Reports: Burisma lobbied Obama-era State Dept. to pressure Ukraine to fire top prosecutor

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 1:50 PM PT — Tuesday, November 5, 2019

New documents have revealed a massive lobbying effort at the Obama-era State Department by Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The newly released State Department documents show Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor back in 2016, which is about a month after Burisma reached out to the agency.
The company employed Biden’s son Hunter and was under an investigation by prosecutor Viktor Shokin at the time. Ukraine suspected Burisma executives of money laundering and corruption.

Awkward

Emails show Burisma lobbyists requesting meeting in early 2016 with Obama administration to discuss corruption investigation involving Hunter Biden pic.twitter.com/jl7ogTBxOk
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 5, 2019

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Republican lawmakers have said the so-called whistleblower may have ties to Biden’s alleged corruption schemes.

“The whistleblower, actually, is a material witness completely separate from being the whistleblower because he worked for Joe Biden. He worked for Joe Biden at the same time Hunter Biden was receiving $50,000 a month. So, the investigation into the corruption of Hunter Biden involves this whistleblower because he was there at the time. Did he bring up the conflict of interest? Was there discussion of this? What was his involvement with the relationship between Joe Biden and the prosecutors?” — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have said the only reason Biden sat on Burisma’s board was to “protect” the company from scrutiny.

It’s time for:

*Joe Biden and John Kerry to come clean about the full nature of the access Hunter was able to secure for Burisma
AND
*House Democrats must release all of the transcripts from their closed-door depositions immediatelyhttps://t.co/rEtwSAYEmc
— GOP (@GOP) November 5, 2019

President Trump on American family killed in Mexico: U.S. stands ready to ‘wage war’

President Trump said it’s time for Mexico to wage war on the country’s drug cartels with the help of the U.S. In a series of tweets Tuesday, the president weighed in on the recent killing of an American family in Northern Mexico. It happened Monday about 70 miles from the U.S. border.
The suspected cartel attack left at least six children and three women dead as well as several others injured. Five of the victims were discovered in a charred SUV and four others were found in a separate unidentified location. President Trump has called the killings “vicious” and assured the U.S. stands ready to get involved in efforts to battle the dangerous cartels.

….monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2019

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President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 4, 2019, before boarding Marine One for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to Lexington, Ky., for a campaign rally. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Family members of the victims say they are in complete shock.

“We just can’t believe that this has actually happened to our family, this seems like a bad dream. We just knew their vehicle was on fire and there was bullet holes all around it, and that they were all dead. My sister was in one with nine of her children, and then my sister was in one with her baby.” — Leah Staddon, family member to victims

Surviving family members say they are in touch with the American consulate in Mexico as local authorities continue to investigate the attack.

Beshear claims victory in Kentucky; Bevin refuses to concede

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s bitter race for governor went into overtime as Democrat Andy Beshear declared victory while Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, a close ally of President Donald Trump, refused to concede with results showing he trailed by a few thousand votes.

Kentucky has some sorting out to do before inaugurating its next governor.

With 100% of precincts reporting, Beshear — the state’s attorney general and the son of Kentucky’s last Democratic governor, Steve Beshear — had a lead of 5,333 votes out of more than 1.4 million counted, or a margin of nearly 0.4 percentage points. The Associated Press has not declared a winner.

In competing speeches late Tuesday, Beshear claimed victory while Bevin refused to concede.

“My expectation is that he (Bevin) will honor the election that was held tonight,” Beshear said. “That he will help us make this transition. And I’ll tell you what, we will be ready for that first day in office, and I look forward to it.”

That first day isn’t far off. Kentucky inaugurates its governors in the December following an election.

Bevin, meanwhile, called the contest a “close, close race” and said he wasn’t conceding “by any stretch.”

“We want the process to be followed, and there is a process,” he said.

Bevin hinted there might be “irregularities” to look into but didn’t offer specifics. His campaign didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking an explanation.

There is no mandatory recount law in Kentucky. Bevin may request counties recanvass their results, which is not a recount, but rather a check of the vote count to ensure the results were added correctly. Bevin would need to seek and win a court’s approval for a recount.

The final hours of campaigning were dominated by the endorsement Bevin received from Trump at a boisterous rally Monday night in Lexington, Kentucky. Through a spokesman, the president boasted Tuesday night about the boost he had given the incumbent governor despite Bevin finishing with fewer votes to his name.

