February 25, 2019

ADAM SCHIFF ‘ABSOLUTELY’ WILLING TO GO TO COURT TO OBTAIN MUELLER REPORT

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday that House Democrats will issue subpoenas and go to court, if necessary, to obtain special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation.

“We will obviously subpoena the report. We will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress. We will take it to court if necessary,” Schiff said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

Mueller is expected to submit a final report to the Department of Justice within weeks. From there, the Justice Department is required to provide a summary of the findings to Congress, which could then choose to make unclassified portions of the report public.

But Democrats have said they are concerned Attorney General William Barr will withhold key portions of the report. Barr, who was confirmed to office Feb. 14, has said he plans to provide as much transparency as possible, though he has stopped short of committing to a full release of the document.

Schiff said in addition to the report itself, he wants to see the underlying evidence collected by Mueller during his 21-month probe. Mueller, who was appointed special counsel May 17, 2017, indicted more than three dozen individuals, including several Trump associates, during the investigation, but none for a conspiracy with Russians.

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February 22, 2019

IRS ANALYST CHARGED WITH LEAKING MICHAEL COHEN’S FINANCIAL RECORDS

An analyst with the Internal Revenue Service was charged Thursday with leaking the financial records of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

An affidavit submitted in the case reveals that John C. Fry, the analyst, placed several phone calls to attorney Michael Avenatti before and after he accessed Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) that had been filed by Cohen’s banks with the Treasury Department.

Avenatti, an attorney for Stormy Daniels, had posted a dossier of Cohen’s financial reports on May 8, 2018. The records showed that Cohen received payments from several companies, including Novartis and AT&T, as well as a company associated with Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch.

The documents released by Avenatti also contained financial records of a different Michael Cohen.

According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, Fry first accessed the IRS’s database of SARs on May 4, 2018 and downloaded five documents related to Cohen. “Immediately” after downloading the reports, Fry called a phone number associated with Avenatti, the agent said.

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February 21, 2019

‘THESE PEOPLE ARE DEMONS’: ROGER STONE TRASHES CNN OVER PRISON RAPE COMMENTS

Former Trump adviser Roger Stone is lashing out at CNN after one of the network’s contributors called him a “dandy” and warned that he could be raped in prison.

CNN senior political analyst David Gergen noted that Stone is perhaps in even more legal trouble after posting an Instagram photo with crosshairs over the federal judge presiding over his case. Stone’s home was raided in January after he was indicted on charges of making false statements to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction of a government proceeding. 

“Roger Stone must also worry that if he goes there, he is seen as something of a dandy,” Gergen said of Stone’s potential to land in prison. “Will he be physically safe? Will he be subject to rape? There must be a lot of things going through his mind.”

“Dandy” refers to a man who focuses intensely on physical appearance, but is also sometimes used as a gay slur.

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February 20, 2019

FBI USED CONFIDENTIAL SOURCES WHO ‘ALREADY HAD’ TRUMP CAMPAIGN CONTACTS, BUREAU LAWYER TOLD CONGRESS


  • An FBI official testified to Congress in August that the bureau relied on confidential sources in addition to Christopher Steele who had pre-established contact with the Trump campaign as part of “Crossfire Hurricane.”
  • Trisha Anderson testified that some of the FBI’s sources “already had campaign contacts.” 
  • An alleged FBI informant named Stefan Halper met with several Trump aides during the campaign, though the bureau has not acknowledged he was a confidential source.

A top FBI official acknowledged in congressional testimony last year that the bureau’s investigation of the Trump campaign relied in part on confidential sources who had established contacts with Trump campaign advisers.

Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel, told congressional investigators in an Aug. 31, 2018 deposition that the FBI relied on sources who “already had campaign contacts” to gather the information from Trump’s team.

“To my knowledge, the FBI did not place anybody within a campaign but, rather, relied upon its network of sources, some of whom already had campaign contacts, including the source that has been discussed in the media at some length beyond Christopher Steele,” Anderson said, according to The Epoch Times, which published portions of Anderson’s testimony on Tuesday.

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February 19, 2019

ROGER STONE FORMALLY APOLOGIZES TO JUDGE HANDLING HIS CASE

Roger Stone issued a formal apology Monday to the federal judge handling his case in the special counsel’s investigation.

“Please inform the Court that the photograph and comment today was improper and should not have been posted,” Stone wrote in a statement submitted by his attorneys. “I had no intention of disrespecting the Court and humbly apologize to the Court for the transgression.”

