Presumptuous Politics

Friday, August 19, 2016

Clinton reportedly told FBI that Colin Powell urged her to use private email

Barking out more lies?

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly told federal authorities during her questioning over her email practices while at the State Department that former Secretary of State Colin Powell encouraged her to use a private email account.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Clinton’s revelation is part of the FBI’s notes that were given to Congress on Tuesday about the agency’s questioning in July that led Director James Comey not to pursue criminal charges against her over her use of private emails.
An email exchange emerged from 2009 between Clinton and Powell during the questioning that revealed that she had asked the former secretary of state about his email practices under George W. Bush, a source told The Times. Clinton had already setup her private email server during that time.
The Times reported that the conversations between Clinton and Powell are revealed in an upcoming book detailing Bill Clinton’s post-presidency, titled “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton,” by Joe Conason.
The book details a conversation between Clinton and Powell at a party hosted by Madeleine Albright in Washington. The Times reported that Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice also attended the event.
“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” a passage details. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”
Clinton has repeatedly claimed that her personal email use was in line of that of her predecessors’. But this is the first time of any details of a personal conversation between the pair that revealed Powell recommended Clinton use a private email account.
According to The Times, Powell’s office said in a statement that he had “no recollection” of the alleged conversation between him and Clinton. He did confirm that he told Clinton via email about his use of a personal account for unclassified emails and “how it improved communications within the State Department.”
Howard Krongard, a former watchdog for the State Department, told Fox News in May that he would have immediately opened an investigation if he caught wind of a secretary of state used a private account.
Krongard shot down the notion that she was in line with her predecessors’ in using a private email account for State Department business. He pointed to a May 25 inspectors general report that stated Rice did not use personal email for government business. It said Powell used personal email on a limited basis to connect with people outside the department, and he worked with the State Department to secure the system. The report found Clinton did neither.
The report concluded Clinton’s use of a private server and account was not approved, and broke agency rules. The report said by the time she became secretary, the rules had repeatedly been updated, and were “considerably more detailed and more sophisticated.”
The Times reported that the State Department has asked to review the FBI’s notes from Clinton’s questioning before they are officially released.
Clinton campaign officials fear that materials could be leaked in order to hurt her campaign.

State Department says review into deleted briefing footage 'inconclusive'


State Dept. admits to deleting parts of Iran deal briefing, Your Crooked Government at Work.

The State Department announced Thursday, after a weeks-long review involving dozens of interviews, that it still does not know why several minutes of footage from a 2013 briefing were deleted from a public archive – leaving the department’s top spokesman on the defensive over the unusual incident.
“There’s no evidence to suggest [the edit] was made with the intent to conceal information from the public,” spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
At the same time, he said they couldn’t rule out “nefarious” intent – but said the results of an extensive review were “inconclusive.”
The vague comments came as he announced the results of a “fact-finding review” into the deletion which apparently included interviews with more than 30 current and former employees and a review of emails and other documents.
The matter flared up more than two months ago when Kirby publicly acknowledged that an official had intentionally deleted video footage from a 2013 press briefing, where a former spokeswoman seemed to acknowledge misleading the press over the Iran nuclear deal.
“There was a deliberate request [to delete the footage] – this wasn’t a technical glitch,” Kirby said in June.
On Thursday, Kirby stood by the assessment that this was a deliberate edit, but couldn’t say why it was done.
“We may never know,” Kirby said, as he addressed tough questions from reporters.
At the 2013 briefing in question, then-spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked by Fox News’ James Rosen about an earlier claim that no direct, secret talks were underway between the U.S. and Iran – when, in fact, they were.
Psaki at the time seemed to admit the discrepancy, saying: “There are times where diplomacy needs privacy in order to progress. This is a good example of that.”
However, Fox News later discovered the Psaki exchange was missing from the department’s official website and its YouTube channel (though not from the transcript). Eight minutes from the briefing, including the comments on the Iran deal, were edited out and replaced with a white-flash effect.
The State Department report concluded that the effect was "evidence of deliberate editing," but added that it had "not found any evidence to support a conclusion that the video was edited to hide any content."
Kirby on Thursday reviewed what they know and don’t know. The spokesman reiterated that a technician came forward and acknowledged getting a phone call requesting the edit, and then making it.
However, Kirby said they can’t conclude who placed that call or why. Further, he said additional details call into question the suggestion this was done to conceal – including that the full transcript was always online, and that the video was seemingly shortened early on, even before the technician remembers getting the request. Kirby said it’s possible the white-flash effect was inserted because the video had lost footage due to technical problems.
“I understand these results may not be completely satisfying to everyone,” he said.
This may not be the last word on the matter. Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group, filed suit this week seeking all records regarding the video footage and its deletion.

