Five Clinton-Russia Bombshells Progressives Yawned Over

You can get away with anything if you have enough money.

Given the establishment media’s focus on the “scandal” surrounding President Donald Trump and his administration’s contact with Russian officials, it is worth reminding Americans of the revelations involving Hillary Clinton and the Kremlin.

1. Hillary Clinton approved the transfer of 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia and nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
While Hillary Clinton’s State Department was one of eight agencies to review and sign off on the transfer of 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia — then-Secretary of State Clinton herself was the only agency head whose family foundation received $145 million in donations from multiple people connected to the uranium deal, as reported by the New York Times.
2. Bill Clinton bagged $500,000 for a Moscow speech paid for by a Kremlin-backed bank while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
Former President Bill Clinton delivered a speech in Moscow and received a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian government-connected bank, while his wife’s State Department was getting ready to sign off on the transfer of 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia.
“And, in one case, a Russian investment bank connected to the deals paid money to Bill Clinton personally, through a half-million-dollar speaker’s fee,” reported the New Yorker.
3. Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman’s Joule energy company bagged $35 million from Putin’s Rusnano.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta sat on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund. Podesta also owned “75,000 common shares” in Joule Unlimited, which he had transferred to a holding company called Leonidio LLC.
Podesta also failed to fully disclose his position on Joule Unlimited’s board of directors and include it in his federal financial disclosures, as required by law, before he became President Obama’s senior adviser in January 2014.
4.  Clinton Foundation chatter with State Dept. on Uranium Deal with Russia.
Senior staffers inside Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign were warned by Clinton Foundation senior vice president Maura Pally that the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), was asking the Department of Justice to investigate the State Department approval of the sale of American uranium assets to a Russian company.
The chain of emails proved the regular interaction between members of the Clinton campaign and senior staff at the Clinton Foundation.
5. Hillary Clinton hid $2.35 million in secret donations from Ian Telfer, the head of Russia’s uranium company.
Ian Telfer, the head of the Russian government’s uranium company, Uranium One, made four foreign donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation, as the New York Times reported.
“Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million,” the Times reported. “Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.”

McMaster says ‘not concerned’ after Kushner back-channel reports

Asked about reports that Donald Trump’s son-in-law had tried to set up a secret channel of communication with Russia before the president took office, U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said that so-called “back-channeling” was normal.
McMaster declined to speak specifically about the case of Jared Kushner, who serves as a senior adviser to Trump, but when asked if it would concern him if someone in the administration tried to set up a back channel with the Russian embassy or the Kremlin, he replied “no”.
“We have back-channel communications with any number of individual (countries). So generally speaking, about back-channel communications, what that allows you to do is communicate in a discreet manner,” McMaster said.
“So it doesn’t pre-expose you to any sort of content or any kind of conversation or anything. So we’re not concerned about it.”
Reuters reported last week that a proposal for a back channel was discussed between McMaster’s predecessor Mike Flynn and the Russian ambassador as Trump prepared to take office.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that Kushner participated in that conversation.

Liberal Crying Cartoons

Advertisers have begun fleeing Sean Hannity's show amid the controversy over Seth Rich conspiracies

Fox News host Sean Hannity has begun losing advertisers amid heightened controversy surrounding his decision to draw attention to conspiracy theories about the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.
In recent weeks, Hannity has repeatedly pushed the claim that Rich was not the victim of a botched robbery, as authorities suspect, but rather that he was killed for providing Wikileaks with internal DNC emails.
Hannity first raised questions about Rich's murder in August 2016, speculating about the possibility that Rich was a WikiLeaks source. Hannity has repeatedly called attention to the conspiracy theory over the past week as well.
Rich's family has repeatedly asked the cable TV host to stop peddling the rumor of a WikiLeaks connection.
On Tuesday, Hannity said that he would not discuss the Seth Rich story at this time "out of respect" for the family, but on Wednesday, he tweeted that he was "working harder than ever to get to the truth the family wants and deserves."
According to CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, Fox News president of programming, Suzanne Scott, met with Hannity on Tuesday and "encouraged him to stop pushing" the Seth Rich conspiracy.
As of Wednesday night, Hannity continued talking about the case on his show, without mentioning Seth Rich's name.
Kim Guilfoyle, a co-host on Fox News' "The Five," said Wednesday that she would be filling in for Hannity for the next two days.

 Bailey Comment: I have never heard of most of the company's listed below, but you can bet I will not being buying any of their products in the future. I also believe that fox news has begun leaning to far left for my taste and am debating on whether or not  keep getting my news from them.

 Here are the companies that have announced they will stop airing ads during Hannity's show:

Leesa Sleep, the e-commerce mattress company

Casper, online mattress retailer

The United Services Automobile Association (USAA) 

Home security company, Ring

 

 

 

Stinking D.C. swamp: Do these former House IT workers have dirt on congressional Democrats?

Debbie Wasserman-Schultza another swamp Idiot.