“The president just about dragged Gov. Matt Bevin across the finish line, helping him run stronger than expected in what turned into a very close race at the end,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. “A final outcome remains to be seen.”

Trump had loomed large in the race as Bevin stressed his alliance with the Republican president in TV ads, tweets and speeches. Trump carried Kentucky by a landslide in winning the presidency in 2016 and remains popular in the state. The president took center stage in the campaign with his election eve rally to energize his supporters to head to the polls for his fellow Republican.

But the combative Bevin had been struggling to overcome a series of self-inflicted wounds, highlighted by a running feud with teachers who opposed his efforts to revamp the state’s woefully underfunded public pension systems.

Bevin lagged well behind the vote totals for the rest of the GOP slate for statewide offices. Republican candidates swept Kentucky’s races for attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer and agriculture commissioner.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian candidate for governor, John Hicks, got 2% of the vote.

Beshear dominated in the state’s urban areas in Louisville and Lexington and won some traditionally Republican suburban counties in the state’s northernmost tip, just south of Cincinnati, to offset Bevin’s strength in rural areas. Beshear also made inroads in eastern Kentucky, winning several counties in a region where Trump is highly popular.

While Beshear looks to quickly pivot to governing, he’ll be confronted by a dominant GOP. Republicans hold overwhelming majorities in the state legislature.

Beshear maintained his focus throughout the race on “kitchen table” issues like health care and education to blunt Bevin’s efforts to hitch himself to Trump and nationalize the race.

On health care, Beshear could have an immediate impact by backing away from a Bevin proposal to attach work requirements to Medicaid benefits received under the Affordable Care Act. Bevin’s plan for some “able-bodied” recipients has been challenged in court and is yet to be enacted, and Beshear has vowed to rescind it.

On the campaign trail, Beshear also said he wants to legalize casino gambling, proposing to use that revenue to support public pensions. Some Republican lawmakers campaigning for Bevin vowed to reject that idea if it came before them.

Beshear also exploited Bevin’s feud with teachers over pensions and education issues, repeatedly referring to Bevin as a bully.

Beshear said Tuesday night that teachers shared in his victory.

“To our educators, your courage to stand up and fight against all the bullying and name calling helped galvanize our entire state,” Beshear said.

Beshear proposed a $2,000 across-the-board pay raise for public school teachers and vowed to submit “an education-first budget” to lawmakers.

School bus driver Conley McCracken said earlier Tuesday in Bowling Green that he voted for Bevin the first time. He said school issues turned him away from the Republican.

“He’s trying to keep retirement away from a lot of the teachers and school employees and things of that nature,” the 68-year-old McCracken said.

Trump’s support of Bevin wasn’t enough to get McCracken’s vote a second time around.

“I don’t like the way he’s doing (things), so I changed my mind,” McCracken said.

___

Jonathan Mattise contributed to this article from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Liberal Tucson, Arizona rejects plan to be sanctuary city

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — After Arizona passed a law that required local police to check the immigration status of people suspected to be in the country illegally, the state’s second-largest city wanted to send a message.

The Democrats who control Tucson designated their town an “immigrant welcoming city” in 2012, and the police department adopted rules limiting when officers can ask about the immigration status of people they encounter.

But on Tuesday, given the chance to push the envelope further, the heavily Democratic city voted overwhelmingly not to become an official “sanctuary city” with more restrictions on how and when police officers can enforce immigration laws.

The incongruous result followed a contentious disagreement that divided progressives between those eager to stand up for immigrants and against President Donald Trump, and those who said the initiative would bring nothing more than unintended consequences.

“The city of Tucson, in all respects except being labeled as such, operates as a sanctuary city,” Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said in an interview before the vote.

The sanctuary initiative, he argued, would have tied the hands of police even on matters unrelated to immigration while inviting expensive retaliation from the Trump administration and Republicans in the state Legislature.

The Trump administration has fought sanctuary cities and tried to restrict their access to federal grants. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in June that the Trump administration could consider cities’ willingness to cooperate in immigration enforcement when doling out law enforcement money.

Tucson has a deep history welcoming immigrants. It’s widely credited as the birthplace of the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s, an effort by churches to help refugees from Central America and shield them form deportation.

The ballot measure was pushed by activists who wanted to give a voice to Tucson’s Latino community. They said it would have sent the message that immigrants are safe and protected in Tucson at a time when many are fearful of Trump’s immigration policies.

