Presumptuous Politics

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Clinton accused of aiding Moscow ops with push for 'Russian Silicon Valley'

Was the Clinton Foundation involved with State Department?

A 2010 program headed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to help Moscow develop a “Russian Silicon Valley” may instead have drawn some of America’s biggest tech companies into “industrial espionage” – even advancing the country’s military and spying operations, according to a new report by Clinton critic Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute.
“There are serious national security questions that have been raised,” the report said.
The program was pitched as a partnership involving U.S. and Russian government entities and companies. Major U.S. corporations like Boeing, Google, General Electric, Cisco and Microsoft – also generous donors to the Clinton’s family foundation – were solicited by Clinton to invest more than a billion dollars in the Skolkovo tech park outside Moscow, formally called the Skolkovo Innovation Center. The goal, Clinton said in speeches and to Russian media, was to “break down barriers with Russia,” create “more free flow of people and information” between the two countries, and ultimately strengthen Russia.
“We want to help because we think that it’s in everyone’s interest do so,” Clinton said in a 2010 speech at a U.S.-Russia summit, as she discussed building a technology center “right outside Moscow.”
However, the project may have inadvertently launched some of these companies into risky terrain. The FBI issued an “extraordinary warning” in 2014 to companies doing business with the Skolkovo Foundation that “Skolkovo could draw them unwittingly into industrial espionage,” noting Skolkovo was a crucial part of Dmitry Medvedev’s plan to modernize Russia’s military.
The FBI also said Skolkovo “may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial applications.”

Author Peter Schweizer shares latest adaptation of his work

Jeff Bechdel, communications director for the anti-Clinton America Rising PAC, said the Democratic presidential nominee effectively “put our national security at risk” with the project.
“Leveraging Clinton Foundation donors, Clinton assisted in speeding up the Russians’ weaponized technology sector, and in so doing, demonstrated she lacks the judgment necessary to determine friend from foe on the international stage,” he said in a statement.
The Clinton campaign is pushing back on the latest report from Schweizer’s group. Schweizer also authored the anti-Clinton book “Clinton Cash” and is a longtime adversary of the family.
“This report is just the latest false attack by Republican operative and friend of the Koch brothers, Peter Schweizer, who was widely discredited for making baseless accusations in his debunked Clinton Cash book, that even he admitted was not backed up by any evidence,” campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin said in a statement.
The campaign also rejected the group’s claim that the FBI and Army found the project substantially enhanced Russia’s military tech capabilities, citing a 2014 article in which the FBI acknowledged it did not have hard evidence of such activity.
The partnership itself stemmed from President Obama and the Clinton State Department’s efforts to “reset” relations with Russia early in the Obama administration. This included a plan to “identify areas of cooperation and pursuing joint projects and actions that strengthen strategic stability, international security, economic well-being, and the development of ties between the Russian and American people.”
The State Department paid for a delegation of 22 private tech entrepreneurs to go to Russia in May 2010, which led to an exclusive arrangement with Russia allowing entrance into what would become an industry tech park accommodating some 30,000 people.
“The State Department actively and aggressively encouraged American firms to participate in Skolkovo,” the Government Accountability Institute report said. “Indeed, many of the Memorandums of Understanding signed by U.S. companies to invest and cooperate in Skolkovo were signed under the auspices of Hillary Clinton’s State Department.”
Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo tech park development had major financial ties to the Clintons, the report said, noting 17 of 28 companies, both Russian and American, made financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton.
“During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars, including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies with deep Clinton ties,” the report said.
Margaret E. Kosal, an associate professor at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, said while the project might have seemed a good opportunity to work in an emerging market, there are challenges working in Russia including dealing with cronyism and government bureaucracy.
But from a national security perspective, Kosal said the biggest concern is the ability of the Russian military to obtain, misuse, or develop nanotechnology for an application that catches the U.S. by surprise.
Relations with Russia have since become a focal point in the 2016 presidential election, with Clinton criticizing Republican opponent Donald Trump for both his campaign manager’s reported business ties to Russia and supposed lack of knowledge about international affairs. But Bechdel said history shows it is Clinton’s connections and relations that should be scrutinized.
"Clinton may talk a big game against Russia now, but when it mattered most and she had the opportunity to hold Russia accountable as Secretary of State, Clinton’s priority was aiding Russian efforts to accelerate their technology sector, not keeping America safe,” Bechdel said.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to a media inquiry from FoxNews.com.
A spokeswoman for Skolkovo told the Irish-based Independent news that all allegations of Kremlin spying were false, claiming it is "an international project and all our operations are fully transparent for our Russian and international partners".

