting AG Barr because he's 'turning the tables' on Obama legacy, deep state

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., spoke out against the Democrats' claim that America is facing a "constitutional crisis," saying Thursday that the Dems are worried that Attorney General William Barr is "turning the tables" on the Obama administration's legacy.
"The very reason Jerry Nadler is going after Bill Barr has nothing to do with the 8 percent of the Mueller report that hasn't been seen, and it has everything to do with the fact that Bill Barr is now turning the tables on the people in the Obama White House, the people in the deep state, the intelligence community who politicized a FISA court, and the investigators, I think, who departed from normalized practice," Gaetz said on Fox News' "The Story with Martha MacCallum."

"The very reason Jerry Nadler is going after Bill Barr ... has everything to do with the fact that Bill Barr is now turning the tables on the people in the Obama White House, the people in the deep state, the intelligence community."
— U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

Nadler, a New York Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, declared a "constitutional crisis" this week following his committee’s vote to hold the Barr in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted Russia report and underlying documents.
Gaetz also took aim at former FBI Director James Comey, who appeared on a CNN town hall telecast Thursday night, predicting that Barr would be coming for Comey as well.
"Of course it is not a coincidence that James Comey is on, like, the Redemption Tour 2.0 right now, trying to articulate his message," Gaetz said, "because he knows that Barr is coming after Comey and his band of merry men, who largely paved the way for Hillary Clinton to not face consequence, and then turned around and really did the Russians' bidding for them by delegitimizing the election process, and then after the election [of] the president, trying to delegitimize Donald Trump."

"It is not a coincidence that James Comey is on, like, the Redemption Tour 2.0 right now ... because he knows that Barr is coming after Comey and his band of merry men, who largely paved the way for Hillary Clinton to not face consequence."
— U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

Gaetz also touted the U.S. economy's performance under President Trump before criticizing Democrats for their use of the word "crisis" --- and chastising them for not addressing the immigration emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"I don't know that Democrats know what the word 'crisis' means," Gaetz said. "Obviously they can't claim we have an economic crisis. We've got growth at twice the rate that was expected under the Obama economy and everyone is doing a lot better.
"But we have a real crisis on the border where 3,000 people a day are turning themselves in, into a system that we cannot accommodate additional influx for. And now we have a tortured interpretation of a constitutional crisis. I can assure you that is not the case. The game you're watching is not the game that is being played."
Fox News' Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.

'Crisis' mode: Can Trump bait the Democrats into impeaching him?

It is a "constitutional crisis," says Jerry Nadler.
President Trump is "self-impeaching," says Nancy Pelosi.
"We should be putting people in jail," says another Democrat, Gerry Connolly.
In the wake of the House Judiciary Committee citing William Barr for contempt, the Democrats are using increasingly fiery language against a president who seems determined to defy their subpoenas.
And even the leadership is moving, rhetorically at least, from its previous insistence that impeachment proceedings are a bad idea because they will obliterate the party's agenda and lack bipartisan support. Maybe that's because they're angry, or maybe it's just an attempt to placate their most liberal voters.
Perhaps the motivation is irrelevant. The New York Times says the Democrats, "infuriated by President Trump's stonewalling," are weighing a move "to bundle contempt citations for multiple Trump administration officials into one overarching package that could be referred to the Federal District Court here, in much the way Congress looked to the courts to compel President Richard M. Nixon to turn over tape recordings of his Oval Office conversations."
And yet the stakes in the latest subpoena fight, unlike Nixon shielding tapes of the Watergate cover-up, are slight. The House Democrats want the unredacted Mueller report, despite 98 percent of the obstruction of justice section not being redacted. And they want their staff lawyers to be able to question the attorney general, as opposed to just committee members.
The media are in full crisis mode as well. And that's a sharp contrast to the way they covered the Republican House holding Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, in contempt for refusing to turn over documents in the Fast and Furious probe. That was portrayed mainly as a partisan brawl, without such headlines as "Clash Between Trump, House Democrats Poses Threat to Constitutional Order," in the Times. And nothing ultimately happened to Holder, just as nothing is likely to happen to Barr.
I happen to think Congress has a legitimate right to demand documents and testimony in overseeing the executive branch, regardless of which party is in charge. But there's also such a thing as political overreach. If the DOJ were withholding the Mueller report, that would be one thing. To escalate over the 2 percent of the obstruction section that is redacted is quite another.
President Trump is baiting the Democrats, and they know it. He'd love for them to go down the impeachment path, which would fire up his base and lead to his ultimate acquittal. He'd be happy to spend 2020 running against overzealous Democrats, Nancy and Jerry, Mueller and the media.
Rich Lowry made a trenchant observation in his Politico column that applies both to the subpoena battle and the Times story about Trump's massive business losses.
"There really are no Trump mysteries," he writes. "His flaws aren't hidden away. He often attests to them himself, or demonstrates them publicly ...
"No blockbuster report has more than a passing effect because each dispatch is, ultimately, another dot in a pointillist portrait of the president that was largely completed long ago.
"This is also why the hope that we are one investigation, tax return, or subpoena away from the revelation that will finally bell the cat and bring Trump down — or even make a difference — is almost certainly forlorn. What would be devastating material against anyone else loses all shock value."
The Mueller report didn't topple Trump. Neither will the redacted portions, his tax returns or any other secret document. If the Democrats want to oust the president, they’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way next year.

James Comey blasts Rod Rosenstein, mocks departing deputy AG for thinking 'the country needs me'

Former FBI Director James Comey described deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as not having “strong character” Thursday while appearing on a CNN town hall telecast.
“I think people like that, like Rod Rosenstein, who are people of accomplishment but not real sterling character, strong character, find themselves trapped. And then they start telling themselves a story to justify their being trapped which is, 'Yeah, he's awful but the country needs me,’” Comey told host Anderson Cooper.
Cooper brought up Rosenstein as Comey was responding to a question about a recent op-ed he penned, in which he wrote that the president “eats your soul in small bites.”
“Republicans are doing this in Congress. ‘Yeah, it's awful, but if I speak I'll get defeated and this nation needs me here right now.’ So they start to make little compromises to stay on the team. Talk about collusion, saying that's what I need to do to survive and in the process, he has eaten their soul, they’re lost. So that's what happens to so many of people,” Comey said.
Rosenstein was honored with a Department of Justice send-off on Thursday, after submitting his resignation to President Trump last month. His departure will reportedly take effect Saturday.
Thursday was also the second anniversary of Trump firing Comey from the FBI.
Attorney General Bill Barr, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and FBI Director Christopher Wray were on hand at the Rosenstein farewell, touting his record and character throughout his career, but specifically over the last two years.
Rosenstein fell into the political crosshairs throughout his tenure and was on the receiving end of the president’s ire over the Russia investigation. Rosenstein had taken over oversight of the investigation after Sessions recused himself from the probe -- a decision that infuriated Trump.
It was early on in Rosenstein's oversight of the probe, in May 2017, that Trump fired Comey. Just a week later, Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- Comey's former boss at the FBI. Rosenstein watched over the probe until November 2018, when former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker took over. Whitaker was ultimately replaced by Barr.
On CNN's Thursday telecast, Comey also told Cooper that he tried to avoid becoming like Rosenstein and other "co-opted" members of the administration by openly disagreeing with President Trump in the Oval Office.
According to Comey, Trump was equating the U.S. to "killers" like Russian President Vladamir Putin.
"And among the words were his saying we are the same kind of killers that Vladimir Putin is. He was defending his moral equivalency between us and Putin and I interrupted and said, 'Mr. President, no, we're not the kind of killers that Putin is,'" Comey said.
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.