During his campaign, then GOP-nominee Donald J. Trump pledged repeatedly to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. Though he’d been around politics for years prior to throwing his hat into the presidential ring, there’s no way he could have fully understood just how wide and deep — and incestuous — the stinking D.C. swamp really is.
Now a new scandal that appears to threaten primarily Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill has emerged, and it seems to have all of the makings of a real-life House of Cards.
As reported by The Daily Caller, four Pakistani relatives — at least three of them brothers — who were in charge of managing office information technology for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other members on other panels, were suddenly relieved of their duties back in February after authorities suspected them of accessing the information of some congressional members without permission.
“Brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives,” the site reported then.
The computers of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the target of a disastrous leak of stolen data from the Democratic National Committee when she was serving as chairwoman, as well as other Democratic members were suspected to be compromised.
Fast forward to Monday, when The Daily Caller followed up on its initial reporting, saying that despite allegations of having committed crimes, no charges have yet to be filed against any of the former IT staffers, leaving current congressional IT workers to think that the integrity of high-level, sensitive information may have been compromised.
What’s more, affected congressional members “have displayed an inexplicable and intense loyalty towards the suspects who police say victimized them,” the site noted, adding that current aides suspect that perhaps the fired Pakistani brothers may have something incriminating or otherwise sensitive enough to use as blackmail over the members of Congress.
“I don’t know what they have, but they have something on someone,” said Pat Sowers, who has overseen IT for several members of Congress for a dozen years. “It’s been months at this point” without anyone being arrested. “Something is rotten in Denmark.”
The DC noted further suspicious revelations:
A manager at a tech-services company that works with Democratic House offices said he approached congressional offices, offering their services at one-fourth the price of Awan and his Pakistani brothers, but the members declined. At the time, he couldn’t understand why his offers were rejected but now he suspects the Awans exerted some type of leverage over members.
“There’s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they’d take me out in handcuffs that same day, and I’d never work again,” he said.
After the Awans were banned, 20 House members’ offices had to find a replacement IT company, but another contractor who thought he’d be a lock to get their business has been thwarted by them, saying they believe he was responsible for blowing the whistle on the Awans’ theft of data.
One House IT worker who talked to The Daily Caller on condition of anonymity said that some, but not all, of the offices left stranded by the Awans’ ban were “thin clients” which sent all data to a server off site, in violation of House rules.
In addition to the Awan brothers, two of their wives — Hina Alvi and Natalia Sova — were also on the payrolls of various Democratic House members soon after one of them began working for Wasserman Schulz in 2005. Since 2010, The Daily Caller reports, they have collected $4 million. (RELATED: Do these fired House IT workers have dirt on several Congress members?)
“The number of offices they had would definitely be suspicious. The loyalty [members] had [coupled with] customer service that wasn’t there,” Sowers said. “I love the Hill but to see this clear lack of concern over what appears to be a major breach bothers me. Everyone has said for years they were breaking the rules, but it’s just been a matter of time.”
Understand that as IT workers, they had access to all computerized data in members’ computers.
“You have the power to shut down the office, remove all their data and lock everyone out,” said the anonymous IT worker. “It’s got to be a trusted adviser. How could you not see this? Maybe it’s not specifically blackmail, maybe it’s, you knew this was going on and let me do this” for years.
Or, it’s blackmail.
A separate Democratic IT contractor told The DC that members “are saying don’t say anything, this will all blow over if we don’t say anything.” The Awans “had [members] in their pocket,” and “there are a lot of members who could go down over this.”

Howard Kurtz, host of 'MediaBuzz' Media ignoring positive stories about Trump administration?

Hillary Clinton attacks proposed Trump budget cuts as ‘cruelty’

Idiot just won't and can't let go!

Hillary Clinton assailed the man who beat her to the White House, slamming as “unimaginable cruelty” President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut $3.6 trillion in government spending over the next decade in a speech on Friday.
The defeated Democratic candidate did not name the Republican president in her remarks to the graduating class at her alma mater, Wellesley College. But she took several veiled swipes at the businessman-turned-politician, whose budget proposal earlier this week proposed sharp cuts in programs for healthcare and food assistance.
“Look at the budget that was just proposed in Washington. It is an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us,” Clinton told a crowd at the all-women’s college, located in Boston’s suburbs.
“It grossly underfunds public education, mental health and even efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.”
White House officials have described the proposed budget as providing tax cuts that they say would stimulate economic growth and create more private-sector jobs. As with all presidential budget proposals, the proposal was more of a wishlist that is unlikely to be approved in its current form by Congress.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, warned against an erosion of accepted standards of truth in U.S. public discourse, and also appeared to be attacking Trump on this issue.
“You are graduating a time when there is a full-fledged assault on truth and reason. Just log on to social media for 10 seconds, it will hit you right in the face,” she said, citing hoax online reports that her campaign was tied to a Washington pizzeria that operated a child sex ring.
“When people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society,” Clinton said. “This is not hyperbole, it is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done.”
She also urged graduates of the liberal-leaning school, which is located in one of the most Democratic states in the country, not to retreat into their own partisan echo chambers, saying, “your learning, listening and serving should include people who don’t agree with you politically.”
Clinton has had a long public career since graduating in 1969 from Wellesley. She was first lady during her husband Bill Clinton’s two terms in the White House and was later elected to the U.S. Senate representing New York state. She made an unsuccessful presidential run in 2008 before serving as the country’s top diplomat during President Barack Obama’s first term.
Clinton, 69, has gradually returned to the public eye since her upset November defeat, saying that she will not run for office again but will serve as an activist citizen.

Members of Congress Question Hack of DNC Server

Washington, DC – Young Richardson, OAN Political Correspondent
Wikileaks released tens of thousands of internal Democratic National Committee emails last summer, with Russia thought to be the source, and just weeks after the release, DNC staffer Seth Rich was fatally killed while walking to his Washington, DC home. Now some Members of Congress are raising questions about these events.
“I do not believe that the evidence at this time proves that the Russians would conclude that the Russians are the the ones who hacked the DNC. We have heard every report from the intelligence groups that are making their reports and they have weasel words in them, and they are based on opinion based on someone who is probably a strong liberal democrat,” says Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California).
Reports of the Russian hack of the DNC seem to be based on mere opinion says California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. And Rohrabacher believes other possible alleged sources of the computer breach—potentially including murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich–should be investigated.
“Whoever it could be, we need to look into it and verify. The fact that the young man’s death has not been followed by an investigation that would even be in place for an ordinary murder is very suspicious to me,” Rohrabacher ventures.
And Rohrabacher isn’t the only Member of Congress asking questions. Texas Congressman Blake Farenthold also wonders whether or not the intrusion into the DNC computer server may have been an inside job, potentially by any DNC staffer in a similar position like that of Seth Rich.
“I think it should definitely be a part of the investigation. It’s an alternative theory and any good investigation looks at alternative theories,” observes Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas). “We need to investigate all the options. A lot of the allegations about Russia and some of the allegations about President Trump now are all coming from un-named sources. Sources suggesting it was an inside job are probably just as valid as somebody not willing to give their name.”
With Members of Congress asking questions about the DNC hack, it may be possible there will now be some answers.