Obama administration says $400M to Iran was contingent on release of prisoners

The Obama administration admitted Thursday that a $400 million cash payment to Iran in January was contingent on the release of American prisoners being held in the country – while still denying that the payment was a ransom.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the negotiations to return the money – originally from a 1979 failed military equipment deal made between Iran and the U.S. – were conducted separately from negotiations to free the four prisoners.
The four detainees who were released on January 17 were Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian; former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati; Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, whose case had not been publicized before the release.
However, Kirby said that the U.S. withheld the cash delivery until Iran made good on its promise to release the prisoners.
“In basic English you are saying you wouldn’t give [Iran] the 400 million in cash until the prisoners were released, correct?” asked a reporter at Thursday’s State Department briefing.
“That’s correct,” Kirby responded.
The new details, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, added to criticisms from Republicans that it was a ransom paid by the Obama administration. Kirby’s admission only served to add fuel to the controversy.
“What the State Department admitted today was the dictionary definition of a ransom payment and a complete contradiction of what they were saying just two weeks ago,” RNC Spokesman Michael Short said in a statement. “It’s time for the Obama White House to drop the charade and admit it paid a ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”
"If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If a cash payment is contingent on a hostage release, it's a ransom,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb. “The truth matters and the President owes the American people an explanation."
Earlier this month, after the revelation the U.S. delivered the money in pallets of cash, the administration flatly denied any connection between the payment and the prisoners.
"Reports of link between prisoner release & payment to Iran are completely false," Kirby tweeted at the time.
"This wasn’t some nefarious deal," Obama said during an August 4 press conference. "We do not pay ransom for hostages."
The agreement was the return of the $400 million, plus an additional $1.3 billion in interest, terms that Obama described as favorable compared to what might have been expected from a tribunal set up in The Hague to rule on pending deals between the two countries.
Abedini has claimed that he and the other hostages were kept waiting at an Iranian airport for more than 20 hours before their departure. Abedini said he was told by a senior Iranian intelligence official that their departure was contingent on the movement of a second plane.
State Department officials denied Abedini's claims to the Journal, saying the delay was due to issues locating Rezaian's wife and mother, who accompanied him on the flight.
According to the Journal, GOP leaders say they plan to hold hearings on the payment next month, when Congress returns from its summer recess. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., chair of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, last week sent letters to the Justice and Treasury Departments, as well as the Federal Reserve, requesting more information the transaction.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Cartoons

Chris Matthews: Get 'excited' about Clinton campaign, or 'don't vote'

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has a striking message for disaffected Democrats: Get “excited” about Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the possibility of the party controlling Washington, or “don’t vote.”
The “Hardball” host offered the advice on air Tuesday night, while griping about some Democrats’ pessimistic attitude toward the election.
“Here’s my question. Why don’t they get excited on the left, and the center-left, about maybe … getting to run the government for four, or eight years, winning the House and the Senate, winning the White House? … Think about winning big,” Matthews said.
He continued: “Hillary Clinton’s got a very good chance right now of winning very big and running the table and actually getting to set U.S. policy on a progressive side of things. Get excited about that. If that’s not [enough] to get you to vote, don’t vote.”
That’s a turnaround from remarks Matthews made in 2012 that anyone not planning to vote was an “idiot.”
“If you don’t vote, you’re an idiot,” Matthews said at the time, to chuckles from his co-hosts.
On Tuesday, Matthews went on to talk up the notion of a Donald Trump “freefall” in the 2016 contest, arguing that Clinton should motivate Democrats to go for the “gold” – and aim for total control of the House, Senate and White House.