Stone posted a graphic to his Instagram account earlier Monday that showed U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson placed in front of a set of crosshairs.

“Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointed Judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again Hillary Clinton and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction for any crime. #fixisin Help me fight for my life at @StoneDefenseFund.com,” Stone wrote in the post, which has since been deleted. Stone claimed he did not realize that the crosshairs were in the graphic

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February 18, 2019

ANDREW MCCABE: ROD ROSENSTEIN WAS ‘ABSOLUTELY SERIOUS’ ABOUT WEARING A WIRE IN TRUMP MEETING

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe claimed in an interview that aired Sunday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was “absolutely serious” about wearing a wire during White House meetings with President Donald Trump.

“The deputy attorney general offered to wear a wire into the White House,” McCabe said in an interview with “60 Minutes.”

“Now, he was not joking. He was absolutely serious. And in fact, he brought it up in the next meeting we had,” added McCabe.

McCabe, who was fired on March 16, 2018, also claimed Rosenstein expressed confidence he could successfully record Trump at the White House.

“I never get searched when I go into the White House. I could easily wear a recording device. They wouldn’t know it was there,” McCabe quoted Rosenstein as saying.

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February 15, 2019

THE WASHINGTON POST STOPPED ITS FACT-CHECKING OPERATION FOR OCASIO-CORTEZ

The Washington Post’s fact-check of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s signature Green New Deal legislation needs a fact-check of its own.

The roll-out of the plan to deindustrialize the U.S. within a 10-year timeframe was a complete disaster. It began with the release of a FAQ sheet riddled with typos, grammatical errors, and radical statements about banning fossil fuels and nuclear power, making car and air travel obsolete, and getting rid of flatulent cows.

The plan would require upgrading or replacing every building in the country, and provide taxpayer-funded economic security for those “unwilling to work.” It promises all Americans will have “access to nature,” whatever that means.

The plan strives to achieve “net-zero” carbon emissions in ten years. Why not zero? According to the FAQ sheet, because they “aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez immediately tried to downplay the FAQ sheet after facing merciless ridicule on social media. She tweeted a Post reporter to insist the version of the FAQ sheet under fire was “doctored.” This, despite the FAQ sheet in question being distributed to reporters and published for the world to see on her own congressional website. Not surprisingly, it was eventually taken down.

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February 14, 2019

THE HOUSE IS SET TO VOTE ON TRILLION DOLLAR SPENDING BILL TOMORROW. NO ONE HAS READ IT

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a government appropriations bill Thursday evening and, with a day until the vote, lawmakers still have not received the text of the legislation.

“No one has seen the final wording of a long and complicated bill we will be expected to vote on tomorrow evening,” Republican Maryland Rep. Andy Harris told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “That’s no way to run a legislature.”

Republican Study Chairman Mike Johnson also confirmed that “as of lunch on Wednesday, members of the RSC, and to our knowledge, even members of the conference committee, had not seen the text.”

“It has been reported that [House Majority Leader Steny] Hoyer has said if the bill is dropped today we will consider it tomorrow. This is reminiscent of the, ‘you must pass it to find out what is in it,’ Obamacare debacle,” Johnson said to TheDCNF. “This bill is expected to be well over 1,000 pages, and we will potentially have less than 24 hours to digest it. This is absurd.”

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February 13, 2019

HOUSE REPUBLICANS LEFT IN DARK OVER GOVERNMENT FUNDING DEAL DETAILS

Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby announced Monday night that congressional negotiators reached an agreement to fund the border wall, thereby avoiding another government shutdown on Friday, but House Republican leadership had not seen details of the agreement when Shelby made his pronouncement.

Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Graves, a member of the bipartisan Conference Committee who has been negotiating the deal since the government re-opened nearly three weeks ago, tweeted Tuesday morning, “I haven’t signed off on the reported ‘deal,’ nor have I seen it. Based on the reports, I have concerns. Lots of questions, too.”

When The Daily Caller asked House Minority Whip Steve Scalise about Graves comment he replied, “He hasn’t he hasn’t seen the details I haven’t seen the details. I don’t think Leader McCarthy has seen the details.”

He added, “Clearly, the details matter and I’m waiting to see those and I want to speak to the president later today as we’ll  see where he is once he sees all the details.”

The agreement described by Shelby Monday night includes $1.375 billion for a border barrier is well below the $5.7 billion President Trump originally wanted for a border wall. Additionally, Democrats indicated the number of beds in the border detention centers would be brought down to 40,520 by the end of the year.