Cartoons US Lawmakers

U.S. lawmakers to fight massive Trump Saudi arms deal

U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on Thursday seeking to stop at least a portion of President Donald Trump’s sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Republican Rand Paul and Democrats Chris Murphy and Al Franken introduced a resolution of disapproval in the Senate to force a vote on whether to block part of the sale.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee received formal notice of the pending sale on May 19.
The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 allows a senator to force a vote on an arms sale, once Congress is formally notified of plans to go ahead. The same three senators introduced a similar resolution last year seeking to block the sale of $1.15 billion of tanks and other equipment to Saudi Arabia. That measure was defeated overwhelmingly.
Saudi Arabia was the first stop on Trump’s first international trip this week, and he marked the visit by announcing the arms deal in Riyadh on May 20. Saudi Arabia agreed to by $110 billion of U.S. arms, with options running as high as $350 billion over 10 years.
The lawmakers aim to block about $500 million of the sale, the portion including precision-guided munitions and other offensive weapons.
“Given Saudi Arabia’s past support of terror, poor human rights record, and questionable tactics in its war in Yemen, Congress must carefully consider and thoroughly debate if selling them billions of dollars of arms is in our best national security interest at this time,” Paul said in a statement.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives also took action on the planned sale on Thursday. Republican Representative Ted Yoho and Democrat Ted Lieu wrote to the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee asking for a hearing to review the sale of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh.
Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration suspended the planned sale of precision-guided munitions in December because of concerns over the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and civilian casualties.
But Trump has said he wants to encourage international weapons sales as a way to create jobs in the United States.

Trump directly scolds NATO allies, says they owe ‘massive’ sums

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday intensified his accusations that NATO allies were not spending enough on defense and warned of more attacks like this week’s Manchester bombing unless the alliance did more to stop militants.
In unexpectedly abrupt remarks as NATO leaders stood alongside him, Trump said certain member countries owed “massive amounts of money” to the United States and NATO — even though allied contributions are voluntary, with multiple budgets.
His scripted comments contrasted with NATO’s choreographed efforts to play up the West’s unity by inviting Trump to unveil a memorial to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States at the new NATO headquarters building in Brussels.
“Terrorism must be stopped in its tracks, or the horror you saw in Manchester and so many other places will continue forever,” Trump said, referring to Monday’s suicide bombing in the English city that killed 22 people, including children.
“These grave security concerns are the same reason that I have been very, very direct … in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share,” Trump said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg defended Trump, saying that although he was “blunt” he had “a very plain and clear message on the expectations” of allies.
But one senior diplomat said Trump, who left the leaders’ dinner before it ended to fly to Italy for Friday’s Group of Seven summit, said the remarks did not go down well at all.
“This was not the right place or time,” the diplomat said of the very public harangue. “We are left with nothing else but trying to put a brave face on it.”
In another unexpected twist, Trump called on NATO, an organization founded on collective defense against the Soviet threat, to include limiting immigration in its tasks.
And Trump did say that the United States “will never forsake the friends who stood by our side” but NATO leaders had hoped he would more explicitly support the mutual defense rules of a military alliance’s he called “obsolete” during his campaign.
Instead, he returned to a grievance about Europe’s drop in defense spending since the end of the Cold War and failed to publicly commit to NATO’s founding Article V rule which stipulates that an attack on one ally is an attack against all.
“Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying for their defense,” Trump said, standing by a piece of the wreckage of the Twin Towers.
“This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States, and many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years,” Trump said as the other leaders watched.
Nicholas Burns, a former long-time diplomat and ambassador to NATO from 2001-2005, now a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said every U.S. president since Harry Truman had pledged support for Article V and that the United States would defend Europe.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was “100 percent” committed to collective defense. “We are not playing cutesie with this. He is fully committed,” Spicer said.
“BARE MINIMUM”
Praise was always going to be in short supply after Trump’s sharp election campaign criticism of the alliance, which he blamed for not doing more to combat terrorism.
Last year, Trump threatened to abandon U.S. allies in Europe if they did not spend enough on defense, comments that were particularly unnerving for the ex-Soviet Baltic states on Russia’s border which fear Moscow might try a repeat of its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.
Although he has since softened his tone in phone calls and meetings with Western leaders, Trump’s sharp words on Thursday recalled his awkward meeting with Angela Merkel in March, when he pressed the German chancellor for Germany to meet NATO’s military spending target.
NATO diplomats planned to placate Trump with a pledge on Thursday to agree to national plans by the end of this year showing how NATO allies will meet a promise to spend 2 percent of economic output every year on defense by 2024.
But Trump increased the pressure, calling that agreement made at a summit in Wales in 2014 “the bare minimum”.
“Even 2 percent of GDP is insufficient … 2 percent is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats,” Trump said.
He also made his presence felt at his first NATO summit, literally, pushing his way past Montenegro’s prime minister, Dusko Markovic, whose country joins the organization next month, in footage that went viral.
Spicer said he had not seen the video but assumed the U.S. president was moving to his designated spot.
NATO nonetheless strived to impress Trump with allied jets flying overhead and a walk through the new glass headquarters, which replaces a 1960s prefab structure.
Trump, a real estate magnate, called the building “beautiful” and joked that he did not dare ask how much it cost.