Trump recruiting 'election observers' to scout for fraud

Donald Trump is getting pro-active about concerns the White House race could be “rigged” against him, by recruiting “election observers” to help monitor the vote, though details of the program are unclear -- and are raising concerns about potential Election Day confrontations.
The campaign put out the call for volunteers in a newly added page on its website. The page asks visitors to register to become an election observer and help Trump “stop Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.”
“I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged,” Trump said Friday at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, before suggesting he could lose the battleground state if “cheating goes on” in some parts. Noting the state no longer has a voter ID law, he urged voters to “go around and watch other polling areas and make sure it’s fine.”
Trump appears to be tapping into concerns among members of both parties -- Republicans who warn about voter ID fraud and Bernie Sanders supporters who complained about a “rigged” system during the senator’s primary race against Hillary Clinton. Those claims were bolstered by leaked party emails showing Democratic leaders discussing how to undermine him.
But considering the tensions that already have flared outside Trump rallies to date, the possibility of vigilant Trump volunteers looking for voting irregularities has some analysts and officials warning about the implications for Election Day.
“It sounds more like voter intimidation than observation,” Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in election law, told FoxNews.com.
Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp said he welcomes the monitors but warned, “We don’t want anyone getting unruly,” according to The Washington Post.
A group of GOP lawyers also reportedly is planning an anti-voter fraud effort that includes hundreds of observers on the ground and on call on Election Day.
The Trump campaign did not return a request Tuesday for specifics about its election observer program. But spokesman Jason Miller told The Los Angeles Times the campaign intends to put credentialed observers inside polling places in Pennsylvania and several other states in which they are permitted.
“They will help ensure lawful voters can vote,” he said. “What we’re advocating are open, fair and honest elections.”
As for what Trump’s election observers can or cannot do, election lawyers frequently point to the 1982 case DNC v. RNC.
A federal court essentially said observers can go to polling stations to watch voting and tell state officials about “irregularities unrelated to voter fraud” that could interfere with casting ballots -- including understaffing, long lines and malfunctioning voting machines.
However, they cannot question voters about their credentials, take pictures or videos of them, or hand out fliers about voter fraud and its consequences.
Some Trump critics suggest his comments about the potential for voter fraud in “some parts” of Pennsylvania were really code for saying it will occur in Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia which are heavily populated and where residents could vote multiple times because they don’t need ID.
Thirty-three states have laws requiring voters to show ID at the polls. Supporters of such laws, mostly Republicans, say they prevent election fraud, while Democrats and other opponents argue they were enacted to keep minorities, who mostly vote for Democrats, away from the polls.
On Monday, lawyers for North Carolina GOP Gov. Pat McCrory asked the Supreme Court to re-instate a photo-ID requirement for voters through November, after an appeals court ruled the 2003 law illegally restricts voting by African-Americans.
Critics of such laws argue there’s scant evidence of in-person voter fraud.
“That it could swing an election just isn’t true,” Levinson said. “It’s sad that it has to be conservatives vs. liberal idea. It’s a factual matter.”
Roger Stone, a longtime political consultant formerly on the Trump campaign, agrees with the nominee’s warning about the potential for a rigged election and implied the real problems might come if Clinton wins as a result of voter fraud.
“I think we have widespread voter fraud,” Stone said in a Breitbart News interview in late July. “I think he has to put [voters] on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical. And when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in.”