Emails raise new questions on ties between Clinton Foundation, State Department

A new batch of emails released Tuesday is raising fresh questions about whether Clinton Foundation donors got preferential treatment from the State Department during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the top.
Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch released 44 new email exchanges which it says were not in the original 30,000 handed over to the State Department, despite the Democratic presidential nominee's claims she turned over all work-related emails amid the now-closed probe into her private server use.
The documents, produced as a result of the group's FOIA lawsuit, appear to challenge Clinton's insistence that there is "no connection" between her family foundation and her work at the department.
Though the campaign is downplaying the emails, Republican opponent Donald Trump, at a campaign stop in Virginia on Wednesday, suggested the emails reveal potentially illegal activity.
“It’s called pay for play,” Trump said.
In one email exchange released by Judicial Watch, Doug Band, an executive at the Clinton Foundation, tried to put billionaire donor Gilbert Chagoury -- a convicted money launderer -- in touch with the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon because of the donor’s interests there.
In the email, Band notes that Chagoury is a “key guy there [Lebanon] and to us,” and insists Clinton aide Huma Abedin call Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman to connect him with Chagoury.
Chagoury is a close friend of former President Bill Clinton and has appeared on the Clinton Foundation donor list as a $1 million to $5 million contributor. He’s also pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative. Chagoury was convicted in 2000 in Switzerland for money laundering. He cut a deal and agreed to repay $66 million to the Nigerian government.
In another email from April 2009, Band seems to pressure Clinton’s former aides Cheryl Mills and Abedin into hiring a foundation associate.
In the email, Band writes it’s “important to take care of [name redacted].”
Abedin responds, telling Band, “Personnel has been sending him options.”
The latest batch of emails came more than a week after Clinton said, in a "Fox News Sunday" interview, that “there is absolutely no connection between anything that I did as secretary of state and the Clinton Foundation.”
The Republican National Committee seized on the appearance of favor-trading in the latest batch of documents.
“That the Clinton Foundation was calling in favors barely 3 months into Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department is deeply troubling and it is yet another reminder of the conflicts of interest and unethical wheeling and dealing she’d bring to the White House,” spokesman Michael Short said in a statement.
But a Clinton campaign spokesman said: “Neither of these emails involve the Secretary or relate to the Foundation’s work. They are communications between her aides and the President’s personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the Secretary’s former staffers who was not employed by the Foundation.”
The campaign initially was responding to an account in The Wall Street Journal.
The emails are separate from a larger batch of several thousand work-related emails that FBI officials recovered from Clinton's private server.
Clinton's legal team turned over more than 30,000 emails from her server to the State Department last March but only after deleting another 30,000 messages that Clinton's team deemed private and personal. The FBI plans to turn over the reconstructed Clinton emails to the State Department for public release.
The new Clinton emails also include a February 2009 message to her from Stephen Roach, then-chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, saying he planned to testify to Congress that week and was "happy to help in any way I can." Roach later met with Clinton over the summer for 30 minutes, according to Clinton calendars obtained by The Associated Press.
In another email, Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, informed her that National Security Agency and State Department officials discussed an attempt to develop a modified blackberry for Clinton that might be used when she worked in a restricted State Department office that did not allow private phones.
Clinton called the development "good news," but she continued using a private Blackberry tied to her private server.

Trump charges Obama with being 'founder of ISIS'

Donald Trump charged President Barack Obama on Wednesday with being the founder of the Islamic State during a campaign rally in Florida.
"In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama," Trump said during a campaign stop in Fort Lauderdale. "He is the founder of ISIS."
Last week, his campaign tried to draw financial links between the Clinton Foundation and the terror group. Wednesday, he called Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton the groups “co-founder.”
Trump has long accused Obama and Clinton for pursuing Middle East policies that created a power vacuum in Iraq that was exploited by Islamic State. He had criticized Obama for announcing he would yank U.S. troops out of Iraq, which Obama critics believe created the instability in which extremist groups thrive.
The White House had yet to comment on Trump’s remarks.
The Islamic State group began as Iraq's local affiliate of Al Qaeda, the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The group carried out massive attacks against Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, fueling tensions with Al Qaeda’s central leadership. The local group's then-leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in 2006 in a U.S. airstrike but is still seen as the Islamic State group's founder.
The Trump campaign alleged in a statement last week that the Clinton Foundation ties to a corporation “funding” ISIS.
The campaign detailed financial contributions the Clinton Foundation received from a cement-making company called Lafarge. The same statement cited reporting in French media outlets that the company had entered deals with the Islamic State and other armed groups in Syria to protect its interests there.
“More than any major presidential nominee in modern history, Hillary Clinton is tied to brutal theocratic and Islamist regimes. Now we learn she has accepted money from a company linked to ISIS,” Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said in a statement.
Trump brought up the accusation during his rally in Florida to a raucous crowd.
He railed against the fact that the Orlando shooter's father, Seddique Mateen, was spotted in the crowd behind Clinton during a Monday rally in Florida, adding, "Of course he likes Hillary Clinton."