Trump plans to boost White House staff with 'war room' to go after critics

Once President Trump wraps up an initial foreign trip that aides believe has gone very well, the Commander-in-Chief plans to strike quickly next week to beef up the White House staff with a "war room" aimed at taking the fight to the administration's critics more aggressively, according to two advisers to the president.
The names of David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, two trusted hands from the Trump campaign, are being bantied about as possible additions to the White House staff.
But the advisers to the president stress both men are currently focused on continuing to help the president from outside, and no final decisions have been made on whether the president will ask them to officially join the administration or simply defend the president more aggressively from the outside.
The advisers to the president describe a hands-on Trump who is prepared to go on offense after realizing -- perhaps belatedly -- that he has to get far more serious about two critical matters, pushing back against leakers in the federal government and dealing with the political damage from the various Russia investigations led by Congressional committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
"It's all hands on deck," said one of the advisers to the president who is involved in the planning.
The second adviser added bluntly, "there are going to be some changes" to the president's existing staff.
However, both advisers were adamant about stressing that the continued speculation about a massive staff "shakeup" is overblown, and that there is nothing imminent in terms of potential changes for Press Secretary Sean Spicer and other top aides.
Instead, the president's moves next week are more likely to be about addition than subtraction. "It is about bolstering and adding on to the staff," noted one of the advisers.
The website Axios quoted one Trump ally as saying, "The White House is embracing the fight, which is going to last as long as Donald Trump is president. We're getting street fighters ready to go."
The president has already selected Mark Kasowitz, a tough New York lawyer, to lead his outside legal team to focus on the investigations. One adviser to the President noted Kasowitz is "ready to rumble" with the President's critics from outside the White House, so now the focus is who will be added to the West Wing to help Trump.
In the spotlight now are Bossie and Lewandowski, two people who have the trust of the president but did not join the administration in the early months. Advisers now describe Bossie and Lewandowski as still wanting to help Trump from the outside, but both men would be honored and hard-pressed to say no if the President asks them for more direct help when he returns from the foreign trip.
Lewandowski said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday night that he has no plans to join the administration and only goes to the White House as a visitor. But he still left the door open by saying he would be honored if the president wants him to work in the White House.
"My loyalty is to the president and the agenda he ran on," Lewandowski said, adding "if I can help the president do that, of course."

Gianforte wins: Montana House candidate facing assault charge wins special election

Republican Greg Gianforte won Montana’s special election Thursday despite being charged with assaulting a reporter just hours before polls opened across the state.
With 84 percent of precincts reporting, Greg Gianforte led Democrat Rob Quist by more than 24,000 votes out of nearly 270,000 ballots cast.
Gianforte said in his victory speech late Thursday that his victory is a victory for all Montana. He also used the platform to apologize to the reporter he allegedly assaulted on election eve and a Fox News team that witnessed the encounter.
“When you make a mistake, you have to own up to it. That’s the Montana way. Last night I made a mistake, and I took an action that I can’t take back, and I’m not proud of what happened. I should not have responded in the way that I did, and for that I’m sorry. I should not have treated that reporter that way, and for that I am sorry Mr. Ben Jacobs."
It had been unclear if Gianforte's assault charge would impact the race. About a third of eligible voters in Montana had already cast their ballots in early voting, and others said it didn't influence their vote.
Shaun Scott, a computer science professor at Carroll College in Helena, said the assault charge was barely a factor in his decision.
"If you have somebody sticking a phone in your face, a mic in your face, over and over, and you don't know how to deal with the situation, you haven't really done that, you haven't dealt with that, I can see where it can ... make you a little angry," Scott said Thursday.
Approximately a third of Montana's eligible voters had cast absentee ballots before Gianforte was cited Wednesday by the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office following a confrontation with Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs. Witnesses, including a Fox News crew, said Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck and slammed him to the ground while yelling "Get the hell out of here!"
The last-minute controversy unnerved Republicans, who also faced close calls this year in the traditionally Republican congressional districts in Kansas and Georgia. A runoff election is scheduled for next month in Georgia between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel after Ossoff fell just short of winning outright.
Gianforte showed lukewarm support for Trump during his unsuccessful run for governor in Montana last fall but did an about-face and turned into an ebullient Trump supporter after he started campaigning for the congressional seat vacated by Republican Ryan Zinke, when he was tapped by Trump to serve as Interior Department secretary.
Gianforte urged Montana voters to send him to help Trump "drain the swamp," brought in Vice President Mike Pence and first son Donald Trump Jr. to campaign for him and was supported by millions of dollars of ads and mailers paid for by Republican groups.

Democrat News Washington Post Cartoons

Sean Hannity loses advertisers amid uproar over slain DNC staffer conspiracy theories

Another Conservative being brought down by the damn democrats??

The automotive classified site Cars.com and several other companies pulled advertising from Sean Hannity’s Fox News show after he came under fire for promoting a conspiratorial account of the slaying of a former Democratic National Committee staffer.
“We don’t have the ability to influence content at the time we make our advertising purchase,” Cars.com said in a statement Wednesday. “In this case, we’ve been watching closely and have recently made the decision to pull our advertising from Hannity.”
The mattress maker Leesa Sleep, the exercise company Peloton, and the military financial services company USAA said they, too, were no longer advertising on Hannity’s show. Crowne Plaza Hotels, online mattress retailer Casper, and the video doorbell company Ring, told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday that they were backing out as well.

[The life and death of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory]

Ring told BuzzFeed News in a statement: “We are always evaluating and monitoring our advertisements to ensure they align with the Ring brand. As of May 23rd, we have asked our media buying partners not to place Ring ads on The Sean Hannity Show.”
Hannity had been one of the main purveyors of a widely discredited theory that DNC staffer Seth Rich was shot and killed near his home in Northwest Washington last year because he had supplied DNC emails to WikiLeaks. District police say Rich died in a botched robbery. His parents have pleaded with news outlets to stop speculating about his death.

[Opinion | We’re Seth Rich’s parents. Stop politicizing our son’s murder.]