Trump gets first intelligence briefing as presidential nominee

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump got his first look Wednesday at classified intelligence on threats to the United States and other security issues.
The more than two-hour briefing was held at an FBI field office in New York City and was led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
Trump left the briefing in lower Manhattan without talking to reporters.
On Wednesday morning, Trump seemed to downplay the potential value of the briefing and questioned whether he could put trust in the information.
“Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country,” he told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “Look what’s happened over the last 10 years. … I won't use them, because they’ve made such bad decisions.”
Trump has argued that apparent intelligence failures led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the removal of dictator Saddam Hussein but also created a vacuum for radical Islamic terrorists to thrive.
The briefing comes after months of Trump also railing against the foreign policies of President Obama and Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton, who was Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
Trump has repeatedly argued that failed administration policies, particularly in the Middle East, have left the United States weakened and vulnerable to attacks by the Islamic State and other international terrorist networks. However, the first-time candidate, despite having foreign policy advisers, has limited intimate knowledge of the inter-workings of U.S. intelligence agencies.
Presidential nominees do not need to have a special security clearance to receive the briefings. The campaigns typically work with the ODNI to set up the sessions and discuss topics of interest.
The briefing also followed Trump’s major foreign policy address Monday in which he placed the blame for the rise of Islamic terrorism across the globe at the feet of the administration, and in particular Clinton.
Trump was accompanied to the roughly one-hour briefing by retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie.
“With one episode of bad judgment after another, Hillary Clinton's policies launched ISIS onto the world stage,” Trump said. “All we got from Iraq and our ventures in the Middle East was death, destruction and tremendous financial loss.”
Trump, who has suggested support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, also argued for an end to nation-building abroad, a new “extreme vetting” of immigrants seeking to enter the U.S., and a “bipartisan and international consensus” to defeat Islamic extremism.
He has been attacked throughout his campaign for a perceived lack of foreign policy credentials, with Clinton accusing him Monday of being “all over the place on ISIS.”
It was not immediately clear if a briefing had been set up for Clinton or when it would take place.
Republicans have called for Clinton not to be given classified information in light of FBI Director James Comey’s conclusion that she had been "extremely careless" in her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Trump slams Obama, Clinton for 'politically correct' war against ISIS, warns of more attacks

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has accused the Obama administration of waging a 'politically correct' war against ISIS and warned that more terror attacks will take place.
"We're not taking it to them," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity at a Wisconsin town hall. "And we have to take it to them."
Trump reiterated his call for "extreme" vetting of would-be immigrants to the United States, saying, "We are just allowing people into our country that some are going to be a problem. And we have enough problems in our country right now."
"We can be nice about it, say it's never going to happen again, there will be more [attacks]," Trump later added. "What we're doing by allowing tens of thousands of people in ... we don't know anything about, it's going to happen again because there's something wrong, and until we figure it out, we have to stop it."
Trump appeared with Hannity at a town hall at Milwaukee's Pabst Theater. The program was recorded Tuesday and aired Wednesday night.
Trump criticized the Obama administration for completing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, which he called "ridiculous" and "absolutely insane." He also hit his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for backing U.S. intervention in Libya during her tenure as secretary of state.
"We did the stupid attacks on Libya and got nothing out of it," Trump said, "and ISIS has taken over the oil and it's some of the finest oil in the world."