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February 12, 2019

DEMOCRAT WHO SOUGHT TO REGULATE DRUDGE RUNNING TO REPRESENT SILICON VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA SENATE

The former Federal Election Commission member who sought to regulate the Drudge Report and other online political speech is running to represent a district that encompasses Silicon Valley in the California Senate, according to a Monday report.

“I care a lot about California, and I want to do things that are in the public interest,” former FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel said in an interview with the San Jose Spotlight. “I’m interested only in doing what’s good for the people. I’ve been doing so much in the area of campaign finance and it’s influenced me a lot.”

Ravel served on the FEC from 2013-17, and gained a reputation for pushing new rules to regulate online political speech. Republicans said the rules were aimed at requiring anyone who posted political content online — including on social media and on websites such as the Drudge Report — to disclose their activity to the Feds.

Ravel has continued to push the issue since she left the commission. “We know that there’s a lot of campaigning that’s moved to the internet, whether it’s through fake news or just outright advertising,” she said in a 2017 speech at UC Berkeley. “There is almost no regulation of this … the disclosure that we expect as to who is behind campaigns is not going to exist soon.”

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February 11, 2019

THE GREEN NEW DEAL’S ELECTRIC POWER TRANSFORMATION IS AN IMPOSSIBLE NIGHTMARE

The much-hyped “Green New Deal” (GND) offered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  and Sen. Ed Markey would, if enacted, constitute a complete socialist makeover of the U.S. economy.

Though its provisions haven’t officially been scored by government budget watchdogs yet, estimates of the costs of Ocasio-Cortez’s earlier version of the bill topped $49 trillion in its first 10 years, making GND, by far, the costliest social and economic proposal in U.S. history. (For comparison, the United States has accumulated $21 trillion in debt over its 241-year history.)

The GND would mandate a wrenching transformation to the electric power system in the United States to replace virtually all fossil fuels with renewable power plants in just 11 years. The current electric grid was built over the course of 100 years or more. GND calls for replacing all of this in just a decade.

To meet present electric power needs under the mandates in the “Green New Deal,” millions of wind turbines would have to be erected, millions of solar panels installed, and billions of battery packs stored in millions of homes or at tens of thousands of centralized battery farms, which currently don’t exist. If we were to rely solely on wind turbines, those turbines would need to cover one-third of the continental United States. If we were to rely on solar panels, it would probably require covering more than 20 percent of the countryside, just to meet current demand.

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February 8, 2019

JEROME CORSI FILES $25 MILLION DEFAMATION LAWSUIT AGAINST ROGER STONE

  • Jerome Corsi sued Roger Stone for $25 million, accusing the Trump confidant of defamation.
  • Stone accused Corsi of lying to Robert Mueller’s grand jury and in interviews about interactions the pair had during the 2016 campaign.
  • Corsi claims Stone is attempting to inflict him with “heart attacks and strokes” in order to prevent him from testifying against Stone.
Right-wing author Jerome Corsi filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Roger Stone on Thursday, accusing the longtime Trump confidant of attempting to give him a heart attack to prevent him from testifying in the special counsel’s case.

“Defendant Stone’s intentional infliction of emotional distress and coercion and threats are intended to try even cause [sic] Plaintiff Corsi to have heart attacks and strokes, in order that Plaintiff will be unable to testify at Stone’s criminal trial,” Corsi claims in the suit, which was filed by his attorney, Larry Klayman.

The lawsuit accuses Stone of mounting a “public relations campaign” to “smear, intimidate and threaten” Corsi, who is best known as the leading proponent of the anti-Obama “birther” conspiracy theory.

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February 7, 2019

NELLIE OHR: UKRAINIAN LAWMAKER WAS FUSION GPS SOURCE


  • Nellie Ohr told lawmakers in October that one of Fusion GPS’s sources was a Ukrainian parliamentarian whose government has accused him of illegally meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
  • Ohr, a former Fusion GPS contractor, testified that Serhiy Leshchenko was a source for the Democrat-funded opposition research firm.
  • Leshchenko was the leading force behind the release of the so-called “black ledger,” which accused Paul Manafort of receiving illicit payments from the Ukrainian government. The ledger led to Manafort’s firing from the Trump campaign, but its validity remains in dispute.

A member of the Ukrainian parliament accused in his home country of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was identified in congressional testimony in October as a source for opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

Nellie Ohr, a former contractor for the Washington, D.C.-based Fusion GPS, testified on Oct. 19 that Serhiy Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist turned Ukrainian lawmaker, was a source for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign.