“We have been failed by the city government here,” Zaira Livier, executive director of the People’s Defense Initiative, which organized the initiative, told supporters following the vote, according to KOLD-TV.

Tucson politicians say they stand with immigrants, but when the going gets tough, they back down, she said.

“We are here to test you and to tell you that the bare minimum is no longer good enough and we expect better,” Livier said.

The initiative explicitly aimed to neuter a 2010 Arizona immigration law known as SB1070, which drew mass protests and a boycott of the state. Courts threw out much of the law but upheld the requirement for officers to check immigration papers when they suspect someone is in the country illegally.

A handful of Republican state lawmakers have said they would pursue legislation to punish Tucson. Prior legislation approved by the GOP Legislature to tie the hands of liberal cities, including Tucson, allows the state to cut off funding for cities that pass laws conflicting with Arizona laws.

Meanwhile, Tucson voters elected their first Latina mayor. Regina Romero will be the first woman to lead Arizona’s second-largest city after Phoenix, with a population of about 546,000 people.

Tucson’s last Hispanic mayor was Estevan Ochoa, who was elected in 1875 — nearly four decades before Arizona became a state and just 21 years after the United States bought Southern Arizona, including Tucson, from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase.

Romero, who is on the city council, opposed the sanctuary city initiative, saying it’s unnecessary given Tucson’s welcoming attitude and policies toward immigrants.

“I am so proud and so humbled for tonight,” she said in a victory speech.

Thanking her family, she added, “No single person can make history on their own.”

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Washington Nationals' Stephen Strasburg denies snubbing Trump at White House

World Series MVP pitcher Stephen Strasburg is not going to put up with the Internet’s “fake news.”
That was the hashtag he used showing a video of him and the Washington Nationals celebrating their victory at the White House with President Trump.
Strasburg had been accused of snubbing Trump in a deceptively trimmed viral video, as USA TODAY reported, so the 31-year-old right-hander tweeted the full video showing him shaking hands with the president.
Strasburg went 5-0 in the MLB postseason as the Nationals won their first world championship in franchise history.

President Trump with Washington Nationals starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg at Monday's ceremony, with first lady Melania Trump nearby. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Strasburg has opted out of the final four years of his contract, making him a free agent. The decision meant he was leaving $100 million on the table – with the prospect of earning more, either from the Nationals or another team.
The Nationals defeated the Houston Astros in seven games to win the World Series this past Wednesday, coming back from a 3-2 series deficit.
They were the first World Series winner with all four victories coming on the road.

Washington Nationals starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg throwing against the Houston Astros during the first inning of Game 6 on Oct. 29 in Houston. (AP Photo/Mike Ehrmann, Pool)

The Nationals have been celebrating across D.C. on their whirlwind victory tour.
The team paraded down Constitution Avenue on Saturday and celebrated at the Washington Capitals hockey game Sunday night.

Iranian president announces another break from nuclear deal

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s president announced on Tuesday that Tehran will begin injecting uranium gas into 1,044 centrifuges, the latest step away from its nuclear deal with world powers since President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord over a year ago.

The development is significant as the centrifuges previously spun empty, without gas injection, under the landmark 2015 nuclear accord. It also increases pressure on European nations that remain in the accord, which at this point has all but collapsed.

In his announcement, President Hassan Rouhani did not say whether the centrifuges, which are at its nuclear facility in Fordo, would be used to produce enriched uranium. The centrifuges would be injected with the uranium gas as of Wednesday, Rouhani said.

His remarks, carried live on Iranian state television, came a day after Tehran’s nuclear program chief said the country had doubled the number of advanced IR-6 centrifuges in operation.

There was no immediate reaction from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog now monitoring Iran’s compliance with the deal. The European Union on Monday called on Iran to return to the deal, while the White House sanctioned members of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s inner circle as part of its maximalist campaign against Tehran.

Rouhani stressed the steps taken so far, including going beyond the deal’s enrichment and stockpile limitations, could be reversed if Europe offers a way for it to avoid U.S. sanctions choking off its crude oil sales abroad.

“We should be able to sell our oil,” Rouhani said. “We should be able to bring our money” into the country.

The centrifuges at Fordo are IR-1s, Iran’s first-generation centrifuge. The nuclear deal allowed those at Fordo to spin without uranium gas, while allowing up to 5,060 at its Natanz facility to enrich uranium.

A centrifuge enriches uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas. An IR-6 centrifuge can produce enriched uranium 10 times faster than an IR-1, Iranian officials say.