At one point, Trump was joined on stage by survivors of three terror attacks that took place during the Obama administration: The 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas; the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya; and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Benghazi attack survivor Kris Paronto said Trump's call for increased vetting was "necessary," adding "terrorists utilize our strengths, compassion and empathy against us. That's what they are doing right now."
On Wednesday, Trump received his first classified intelligence briefing, meeting with national security officials for more than two hours at an FBI field office in New York City. Earlier in the day, Trump suggested he would be skeptical of its contents when he was asked if he trusted the nation's intelligence materials.
"Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country," Trump told "Fox & Friends". "I mean, look what's happened over the last 10 years...it's been catastrophic."
Also Wednesday, Trump gathered several advisers for a security round table at Trump Tower.
The advisers, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, encouraged the GOP nominee to press for more surveillance and more information-sharing with local police departments to fight terror threats if he's elected president. The FBI does share with local police agencies through Joint Terrorism Task Forces.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Hillary Benghazi Cartoons (Not Funny)

FBI sends heavily redacted Clinton interview documents to Congress

Sneaky Snake

A congressional source confirmed to Fox News Tuesday that the House Government Oversight Committee had received a heavily redacted FBI summary of Hillary Clinton’s session last month with FBI agents who interviewed her about her use of a private server for government business. The agents’ notes were provided as well.
Separately, the Republican chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, confirmed that even he does not have a high enough security clearance to read the documents in full.
“As the chairman of the chief investigative body in the House, it is significant I can’t even read these documents in their entirety,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Fox News. “This shows how dangerous it was to have this intelligence, highly classified to this day, on the former secretary’s unsecured personal server where it was vulnerable.”
The fact that portions of the FBI investigative file are heavily redacted and must be held and read by lawmakers in a secure facility on Capitol Hill shows how classified the material remains, despite claims made by the Clinton campaign.
The campaign’s call to release the FBI agents’ notes appears suspect because the material is too highly classified to make public.The FBI told the committee that the documents cannot be released in part or in full without prior agency approval.
"This information being highly classified according to the FBI is in direct conflict with what the State Department and Ms. Clinton have said is on the server. You could not have it both ways," former military intelligence officer Tony Shaffer said. "You cannot say one day this is unclassified ‘nothing to see here’ and the next day, only certain people can see this and you must not be able to take it outside of a secure facility."
Clinton was specifically interviewed by the FBI about her handling of 22 top secret emails, which included some of the government's most closely held government programs known as special access programs, which often include human spying. The 22 top secret emails were deemed by the intelligence community too damaging to national security to make public, even with large sections blacked out.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, confirmed it had received "FBI witness interview reports," including that of Clinton's interview.
"With the exception of the classified emails that had been found on the private server, I can see little legitimate purpose to which Congress will put these materials," Schiff said in a statement.
The bureau, in closing its case, confirmed publicly that 113 classified emails were sent and received by Clinton, as well as 2,000 that were classified after the fact.
FBI chief James Comey said investigators found at least three emails that contained classified markings. However, he did not recommend criminal charges, and the Justice Department closed the case.
While Clinton has insisted nothing was marked classified at the time, the investigation found otherwise, with the emails containing a portion marking (C for confidential, the lowest level of classification). Fox News first reported that some of the emails were marked classified in June.
The House Oversight Committee questioned Comey for over five hours in July after he said no reasonable prosecutor would pursue criminal charges.
The Oversight Committee also has formally asked if Clinton committed perjury during her Benghazi testimony in October 2015, because her statements to Congress appear to conflict with the FBI's findings.
While Democrats complained the documents would be leaked, it was the Democrats who released the FBI's letter to the committee.