After facing a wave of criticism over its reporting, Fox News retracted an article on Tuesday that said Rich made contact with WikiLeaks before he was shot.
At first Hannity refused to follow suit, telling listeners on his radio show, “All you in the liberal media, I am not Fox.com or Foxnews.com; I retracted nothing.” On his Fox News show Tuesday evening he said he would back off the story “for now,” but continued to post cryptic tweets about Rich’s death.
The left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters published a list of Hannity’s sponsors on Tuesday — a move many interpreted as a call to boycott his show.
Hannity responded in a series of tweets saying “liberal fascists” were trying to bring him down.

“There’s nothing that I did, nothing that I said, except they don’t like my position politically,” Hannity told HuffPost Wednesday. “They’ll try to ratchet up the intensity of their rationale. It does not justify an attempt to get me fired. And that’s what this is. This is an attempt to take me out. This is a kill shot.”
Rich, a 27-year-old data analyst, was gunned down in the early hours of July 10 in Washington’s Bloomingdale neighborhood. Later that month, WikiLeaks published a cache of DNC emails, leading some commentators to speculate that Rich’s death was somehow related.
Investigators have not found Rich’s killer, but they have ruled out any connection to WikiLeaks.
On May 16, Fox News reported that Rich had leaked more than 44,000 DNC emails and more than 17,700 attachments to a now-deceased WikiLeaks director. The stories, which cited “investigative sources,” were widely circulated on social media and among conservative news outlets.
In its retraction on Tuesday, Fox News said in a statement that the article “was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.”
Rich’s parents, Mary and Joel Rich, have described the conspiracy theories surrounding their son’s death as a “nightmare.”
“Seth’s death has been turned into a political football,” they wrote in a Washington Post commentary. “Every day we wake up to new headlines, new lies, new factual errors, new people approaching us to take advantage of us and Seth’s legacy. It just won’t stop.”
Last month, advertisers fled former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s show en mass amid allegations that he had sexually harassed several women. Over the course of a couple weeks, dozens of companies pulled out of after a damning New York Times article revealed that he and Fox had paid $13 million over the past 15 years to settle five cases. Fox News ended its 20-year association with O’Reilly on April 19.

Trump meets EU chiefs in Brussels

U.S. President Donald Trump met the heads of European Union institutions in Brussels on Thursday ahead of a summit of NATO leaders at the military alliance’s headquarters in the city later in the day.
Trump, on the fourth leg of his first foreign trip since taking office, was greeted by European Council President Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who chairs meetings of the 28 EU leaders. Also joining the talks will be the bloc’s chief executive, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Trump, who voiced scepticism while campaigning about the EU’s value and hailed Britain’s Brexit vote to quit the bloc, will hear a call from European leaders for him to maintain Washington’s longstanding support for integration on the continent, as well to support free trade and efforts to combat climate change.

In first under Trump, U.S. warship challenges Beijing’s claims in South China Sea

A U.S. Navy warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built up by China in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, the first such challenge to Beijing in the strategic waterway since U.S. President Donald Trump took office.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the USS Dewey traveled close to the Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
China said its warships had warned the U.S. ship and it lodged “stern representations” with the United States. China said it remained resolutely opposed to so-called freedom of navigation operations.
The U.S. patrol, the first of its kind since October, marked the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, and comes as Trump is seeking China’s cooperation to rein in ally North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Territorial waters are generally defined by U.N. convention as extending at most 12 nautical miles from a state’s coastline.
One U.S. official said it was the first operation near a land feature which was included in a ruling last year against China by an international arbitration court in The Hague. The court invalidated China’s claim to sovereignty over large swathes of the South China Sea.
The United States has criticized China’s construction of islands and build-up of military facilities in the sea, and is concerned they could be used to restrict free movement.
U.S. allies and partners in the region had grown anxious as the Trump administration held off on carrying out South China Sea operations during its first few months in office.
Last month, top U.S. commander in the Asia-Pacific region, Admiral Harry Harris, said the United States would likely carry out freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea soon.
Still, the U.S. military has a long-standing position that the operations are carried out throughout the world, including in areas claimed by allies, and they are separate from political considerations.
“We operate in the Asia-Pacific region on a daily basis, including in the South China Sea. We operate in accordance with international law,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said in a statement.
The Pentagon gave no details of the latest mission.
‘ERRANT WAYS’
Chinese defense ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang told a monthly briefing two Chinese guided-missile warships had warned the U.S. vessel to leave the waters, and China had complained to the United States.
“The U.S. side’s errant ways have caused damage to the improving situation in the South China Sea, and are not conducive to peace and stability,” Ren said.
Ren was referring to a recent of easing of tension between China and other claimants, in particular the Philippines.
China’s extensive claims to the South China Sea, which sees about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade pass every year, are challenged by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, as well as Taiwan.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said such patrols were “very likely to cause unexpected sea and air accidents”.
Under the previous U.S. administration, the Navy conducted several such voyages through the South China Sea. The last operation was approved by then-President Barack Obama.
The latest U.S. patrol is likely to exacerbate U.S.-China tensions that had eased since Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a summit in Florida resort last month.
Trump lambasted China during the 2016 presidential campaign, accusing it of stealing U.S. jobs with unfair trade policies, manipulating its currency and militarizing parts of the South China Sea.
In December, after winning office, he upended protocol by taking a call from the president of self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as its own sacred territory.
But since meeting Xi, Trump has praised him for efforts to restrain North Korea, though it has persisted with ballistic missile tests.
U.S.-based South China Sea expert Greg Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the operation was the first conducted by the United States close to an artificial feature built by China not entitled to a territorial sea under international law.
Previous freedom of navigation operations have gone within 12 nautical miles of Subi and Fiery Cross reefs, two other features in the Spratlys built up by China, but both of those features are entitled to a territorial sea.
Mischief Reef was not entitled to a territorial sea as it was underwater at high tide before it was built up by China and was not close enough to another feature entitled to such a territorial sea, said Poling.
He said the key question was whether the U.S. warship had engaged in a real challenge to the Chinese claims by turning on radar or launching a helicopter or boat – actions not permitted in a territorial sea under international law.
Otherwise, critics say, the operation would have resembled what is known as “innocent passage” and could have reinforced rather than challenged China’s claim to a territorial limit around the reef.