“I recall … they were mentioning someone named Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian,” Ohr said when asked who Fusion GPS’s sources were, according to portions of Ohr’s testimony confirmed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

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February 6, 2019

ELIZABETH WARREN HAS BEEN CAUGHT CALLING HERSELF ‘AMERICAN INDIAN’ AGAIN

As a young lawyer in the 1980s, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren described herself as “American Indian” on a registration form for the State Bar of Texas, even though the 2020 presidential hopeful has scant Native American ancestry.

The Washington Post obtained a form that Warren filled out in April 1986 for a legal license in Texas which showed that the Democrat signed the form and, in her own handwriting, wrote that she was “American Indian.”

Warren was working at the time for the University of Texas law school in Austin.

“She is sorry that she was not more mindful of this earlier in her career,” Kristin Orthman, a spokeswoman for Warren’s campaign, told The Post.

The newspaper buried the lede of the story, which is headlined “Elizabeth Warren apologizes for calling herself Native American.”

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February 5, 2019

BANK FLAGGED ‘SUSPICIOUS’ PAYMENTS TO LOBBYIST WHO WORKED WITH FUSION GPS AND ATTENDED TRUMP TOWER MEETING


  • The bank for Russian-born lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin flagged as suspicious hundreds of thousands of dollars into his account in 2016 and 2017.
  • Akhmetshin worked closely with Fusion GPS in 2016 and was also one of the attendees of the infamous Trump Tower meeting.
  • Akhmetshin worked for Fusion GPS to investigate the lobbyist behind the Magnitsky Act, which was discussed at the Trump Tower meeting.

Wells Fargo in 2017 flagged half a million dollars in wire transfers and bank deposits to the account of Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born lobbyist who has worked closely with opposition research firm Fusion GPS and also attended the infamous Trump Tower meeting.

According to BuzzFeed News, Wells Fargo flagged the transactions for the Treasury Department upon the request of federal investigators looking into the Trump Tower meeting, which was held on June 9, 2016.

Wells Fargo deemed the deposits suspicious because of “overseas origin” and because of “a suspicion that they showed Akhmetshin had violated federal lobbying law,” according to BuzzFeed.

Akhmetshin has been interviewed by several congressional committees and testified to the grand jury being used by special counsel Robert Mueller.

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February 4, 2019

SCHUMER AIDE MISCONDUCT REVEALED DURING LATE-FRIDAY NEWS CYCLE

A top aide to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was reportedly quietly forced to resign in November 2018 over improper sexual relationships with junior staffers that made some of his colleagues uncomfortable.

Matt House announced in November 2018 he was leaving Schumer’s office, where he had served as communications director for the past six years. Prior to that, he worked for Joe Biden’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Speculation swirled about why House left his prestigious role, especially given that he did not transfer into another high-profile gig.

But according to The Huffington Post, House was forced out because of inappropriate sexual relationships with Schumer staffers.

HuffPo reported the story Friday night, while all eyes were on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat who admitted to wearing blackface or a KKK robe in a 1984 yearbook photo.

“Upon learning that he had inappropriate encounters within the office and that it was making some staff uncomfortable, he was asked to leave,” a spokesperson for Schumer told HuffPo.

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February 1, 2019

JEROME CORSI TRIES TO CLARIFY HIS ALLEGATIONS ABOUT ROGER STONE


  • Jerome Corsi is acknowledging his memory could be faulty when it comes to conversations he had with Trump confidant Roger Stone during the 2016 presidential campaign.
  • During a whirlwind media tour, Corsi claimed Stone asked him to contact WikiLeaks on Oct. 7, 2016, to begin releasing emails as part of an effort to distract from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.
  • After weeks of bitter back-and-forth, Corsi is acknowledging Stone “can be right from what he perceived.”

For weeks, right-wing author Jerome Corsi alleged Trump confidant Roger Stone asked him during the 2016 presidential campaign to try contacting WikiLeaks to distract from the impending release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which showed then-candidate Donald Trump speaking crudely of women.

If true, the allegation could pose additional legal problems for Stone, who was indicted Jan. 25 on charges in the special counsel’s investigation related to his conversations about WikiLeaks. But Stone has vehemently denied having advance knowledge of the “Access Hollywood” tape. He also disputes Corsi’s claims from his book, calling them “absurd.” 

Nevertheless, Corsi repeated the allegation and several others in numerous TV interviews and in his new book that seems to undercut Stone by accusing him of taking part in several cover-ups.

But now, the former InfoWars correspondent is acknowledging his recollection of events could be wrong, while Stone could be right.

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