State Department sought land deal with Nigerian firm tied to Clinton Foundation

Clinton Foundation dogged by more allegations of impropriety

EXCLUSIVE: Shortly after Hillary Clinton left the Obama administration, the State Department quietly took steps to purchase real estate in Nigeria from a firm whose parent company is owned by a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, records obtained by Fox News show.
On March 20, 2013, William P. Franklin, an “international realty specialist” at the State Department, emailed Mary E. Davis, an American diplomat stationed in Africa, instructing her to “put on Post letterhead” an “expression of interest” by the department in purchasing property at Eko Atlantic, a massive real estate development off the coast of Lagos. Franklin further instructed that the signed letter was to be “delivered to Ronald Chagoury.”
The draft letter, also obtained by Fox News, was undated and addressed to Chagoury care of his firm South Energyx Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of the larger Chagoury Group that is spearheading the Eko Atlantic real estate venture. The State Department letter sought, among other things, to confirm that the department could proceed with “acquisition of the real property…[at] the asking price of $1,250 per square meter.”
Overtures to real estate developers from State Department officials scouting locations for embassies, consulates and other diplomatic facilities would ordinarily not arouse interest. But in this case, the budding transaction – never completed, the department now says – raised eyebrows because Ronald Chagoury is the brother and business partner, in the Chagoury Group, of Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-born businessman whom federal records show has donated between $1 and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Indeed, Gilbert Chagoury’s friendship with the Clintons can be traced back to the Clinton presidency. In the mid-1990s, Chagoury donated nearly $500,000 to a voter-registration drive designed to help Democratic candidates, attended a White House dinner for premium donors, and met with high-ranking officials in the Clinton White House – including Susan Rice, now President Obama’s national security adviser – who were shaping U.S. policy toward Nigeria.
More recently, the Chagourys’ close ties to the Clintons generated headlines when a separate series of emails from 2009 – between Doug Band, an aide to former President Clinton and Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary Clinton – revealed the eagerness of the State Department to oblige a request for Chagoury to be granted access to senior officials working on Lebanon.
The State Department’s outreach to the Chagoury family, looking to buy property from the brothers, came less than a month after former President Clinton himself toured the Eko Atlantic project – for the second time. The first occasion was the ground breaking, in 2009, in which the former president participated. By all accounts, Eko Atlantic represents a staggeringly ambitious undertaking: the dredging of millions of tons of sand from the sea floor off Victoria Island and the creation of an estimated 3.5 square miles of new land, on which the Chagourys aim to establish what they call a “21st century city … for residential, commercial, financial and tourist development.”
Mr. Clinton toured the Eko Atlantic site for the second time on February 21, 2013 – twenty days after his wife left the State Department – to celebrate the Chagourys’ reclamation of 5 million square meters of land, a critical juncture in the project.
Smiling and animated, Mr. Clinton was photographed conferring with Gilbert Chagoury and Jeffrey J. Hawkins, the consul general for the State Department in Nigeria. Twenty-seven days later, when William P. Franklin would order aides to begin exploring the acquisition of land from South Energyx, the Chagoury-owned company, Hawkins would be one of four State Department officials copied on Franklin’s email.
“A month after Bill Clinton visits a Gilbert and Ronald Chagoury-run land project in Nigeria, the U.S. State Department wants to buy the same land,” said David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United, the conservative advocacy group whose litigation against the State Department pried loose the Franklin email and accompanying letter. “Who could be so lucky? A major donor to the Clinton Foundation, that’s who.”
Queried by Fox News about the matter, the State Department said its officials had “prioritized” the search for a new consulate location in Lagos back in 2011 – when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state – and that an “independent international real estate firm” had identified Eko Atlantic as a potential site the following year.
“Our site search process … is managed by career real estate professionals in the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, with input from independent real estate firms and other department stakeholders,” said Elizabeth Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman, at a briefing for reporters on Monday. “The department has had conversations with multiple property owners and their representatives about the possibility of acquiring property for a new consulate in Lagos.”
Trudeau could not explain why a “prioritized” mission had dragged on for five years without success, noting only that “acquiring property that’s appropriate” for a diplomatic facility can be “a long process.” Asked if Secretary Clinton had been aware of her department’s identification of the Chagoury-owned land as a potential site for a consulate, Trudeau replied: “I’m not aware she was.”
The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Mark Corallo, a Washington-based spokesman for Gilbert Chagoury, said in a statement that given the project’s “state-of-the-art urban design,” including advanced telecommunications and security features, “it should come as no surprise that the United States government and other governments from around the world are considering Eko Atlantic as a new opportunity for locating their offices that operate in Lagos.”
John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Fox News contributor, said the entire series of events involving the Clintons and the Chagourys appeared, at a minimum, poorly handled to insulate Secretary Clinton from conflict of interest charges.
“The impression left is that there’s favoritism involved,” Bolton said. “And it’s just very unusual in State Department real estate and housing transactions overseas to have this kind of focus on someone with such clear financial connections to even the departed secretary of state. Normally, there’s much more competitive activity involved, [of] which we haven’t seen any evidence from the State Department.”
Experts agreed the March 2013 email from William P. Franklin to Mary E. Davis, triggering the State Department’s letter to Ronald Chagoury for a possible real estate transaction, would likely have formed only one set of documents in a longer trail that would have dated back to 2012 – the year the State Department said Eko Atlantic had been identified as a potential site for a new consulate.
Such a trail would presumably include internal correspondence addressing the suitability of the Eko Atlantic site and, perhaps, flagging the potential conflict of interest that could be cited, given the longstanding ties between the Clintons and the Chagourys.
But Citizens United said no other documents on the consulate-scouting effort were turned over by the State Department. The group filed its initial Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department for records relating to Gilbert Chagoury back in 2014, and, receiving no reply, filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in April 2015.