UK police stop sharing information on Manchester attack with U.S. after leaks

Sharing Stopped because of some Democrat Snitch?

British police have stopped sharing information on the suicide bombing in Manchester with the United States, the BBC reported on Thursday, because of fears that leaks in the U.S. media could hinder a hunt for a possible bomb-maker still at large.
If confirmed, the halt to the sharing investigative details with Britain’s most important defense and security ally would underscore the level of anger in Britain at leaks to the U.S. media of details about the police investigation.
British Prime Minister Theresa May will raise the issue with Donald Trump on Thursday, a government source told Reuters, after the New York Times published detailed pictures of the crime scene in Manchester where 22 people were killed.
The pictures included the remains of the suspected bomb, the rucksack worn by the suicide bomber and showed blood stains amid the wreckage.
The BBC said Manchester Police hoped to resume normal intelligence relationships soon but is currently furious.
After the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, police are hunting for accomplices whom they suspect helped Salman Abedi build the bomb that killed 22 people on Monday in a crowded concert hall in the northern English city of Manchester.
British police have arrested two more men in connection with the Manchester attack, taking the number of people in custody to eight, Greater Manchester police said.
Britain views the United States as its closest ally, and the two countries also share intelligence as part of the “Five Eyes” network which also includes Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
After Trump defended his decision to discuss intelligence with the Russians during a White House meeting, Prime Minister Theresa May said last week that Britain would continue to share intelligence with the United States.

Shadow Government Cartoons

U.S. starts ‘extreme vetting’ at Australia’s offshore detention centers

U.S. Homeland Security officials have begun “extreme vetting” interviews at Australia’s offshore detention centers, two sources at the camps told Reuters on Tuesday, as Washington honors a refugee swap that U.S. President Donald Trump had called “a dumb deal”.
The Trump administration said last month the agreement to offer refuge to up to 1,250 asylum seekers in the centers would progress on condition that refugees satisfied strict checks.
In exchange, Australia has pledged to take Central American refugees from a center in Costa Rica, where the United States has expanded intake in recent years, under the deal struck with former President Barack Obama.
The first security interviews finished last week at Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island detention center, two refugees who went through the process told Reuters.
The refugees told Reuters that interviews began with an oath to God to tell the truth and then proceeded for as long as six hours, with in-depth questions on associates, family, friends and any interactions with the Islamic State militant group.
“They asked about why I fled my home, why I sought asylum in Australia,” said one refugee who declined to be named, fearing it could jeopardize his application for U.S. resettlement.
The security interviews are the last stage of U.S. consideration of applicants.
Manus Island is one of two Australian-operated detention centers, which hold nearly 1,300 people who were intercepted trying to reach Australia by boat.
Human rights groups have condemned the intercept policy and the harsh conditions of the camps. Australia says offshore processing is needed as a deterrent after thousands of people drowned at sea before the policy was introduced in 2013.
A decision on the fate of the first 70 people interviewed is expected to be reached within the next month, a different source who works with refugees said.
A spokesman for Australia’s immigration minister refused to comment on the resettlement process.
The U.S. State Department and White House did not immediately respond to questions.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for extreme vetting have extended to those traveling to the United States from Muslim countries.
Australia’s relationship with the new administration in Washington got off to a rocky start when Trump lambasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over the resettlement arrangement, which Trump labeled a “dumb deal”.
Details of an acrimonious phone call between the pair soon after Trump took office made headlines around the world. Australia is one of Washington’s staunchest allies and has sent troops to fight alongside the U.S. military in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The relocation of asylum seekers to the United States is designed to help Papua New Guinea and Australia proceed with the planned closure of the Manus detention center on Oct. 31.
But the fate of approximately 200 men deemed non-refugees is uncertain.
Those not offered resettlement in the United States will be offered the chance to settle in Papua New Guinea or return home.
Australia has already offered detainees up to $25,000 to voluntarily return home; an offer very few have taken up.

U.S. delivers patrol boats to Vietnam to deepen security ties

The United States has transferred six patrol boats to the Vietnam coast guard, to help build security cooperation between the two countries, U.S. embassy in Hanoi said in a statement on Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed his hope for a stronger relationship with Vietnam, after the Obama administration put ties on a stronger footing amid Vietnam’s territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea.
The patrol boats, which were included a defense cooperation memorandum agreed in 2011, will help Vietnam in intercoastal patrols and law enforcement, the statement said.
It also added that delivering these vessels deepens cooperation in the areas maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance operations within Vietnam’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.
“Vietnam’s future prosperity depends upon a stable and peaceful maritime environment. The United States and the rest of the international community also benefit from regional stability,” U.S. Ambassador Ted Osius said.
Vietnam is the country most openly at odds with China over the waterway since the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte took a softer line with Beijing.
China claims 90 percent of the potentially energy-rich South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan lay claim to parts of the sea, through which about $5 trillion of trade passes each year.