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Media justify anti-Trump bias, claim he's too 'dangerous' for normal rules

The media’s legions of Trump-bashers are finally acknowledging the obvious.
And trying their best to justify it.
But there’s one problem: Tilting against one candidate in a presidential election can’t be justified.
This is not a defense of Donald Trump, who has been at war with much of the press since he got in the race. Too many people think if you criticize the way the billionaire is being covered, you are somehow backing Trump.
And it’s not about the commentators, on the right as well as the left, who are savaging Trump, since they are paid for their opinions.
This is about the mainstream media’s reporters, editors and producers, whose credo is supposed to be fairness.
And now some of them are flat-out making the case for unfairness—an unprecedented approach for an unprecedented campaign.
Put aside, for the moment, the longstanding complaints about journalists being unfair to Republicans. They never treated Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush or Bob Dole like this.
Keep in mind that the media utterly misjudged Trump from the start, covering him as a joke or a sideshow or a streaking comet that would burn itself out. Many of them later confessed how wrong they had been, and that they had missed the magnitude of the anger and frustration that fueled Trump’s unlikely rise.
But since the conventions, and fueled by his own missteps, Trump has been hit by a tsunami of negative coverage, all but swamping the reporting on Hillary Clinton. Liberal investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald recently told Slate that “the U.S. media is essentially 100 percent united, vehemently, against Trump, and preventing him from being elected president”—and, given his views, he has no problem with that.
Now comes Jim Rutenberg, in his first season as media columnist for the New York Times. He’s a good reporter and I give him credit for trying to openly grapple with this bizarre situation.
But Rutenberg is, in my view, trying to defend the indefensible:
“If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.”
Yet normal standards, says Rutenberg, may not apply.
By “closer to being oppositional,” he means openly siding against Trump and thereby helping Clinton. And that’s precisely the kind of thing that erodes our already damaged credibility. If a reporter believes Trump is a threat to America, he or she should go into the opinion business, or quit the media world and work against him. You can’t maintain the fig leaf of neutral reporting and favor one side.
Rutenberg acknowledges that “balance has been on vacation since Mr. Trump stepped onto his golden Trump Tower escalator last year to announce his candidacy. For the primaries and caucuses, the imbalance played to his advantage, captured by the killer statistic of the season: His nearly $2 billion in free media was more than six times as much as that of his closest Republican rival.”
I have to push back on this $2-billion argument. Trump got more coverage not just because he was good for clicks and ratings, but because he did many, many times more interviews than anyone else running. Much of this “free” media, rather than being a gift, was harshly negative. But that too helped Trump, because he drove the campaign dialogue and openly campaigned against the press.
Next Rutenberg argues that Trump is just too over the top in his rhetoric:
“And while coded appeals to racism or nationalism aren’t new — two words: Southern strategy — overt calls to temporarily bar Muslims from entry to the United States or questioning a federal judge’s impartiality based on his Mexican heritage are new.”
What’s disappointing is that Rutenberg doesn’t cite a single example of biased coverage from his paper, or any other paper or news outlet. (He does point to criticism from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who is, as the columnist acknowledges, a commentator.)
Instead he quotes Carolyn Ryan, the Times’ senior editor for politics, as saying Trump’s candidacy is “extraordinary and precedent-shattering” and “to pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous with readers.”
And Rutenberg agrees, saying it would “be an abdication of political journalism’s most solemn duty: to ferret out what the candidates will be like in the most powerful office in the world.”
No one wants to abdicate that duty. No one is pretending Trump’s candidacy isn’t extraordinary. No one is saying he shouldn’t be fully vetted.
But there is an assumption among many journalists and pundits that of course Hillary Clinton is qualified, she’s been around forever, she just doesn’t need the relentless reporting that Trump requires. And so critical stories about Clinton—even when she said she “short-circuited” in that Chris Wallace interview on the email mess—are overshadowed by the endless piling on Trump.
Many of the reporters who feel compelled to stop Trump are undoubtedly comfortable because all their friends feel the same way.
But they are deluding themselves if they think that going after one candidate in a two-candidate race is what journalism is about.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Gore's Climate Change Cartoons