Trump says Clinton, Democrats have 'failed and betrayed' African-Americans after Milwaukee riots

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump Tuesday responded to violence following a police shooting in Milwaukee with a wide-ranging attack on rival Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, accusing Clinton of "bigotry" and saying she sees African-Americans as no more than votes to be won.
"The Democratic Party has failed and betrayed the African-American community," Trump told supporters in West Bend, Wis., 45 minutes outside Milwaukee. "It is time to break with the failures of the past."
The real estate mogul accused Clinton of setting herself "against the police" and called for more law enforcement officers in local communities, vowing to "break up the gangs, the cartels, and criminal syndicates terrorizing our neighborhoods."
"[Clinton] panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes, not as individual human beings worthy of a better future," Trump said. "She doesn’t care at all about the hurting people of this country, or the suffering she has caused them."
There was no immediate comment from the Clinton campaign. On Monday, Clinton told supporters during a stop in Scranton, Pa. that the Milwaukee protests showed the nation had "urgent work to do to rebuild trust between police and communities" and said "everyone should have respect for the law and be respected by the law."
Addressing the weekend riots in Wisconsin's largest city after the shooting of a black man by a black police officer, Trump noted, "The main victims of these riots are law-abiding African-Americans living in these neighborhoods."
"Those peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society … share directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee," Trump said. "They have fostered the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America [and] do a direct disservice to poor African-American residents who are hurt by the high crime in their communities."
Later, Trump said the impact of Democratic control of major cities has been "more crime, more broken homes, and more poverty."
In an apparent response to criticism of his acceptance speech at last month's Republican National Convention, Trump said that "the future [Clinton] offers is the most pessimistic thing I can imagine."
Polls show Trump trailing Clinton by wide margins among black voters, particularly in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. African-Americans also reliably turned out for Clinton during her Democratic primary contest against Sen. Bernie Sanders, helping her shore up blowout wins in the South and Midwest.
On Tuesday, Trump called Clinton "the personification of special interest corruption." In a remark supporting expansion of charter schools, he accused Clinton of preferring to "deny opportunities to millions of young African-American children, just so she can curry favor with the education bureaucracy."
Trump also returned to the topic of the speaking fees Clinton collected after leaving her position as secretary of state. If elected, Trump vowed, he would ban senior officials from collecting speaking fees from corporations with a registered lobbyist or any entity tied to a foreign government for five years after leaving office.
Trump began his visit with a meeting with local law enforcement officers at the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center on Lake Michigan. Among those present were Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who penned an op-ed Monday blaming liberal Democrats and the media for the unrest that has rocked the city.
In an interview on "Fox & Friends", Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker accused Clinton of "inflaming the situation" with her comments.