Trump administration wants Obamacare subsidy case put on hold, again

The Trump administration asked on Monday that a major federal court case weighing the fate of the Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies be put on hold again, leaving billions of dollars in payments to insurers up in the air for 2017 and 2018.
In a joint filing with the U.S. House of Representatives submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the administration and Republican lawmakers asked for a second 90-day extension.
The subsidies are available to low-income Americans who buy individual health insurance on the exchanges created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, popularly known as Obamacare.
President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers want to repeal and replace the law and are working on legislation to overhaul it that would also secure the subsidy funding during a transition period. But it is not clear if or when they will pass it.
The two sides said they wanted more time because they were discussing measures that would no longer require a judicial decision, including the new healthcare legislation.
Insurers that are trying to set premium rates for insurance plans to be sold in 2018 are running up against deadlines and have repeatedly asked Congress to fund the subsidies during the transition.
One Republican senator said on Monday that he believed the money for the subsidies should be appropriated by Congress. “I think we have to,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana told reporters outside the Senate. “We need to stabilize premiums, or we’re not going to have a market.” He said he was speaking for himself and not Republican leaders.
The legal case was filed by the Republican-led House against the Obama administration to cut off the subsidy payments.
A lower court had ruled in favor of the lawmakers, saying that Congress must appropriate the money for the subsidies and that the government could not simply pay for them in the way it does now.
Insurers and medical groups reiterated their view on Monday after the court filing about continuing the payments, which amount to about $7 billion this year and help low-income consumers pay for out-of-pocket medical costs.
“Uncertainty is destabilizing the market and leading health plans to raise their rates for 2018 to account for the political risk brought on by Congress and the administration through a protracted debate over the fate of these reimbursements,” Margaret Murray, chief executive officer of the Association for Community Affiliated Plans, said in a statement.
While the proposed legislation from the House would keep the payments through 2019, Trump has said he could stop paying the subsidies at any time. That has insurers concerned that the monthly government payments could end and leave them exposed financially.
Several insurers, including Aetna Inc and Humana Inc, have already exited the Obamacare marketplace for 2018. Credit Suisse analyst Scott Fidel said insurers such as Centene Corp and Molina Healthcare Inc that focus on the low-income families that qualify for the subsidies have the most at risk. Centene shares closed down 1.4 percent at $74.02 and Molina fell 0.8 percent to $66.84.

Trump seeks to slash government spending in budget plan

The White House on Tuesday will ask Republicans who control the U.S. Congress – and federal purse strings – to slash spending on healthcare and food assistance programs for the poor as they push ahead on plans to cut taxes and trim the deficit.
President Donald Trump is set to propose a raft of politically sensitive cuts in his first full budget, for the fiscal year that starts in October, a proposal that some analysts expected would be put aside by lawmakers as they craft their own budget and spending plans.
Trump, who is traveling overseas and will miss the unveiling of his plan, wants lawmakers to cut $3.6 trillion in government spending over 10 years, balancing the budget by the end of the decade, according to a preview given to reporters on Monday.
More than $800 billion would be cut from the Medicaid program for the poor and more than $192 billion from food stamps.
Republicans are under pressure to deliver on promised tax cuts, the cornerstone of the Trump administration’s pro-business economic agenda, which would cut the business tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, and reduce the number of personal tax brackets to three from seven.
But their policy agenda has stalled as the White House grapples with the political fallout from Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
Comey had been leading a probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Trump’s biggest savings would come from cuts to the Medicaid program made as part of a Republican healthcare bill passed by the House of Representatives.
The bill aims to gut the Obama administration’s signature 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, that expanded insurance coverage and the government-run Medicaid program for the poor. But it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, which is writing its own law.
The White House proposed changes that would require more childless people receiving help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, to work.
STEEP CUTS
The plan would slash supports for farmers, impose user fees for meat inspection and sell off half the nation’s emergency oil stockpile. Another politically fraught item is a proposal for cuts to the U.S. Postal Service, a goal that has long eluded lawmakers and administrations from both political parties.
The first look at the plan came in a “skinny budget” released in March – a document that received a tepid response from Congress.
Most departments would see steep cuts, particularly the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.
There is some new spending. The Pentagon would get a boost, and there would be a down payment to begin building a wall on the southern border with Mexico, which was a central promise of Trump’s presidential campaign.
The budget includes $25 billion for a plan to give parents six weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, and $200 billion to encourage state and local governments to boost spending on roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure programs.
The plan drew immediate fire from lobby groups, including from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which said it relied on “rosy assumptions,” gimmicks and unrealistic cuts.
“While we appreciate the administration’s focus on reducing the debt, when using more realistic assumptions, the president’s budget does not add up,” Maya MacGuineas, the group’s president, said in a statement.
Trump’s plan relies on forecasts for economic growth of 3 percent a year by the end of his first term – well beyond Congressional Budget Office assumptions of 1.9 percent growth.
“That assumes a pessimism about America, about the economy, about its people, about its culture, that we’re simply refusing to accept,” White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters on Monday.

New York Times Cartoons

The disgusting “mainstream media” is helping the Deep State oust Trump and should be considered an enemy of democracy