Clinton, Trump clash on economy

Hillary Clinton clashed from afar with Donald Trump on the economy Monday, accusing him of peddling “old, tired ideas” that benefit the “really wealthy” – after the Republican nominee hammered the Democrats' “job-killing” agenda in a speech of his own where he unveiled a revised plan to jolt the economy by slashing taxes and regulations.
Trump delivered his economic address early Monday afternoon in Detroit, touting a plan he called a "night-and-day-contrast" with the “job-killing, tax-raising, poverty-inducing Obama-Clinton agenda.”
Clinton returned fire hours later during a rally in St. Petersburg, Fla., saying her GOP rival has simply hired advisers trying to “make his old, tired ideas sound new.”
“His tax plans will give super big tax breaks to large corporations and the really wealthy,” she said. "He wants to repackage trickle-down economics."
Clinton said economists have already warned Trump’s policies “would throw us into recession.”
The sparks mark an abrupt return to the economy on the campaign trail, after a post-convention week during which Trump was caught up in controversies that had little to do with policy.
Despite Clinton’s accusations, Trump insisted Monday that his proposals would help lower- and middle-class Americans the most.
And he used the setting of the speech – Detroit – to draw a stark contrast with his rival’s approach.
“Detroit is a living, breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic policies,” said Trump, arguing bad international trade deals like NAFTA have resulted in record unemployment for the city and made a “total disaster” of the entire U.S. economy.
“Detroit is still waiting for Hillary Clinton’s apology,” he continued.
Trump vowed to create 500,000 jobs annually in the first seven years of his administration, while cutting business taxes and reducing federal regulations. Trump touted his plan to eliminate the estate tax, put a moratorium on new federal regulations and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, in his speech at the Detroit Economic Club.
He also vowed to re-negotiate the decades-old North American Free Trade Agreement and warned that Clinton, if elected, would enact the Obama administration’s Trans Pacific Partnership, which critics argue would create even more disadvantages for the United States in international trade.
“We cannot let her win because that will be disaster for Detroit and everybody else,” Trump said. “Hillary Clinton’s Trans Pacific Partnership will be even bigger and even worse than NAFTA.”
Clinton says she opposes the TPP in its current form.
In an appeal to unemployed steel workers, miners and other blue collar workers whom Trump hopes to win over in Rust Belt states, the GOP nominee also vowed to end federal regulations that have throttled coal plants and eliminated jobs.
“The Obama-Clinton [agenda] has blocked jobs through anti-energy regulations,” he said. “The Obama-Clinton war on coal has cost Michigan jobs. Clinton said she will put coal miners out of business. … A Trump administration will end this war on the American worker and unleash an energy revolution that will bring vast new wealth.”
The businessman and first-time candidate hopes to steady his campaign after a rough week in which he was criticized for comments about a Muslim-American family whose son, an Army captain, was killed in the Iraq War and for temporarily withholding his endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan in Tuesday's Wisconsin primary.
The Clinton campaign ripped into the proposed Trump plan earlier Monday morning, saying his tax breaks are only for the wealthy and includes no paid family leave or increase in the federal minimum wage.
“We wanted to offer a look at how a Trump presidency would cause damage to the American economy and working families,” the campaign said in a 7-point memo. “We can be certain of this because we’ve read Trump’s ‘plans,’ listened to his words, reviewed what analysts have to say about what he wants to do. And it's the only logical conclusion.”
Trump, though, hammered Clinton Monday for seeking tax hikes as part of her economic agenda.
Clinton indeed has proposed raising taxes on the highest-income earners, including a surcharge on multimillionaires, but analysts have found lower-income earners would see little change beyond measures like additional tax credits for expenses like out-of-pocket health care costs.
In his speech Monday, Trump also announced his plan to allow parents to fully deduct the cost of childcare from their taxable income. He also called again for boosting domestic energy production -- a plan his campaign estimates can add $6 trillion in local, state and federal revenue over the next four decades.