Iranian scientists also are working on a prototype called the IR-9, which works 50-times faster than the IR-1, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akhbar Salehi said Monday.

As of now, Iran is enriching uranium up to 4.5%, in violation of the accord’s limit of 3.67%. Enriched uranium at the 3.67% level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. At the 4.5% level, it is enough to help power Iran’s Bushehr reactor, the country’s only nuclear power plant. Prior to the atomic deal, Iran only reached up to 20%.

Tehran has gone from producing some 450 grams (1 pound) of low-enriched uranium a day to 5 kilograms (11 pounds), Salehi said. Iran now holds over 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds) of low-enriched uranium, Salehi said. The deal had limited Iran to 300 kilograms (661 pounds).

The collapse of the nuclear deal coincided with a tense summer of mysterious attacks on oil tankers and Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. blamed on Iran. Tehran denied the allegation, though it did seize oil tankers and shoot down a U.S. military surveillance drone.

Dem aims for governorship in largely Republican Mississippi

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is trying to become the second Democratic governor in the Deep South as he faces Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves in the state’s most competitive governor’s race in years.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both traveled to Mississippi to campaign for Reeves in the closing days before Tuesday’s election.

Hood, Reeves and two lesser-known candidates are on the ballot. The winner will succeed Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, who is limited by law to two terms.

Democrats see Hood as their strongest nominee in nearly a generation in a conservative state where Republicans have been governor for 24 of the past 28 years.

The lone Democratic governor in the Deep South, Louisiana’s John Bel Edwards, is in a Nov. 16 runoff as he seeks a second term. Kentucky is the only other state choosing a governor this year, and its election is also Tuesday.

Hood, 57, is finishing his fourth term as attorney general and for more than a decade has been the only Democrat holding statewide office in Mississippi.

Hood, who eschews connections to national Democratic figures , has campaigned for governor on improving schools and highways and on expanding Medicaid to the working poor.

Expansion is an option under the federal health overhaul signed into law in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama. Mississippi is among the 14 states that have not expanded Medicaid, a decision that Hood said has cost the state $1 billion a year in federal money.

“I grew up in a small Baptist church in northeast Mississippi, and I believe in fighting for the least among us,” Hood said Saturday after speaking to potential voters at a barbershop near Jackson State University.

“I’ve fought for working people in Mississippi, particularly for children — to protect our children, widows, orphans and elderly. I mean, that’s what Jesus talked more about than anything else, and that’s my core beliefs,” Hood said. “And that’s what I’m going to do as governor.”

Reeves, 45, is finishing his second term as lieutenant governor and previously served two terms as the elected state treasurer. He frequently says that voting for Hood is akin to voting for “liberal” national Democrats, including U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Reeves has campaigned on limiting government regulation of businesses, and he has said a large tax-cut package Republicans pushed into law in the past four years is boosting the state economy.

“If Mississippi chooses to go in a different direction ... and elect a liberal Democrat to lead our state, they’ve already promised they’re going to repeal those tax cuts,” Reeves told hundreds of business people at a state chamber of commerce event last week. “Everyone in here that pays income taxes — your taxes are going to go up.”

Hood is the best-funded Democrat to run for Mississippi governor since 2003. Four years ago, the party’s nominee was Robert Gray, a long-haul truck driver who didn’t vote for himself in the primary, raised little money and lost the general election by a wide margin.

In addition to Reeves and Hood, the candidates on Tuesday’s ballot for governor are independent David Singletary and the Constitution Party’s Bob Hickingbottom, who have both run low-budget campaigns.

Mississippi has a Jim Crow-era election process that could make a tight election difficult to decide on Election Day. The state’s 1890 constitution requires a statewide candidate to win a majority of the popular vote and the electoral vote. If nobody wins both, the election is decided by the state House, now controlled by Republicans.

One electoral vote is awarded to the top vote-getter in each of the 122 state House districts. But, if representatives decide the race in January, they are not obligated to vote as their districts did.

Mississippi’s election process was written when white politicians across the South were enacting laws to erase black political power gained during Reconstruction, and the separate House vote was promoted as a way for the white ruling class to have the final say in who holds office.

Some African American residents sued the state this year , arguing that the system unconstitutionally diminishes the value of some votes. U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III ruled Friday that he would not immediately block the system days before the election, but he wrote that he has “grave concern” that the electoral vote could violate the one person, one vote principle.