On a near-daily basis now, the disruptive, discredited, fake news corporate media breathlessly reports every single thing President Donald J. Trump says or does as some sort of new scandal rising to the level of impeachment.
The latest “crisis” is supposedly related to a memo former FBI Director James Comey wrote following a meeting in February with the president in the Oval Office, in which it is claimed that Trump asked him to drop the bureau’s investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Not that this is odd or anything, but the contents of the memo were read to a New York Times reporter; the memo itself wasn’t provided in full, so there is no context, no way of knowing if it’s even real, and no way of discerning where it actually came from.
And it’s a Comey memo, they say? It shows Trump was attempting to obstruct justice, say Democrats and their media? Well then, why didn’t Comey report any intimidation? He is required by statute to report any interference like that to House and Senate intelligence committees and yet he didn’t do that. And never mind that acting FBI Director Andy McCabe told a congressional committee last week that there has been no interference from the White House on any of the FBI’s investigations.
But hey, it was the latest leak of sensitive information that is part of the rising flood of leaks coming out of the administration these days, so the Left-wing establishment media must dutifully publish as gospel and then repeat it ad nauseam, even when they’re wrong.
What about former President Obama and his administration? Did the same standards apply? Hardly.
One of the media’s hyperventilated charges last week was that Trump provided Russian diplomats with “classified information” during their recent meeting in the Oval Office (a claim Russian President Vladimir Putin is even mocking). The White House vehemently denied it, citing three officials who were in the room at the same time as the president when the interactions took place.
But on at least two occasions in the past few years, the Obama regime actually did compromise classified information – in exposing the CIA station chief in Afghanistan and giving Russia intelligence it later used against us in Syria.
The resulting media outcry? It didn’t happen. Calls for impeachment? Nada.
As to Trump’s alleged “obstruction of justice,” Obama indicated in a public forum more than once he didn’t think Hillary Clinton did anything wrong in using an unsecured private email server to send and receive classified information, a blatant violation of national security statutes. According to former U.S. prosecutor and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy, because of those very public statements, which clearly telegraphed Obama’s desire not to have the Democrats’ presidential nominee indicted, it set a precedent that cannot now ensnare Trump:
April 10, 2016, President Obama publicly stated that Hillary Clinton had shown “carelessness” in using a private e-mail server to handle classified information, but he insisted that she had not intended to endanger national security (which is not an element of the relevant criminal statute). The president acknowledged that classified information had been transmitted via Secretary Clinton’s server, but he suggested that, in the greater scheme of things, its importance had been vastly overstated.
On July 5, 2016, FBI director James Comey publicly stated that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in using a private email server to handle classified information, but he insisted that she had not intended to endanger national security (which is not an element of the relevant criminal statute). The director acknowledged that classified information had been transmitted via Secretary Clinton’s server, but he suggested that, in the greater scheme of things, it was just a small percentage of the emails involved.
Case dismissed.
He went on to note that “a cynic” could conclude that the president signaled the FBI and Justice Department his desired outcome, and that is the outcome he and Democrats got. Yet no outrage from the same discredited media that is excoriating Trump and calling for his ouster.
It should be crystal clear by now that the Washington establishment media is not just an enemy of Donald J. Trump, it is an enemy of the people – at least, Americans in a majority of electoral districts that voted for him.
But the media is also an enemy of our democracy for so willingly going along with the Democratic Party’s inability to accept defeat at the ballot box whenever it occurs. They had already pre-ordained Clinton as the next queen…er, president – and they expected to be feting her well into the year after being inaugurated Jan. 20.
It didn’t happen. So Alt-Left Democrats and their allies in the establishment media have concocted fake narrative after fake narrative to “explain” why Clinton lost – the Russians stole the election; or – until Trump fired him – Comey’s ‘interference’ did it. Anything other than admitting she was the worst candidate to come along in generations. She was corrupt, she was uninspiring and frankly, her last name is Clinton, which is offputting to many. She got the same consideration from tens of millions of Democrats as Jeb Bush got from Republicans, only her party conspired to ensure she got the nomination.
As Natural News founder/editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, noted earlier today, a political coup has been launched against a legitimately elected president. And the “mainstream” media is part of the lynch mob.

New York Times doesn’t appear to require actual documented proof anymore when it comes to reporting on Trump

The Old Gray Lady is sure getting a lot older these days, especially for millions of Americans who are simply turning off the news or tuning it out because the media’s irrational hatred of President Donald J. Trump has completely warped whatever objectivity — and credibility — it had left.
This is especially true of The New York Times, whose editors have obviously decided that reporters no longer need actual documented proof of claims made in their stories about Trump; that the spoken word by “officials,” who shall always be nameless, is good enough.
Twice now in less than a week the Times has run pieces based on information that was read to their reporters from someone who is either serial-leaking highly sensitive information out of Trump’s White House, or who is serving as a tool of the Deep State which continues to try to push Trump out of the Oval Office. Not once in either of those cases did the Times actually see the document purporting to support what was being read to reporters, presumably over the phone.
The first story dealt with allegations that Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the bureau’s investigation into the president’s first national security advisor, Michael Flynn. We’re being told that what Trump allegedly asked was detailed in a memo Comey wrote following the meeting; there is no other context, and no one other than Comey and some “associates” of his, has actually seen said memo, if it even exists:
Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.
The second story was published Friday, as Trump left the country on a multi-day tour that takes him to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Europe. It dealt with allegations that he told Russian diplomats he met last week in the Oval Office that Comey was a “nut job” who was “crazy” and putting “great pressure” on him “because of Russia.” That, too was read to Times reporters:
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
You know, once upon a time if a reporter had filed a story — even at the Times — without documentation to back up claims when said documentation apparently existed, he or she would likely face a reprimand and/or unemployment. The Times publishing these kinds of allegations based only on what someone was reading to its reporters is just despicable.
And wholly dishonest.
For the second story, to be fair, White House spokesman Sean Spicer did not deny the words that were read to reporters, just the context in which the reporters portrayed what was read to them.
“By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia,” Spicer said. “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations.” (Related: Wait A Sec… You Mean James Comey Wrote A Memo To HIMSELF, Then “Leaked” It To The NYT?)
Yet another “government official” quoted by the Times said the words Trump chose were part of negotiating with the Russian officials — Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak:
The idea, the official suggested, was to create a sense of obligation with Russian officials and to coax concessions out of Mr. Lavrov — on Syria, Ukraine and other issues — by saying that Russian meddling in last year’s election had created enormous political problems for Mr. Trump.
Indeed, the leaks are the problem. How are Americans supposed to believe such accounts when the outlets reporting them have been so wrong so many times before? And as for reading documents to reporters, anyone can make up the contents of a “memo” or “transcript” and call it valid and real, even when it’s not. Plus, in the case of Trump’s meeting with the Russian officials, there were no American officials present other than National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and a lower-ranking national security aide.
So where did these accounts come from? Who actually said what? And why are Americans just supposed to blindly believe these accounts when it’s obvious the Establishment press is gunning for Trump?
Welcome to establishment journalism in the Age of Trump, when innuendo and claims phoned in now pass as responsible reporting.