Report: Clinton's jobs push as senator fell flat, helped donors

Hillary Clinton’s jobs record as a New York senator – which her campaign has made a centerpiece of her pitch to voters – is coming under fresh scrutiny, with a new report claiming her economic initiatives fell flat for workers, while benefiting deep-pocketed donors.
The Washington Post report found that, as a senator from 2001-2009, the now-Democratic presidential nominee was unable to pass “big ticket legislation” that she introduced to benefit upstate New York, as job growth stagnated and manufacturing jobs fell by almost 25 percent.
The Post cites U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers showing upstate New York lost jobs during Clinton’s first term, with Albany losing more than 31,000 payroll jobs between October 2001 and December 2006.
Former officials told the Post that smaller-scale projects also fell flat despite positive news coverage, with jobs failing to materialize and others leaving the state ahead of her failed 2008 presidential run.
Republican rival Donald Trump seized on the report Monday, citing the “devastating” findings as he delivered an economic address in Detroit.
“She was all talk, no action,” he said.
The report casts doubt on Clinton’s claim to be a pragmatist who can overcome Washington gridlock and give the economy a lift. Her campaign has cited her work in New York as a blueprint for her presidency, and has used her record to try and neutralize Trump’s selling point that he has a record as a job creator and knows how to boost the economy.
Further, the Post notes that a number of the companies Clinton worked with in upstate New York also contributed to her campaign and the Clinton Foundation – the Clintons' charitable wing that has come under scrutiny for its financial dealings amid accusations of “pay-to-play.”
In the Senate, for instance, Clinton struck up a relationship with Corning – an upstate glass and high-tech product manufacturer. The Post reports that while Clinton helped steer money to Corning through legislation and federal grants, Clinton’s efforts did not reverse the economic decline of Steuben County, where Corning is based.
Meanwhile, employees of the company have donated to Clinton’s campaign; the company paid $225,500 for her to speak in 2014; the chief executive co-hosted a 2015 fundraiser for her; and the company has given over $100,000 to the Foundation, the Post reported.
Clinton also cited her role in creating an “eBay university” to train budding entrepeneurs to sell products on eBay. The relationship with the company followed a similar pattern – then-CEO John Donahoe hosted a 2015 fundraiser for Clinton; eBay paid $315,000 for a 20-minute Clinton speech in 2015; and eBay’s charitable wing gave more than $50,000 to the Foundation.
Campaign spokesman Glen Caplin told the Post: “It’s no surprise that people who saw that work wanted to support her election campaigns and efforts to make a difference in people’s lives around the world.”

Parents of 2 Benghazi victims sue Hillary Clinton for wrongful death, defamation

The parents of two of the four Americans who died in the Benghazi attack in 2012 filed a lawsuit Monday against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, alleging her "reckless handling" of classified information contributed to their deaths.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch USA on behalf of Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, and Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, for allegedly wrongfully causing the death of their sons as well as for defamation and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit suggests that Clinton's use of a private email server contributed to the deaths of Smith and Woods, adding that terrorists were able to "obtain the whereabouts of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and thus the U.S. State Department and covert and other government operations in Benghazi, Libya and subsequently orchestrate, plan, and execute the now infamous September 11, 2012 attack."
"Having used a secret private email server that we now know was used to communicate with Ambassador Christopher Stevens with confidential and classified government information, and which we also now know was likely hacked by hostile adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea aligning with terrorist groups, it is clear that Hillary Clinton allegedly negligently and recklessly gave up the classified location of the plaintiffs' sons, resulting in a deadly terrorist attack that took their lives,” Klayman said in a statement announcing the suit.
In addition to the wrongful death and negligence charges named in the suit, the parents also claim that Clinton defamed them in statements to the media, according to court documents.
"During her campaign for President, Defendant Clinton has negligently, recklessly, and/or maliciously defamed Plaintiffs by either directly calling them liars, or by strongly implying that they are liars, in order to protect and enhance her public image and intimidate and emotionally harm and silence them to not speak up about the Benghazi attack on at least four separate occasions," Klayman wrote in his complaint.
Patricia Smith has previously spoken out against Clinton, most recently at the Republican National Convention in July.
Clinton's campaign has not yet responded to requests for comment about the lawsuit.
In an interview last week on "Fox News Sunday," Clinton denied telling family members of those killed that the attack was sparked by an anti-Islam video, and was not terrorism.
She instead suggested the family members misunderstood her because they were overwhelmed by grief.
“I understand the grief and the incredible sense of loss that can motivate that,” Clinton said. “As other members of families who’ve lost loved ones have said, that's not what they heard. I don't hold any ill feeling for someone who, in that moment, may not fully recall everything that was or wasn't said.”