"I think people understand in that neighborhood and Sherman Park and in Milwaukee, they want law enforcement to step up and protect them," he said, adding that "statements like that" from Clinton and a "lack of leadership" from President Barack Obama "only inflame the situation."
Trump told Fox News that the shooting in Milwaukee may have occurred because the officer had a gun to his head.
"Who can have a problem with that?" Trump said. "If it is true, then people shouldn't be rioting."
Trump's campaign also announced Tuesday that it will finally begin airing its first ads of the general election next week in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
While polls have shown Clinton building an overall lead following the Philadelphia convention, Democrats are fearful that a depressed voter turnout might diminish support among the minority, young and female voters who powered Obama to two victories.
Clinton said at a voter registration event at a Philadelphia high school that she's "not taking anybody anywhere for granted" in the race for the White House, saying the stakes "could not be higher."
While guarding against complacency, Clinton is also preparing for a potential administration.
Her campaign announced that former Interior Secretary and former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar would chair her White House transition team.

Trump campaign undergoes overhaul

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has shaken up his campaign once again with the election only 82 days away.
Fox News learned early Wednesday that pollster Kellyanne Conway was promoted to campaign manager and Stephen Bannon, the co-founder of Breitbart News, was named campaign chief executive.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the campaign’s overhaul.
Trump told the Associated Press that Conway and Bannon were “big people” who would help him defeat Hillary Clinton come November.
"I've known both of them for a long time. They're terrific people, they're winners, they're champs, and we need to win it," he said.
Conway told Fox News that “everyone else” on the campaign will remain in place.
“This is an expansion during the busy homestretch in the campaign,” she added.
Trump echoed Conway, telling the Associated Press that Paul Manfort, who took over following the departure of Corey Lewandowski in June, will maintain his current title.
A senior Trump campaign source told Fox News that Rick Gates’ title has been elevated to deputy campaign manager.
The recent development in the Trump campaign comes after several polls show that he losing to Clinton in several key background states. He has also resisted repeated calls from fellow Republicans to change his approach on the campaign trail that has powered his surge to the top of the GOP field in the primary season.
"You know, I am who I am," he told a local Wisconsin television station Tuesday. "It's me. I don't want to change. Everyone talks about, 'Oh, well you're going to pivot, you're going to.' I don't want to pivot. I mean, you have to be you. If you start pivoting, you're not being honest with people."
The Associated Press reported that the moves were discussed at a lengthy senior staff meeting at Trump Tower Tuesday while the billionaire mogul was on the road. Additional senior hires are expected to come in the next few days.
Trump, whose campaign is built on his persona as a winner, said several time that the campaign is "doing well," and said his speech hours earlier in Wisconsin Tuesday was well-received.
"We're going to be doing something very dramatic," Trump added.
In the Wisconsin outing, Trump accused Clinton of "bigotry" and being "against the police," claiming that she and other Democrats have "betrayed the African American community" and pandered for votes.
"We reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton, which panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes — that's all they care about," the GOP nominee said in remarks delivered not far from Milwaukee — the latest city to be rocked by violence in the wake of a police shooting.
Trump has been lagging in the polls since he was crowned the GOP standard-bearer in Cleveland last month. He charged that Clinton has been on the side of the rioters in Milwaukee, declaring: "Our opponent Hillary would rather protect the offender than the victim."
"The riots and destruction that have taken place in Milwaukee is an assault on the right of all citizens to live in security and to live in peace," he said.
Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri responded with a statement early Wednesday accusing Trump of being the bigot instead.
"With each passing Trump attack, it becomes clearer that his strategy is just to say about Hillary Clinton what's true of himself. When people started saying he was temperamentally unfit, he called Hillary the same. When his ties to the Kremlin came under scrutiny, he absurdly claimed that Hillary was the one who was too close to Putin. Now he's accusing her of bigoted remarks -- We think the American people will know which candidate is guilty of the charge," she said.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Hillary gets a pass Cartoons

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.
"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."
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.