Category Archives: FBI

Tony Podesta Steps Down, Implicated in Indictment

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Podesta Group, implicated in Manafort indictment took $200k at least to lobby on behalf of Uranium One. Manafort has been booked by the U.S. Marshals before facing the media outside. He has a $10M unsecured bond, home arrest, and is to be back in court on Thursday.

 

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Tony Podesta stepping down from lobbying giant amid Mueller probe

Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.

Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, founder of the Podesta Group, is stepping down from the firm that bears his name after coming under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.

Podesta’s decision to leave the firm came on the same day that former Donald Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were indicted on multiple charges, including money laundering, operating as federal agents of the Ukrainian government, failing to disclose overseas bank accounts and making false statements to federal authorities. Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier this month for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials, according to court records.

The investigation into Podesta and his firm grew out of investigators’ examination of Manafort’s finances. Manafort organized a PR campaign on behalf of a nonprofit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. Podesta Group was one of several firms that were paid to do work on the PR campaign to promote Ukraine in the U.S.

Podesta Group filed paperwork with the Justice Department in April stating that it had done work for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine that also benefited the same Ukrainian political party that Manafort once advised. Podesta Group said at the time it believed its client was a European think tank untethered to a political party.

Podesta is handing over full operational and financial control of the firm to longtime firm CEO Kimberley Fritts, according to multiple sources with knowledge of Monday’s meeting. Fritts and a senior group of the Podesta team will be launching a new firm in the next one or two days. Sources said the transition has been in the works for the past several months.

“[Tony] was very magnanimous and said, “This is an amazing group of people,” a source said of Podesta’s remarks. Podesta also told staff he “doesn’t intend to go quietly, or learn how to play golf.” He said he “needs to fight this as an individual, but doesn’t want the firm to fight it.”

Fritts also addressed the gathering, telling staff that she is “thrilled at this opportunity” and that, “This is not about me, this is about y’all.” Several other senior staff spoke about their excitement about the future of the firm. The meeting ended with a resounding ovation for Podesta.

Podesta Group did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Podesta has long been a larger than life figure on K Street, growing his business from a boutique firm into a massive lobbying and public relations operation. He is well known for his flashy dressing, vast art collection, generous campaign donations across all levels of Democratic politics and, of course, for his brother John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Podesta Group has struggled in the wake of the Mueller investigation. More than a dozen of its lobbying clients have cut ties with the firm this year, according to lobbying filings. Revenues have also declined: The firm brought in an estimated $4.8 million in the third quarter of 2017, down from $5.2 million in the second quarter of 2017 and from $6.1 million in the third quarter of 2016.

2nd Suspect Captured in Benghazi Attack, in U.S. Custody

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Media preview

Mustafa al Imam may have operated under different aliases, an administration official told CNN. The US government has video of al Imam present at one of the two sites of the attacks that killed four Americans, the official said. It’s not initially clear whether the video shows al Imam at the consulate or the annex which was also attacked.
The official said the US had been monitoring the terrorist operative’s location for some time.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. forces have captured a militant who is believed to have played a role in a 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, U.S. officials said on Monday.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that U.S. Special Operation Forces captured the militant in Libya in the past few days.

Two of the officials identified him as Mustafa al-Imam and said he had played a role in the attack and the ambassador’s death.

The officials said the man was now in the custody of the Department of Justice and being transported back to the United States by the military.

They added that the operation was authorized by President Donald Trump and had notified the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord.

In a statement, Trump said al-Imam “will face justice in the United States for his alleged role in the September 11, 2012 attacks.”[nW1N1N000Y]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said al-Imam was now in custody and the United States would continue to investigate and identify those who were involved in the attack.

The appropriate Congressional committees and the families of the Americans killed in the 2012 attack had also been notified, the officials said.

The attack on the embassy was the topic of numerous congressional hearings, with Republican lawmakers critical of the way in which then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton responded to the attack.

Earlier this month, U.S. prosecutors opened their case against the suspected ringleader, Ahmed Abu Khatallah.

Khatallah had been awaiting trial since 2014, when he was captured by a team of U.S. military and FBI officials in Libya and transported on a 13-day journey to the United States aboard a Navy vessel.

Militants have exploited chaos following Muammar Gaddafi’s 2011 downfall.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the U.S. will “spare no effort to ensure that justice is served” to the militants who committed the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Tillerson is thanking U.S. military, law enforcement and intelligence officials for the capture of a man they’re describing as a key suspect in the deadly assault on the U.S. outpost. Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans were killed.

Tillerson says he spoke with some family members of the four fallen Americans to “underscore the U.S. government’s unwavering support.”

The official says American special operations forces captured al-Imam in Misrata, on the north coast of Libya.

The official says al-Imam was then taken to a U.S. Navy ship at the Misrata port for transport. He is being taken now to the United States.

The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

WH and State Dept Slowed Walked Russian Sanctions

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While many are questioning Robert Mueller’s role into the Russian investigation, be sure to understand Russian operatives had an open door for at least 8 years and earlier than that there were clandestine Russian spy rings functioning across the country.

Much less there are dead Russians in the UK as well as in the United States, the risks are extraordinary.

Thanks to the Democrats and the greed of money where Russia was happy to comply for agreements to all their requests, the Russian probe goes beyond that common term of collusion.

The Obama administration launched the back channels for nuclear talks with Iran in 2009 in Oman. Obama needed the Russian vote, so all things concocted by the Kremlin were given a wink and nod by the Obama White House as well as the Hillary and John Kerry State Department.

So, we now have the Trump White House which has been slow and measured to take additional actions regarding Russia. The ‘why’ has a convoluted answer. There is/was Russian hacking. There were/are Russian trolls and bots in social media. There is Russian involvement in Silicon Valley known as Skolkovo. There is conflicted military airspace in Syria. There is Russian support of the Taliban. There are Russian operations in Cuba, Latin America, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine (…)

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Medvedev and Putin have a master plan and they are calculating and effective. One action results in unknown global consequences.

So, finally the Tillerson State Department provided approval of additional sanctions on Russia and Congress has the list. Is it enough or complete? Too early to know. However, the Magnitsky Act is gaining approval in countries allied to United States and Putin is seeking revenge by any means necessary including through Interpol.

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Read on:

WASHINGTON — The State Department gave Congress a list Thursday of 39 Russian individuals and entities it says support the Russian government’s intelligence and defense sectors. Early next year, anyone in the U.S. doing business with entities on that list will be hit with sanctions by the Trump administration.

“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has authorized the department to issue guidance to the public specifying the persons or entities that are part of or operating on behalf of the defense or intelligence sectors of the government of the Russian Federation,” said State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.

After President Trump signed sanctions legislation in August, the administration gave the State and Treasury Departments the authority to draw up a list of entities that enable Moscow’s intelligence and defense sectors. The State Department had a deadline of October 1 to send the list to Congress. Now, nearly a month late, State has done so.

There had been growing criticism that the administration was slow-walking the process. The State Department cited the complexity of the process when asked about the delay. Nauert also explained that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is “very hands-on in these types of things.”

Experts on Russia who reviewed the list, which was obtained by CBS News, say it covers most of the Russian defense sector.

“This seems to be a comprehensive list that broadly covers a significant portion of the Russian defense industry,” said Mark Simakovsky, a former Defense Department official and Atlantic Council fellow. “The administration likely took very seriously the review, required of the legislation, and has sought to abide by the terms.”

Five of the six Russian defense contractors listed on the State and Treasury list are among the 100 biggest defense companies worldwide.

Rosoboronexport OJSC, which is on the list, is one of Russia’s largest exporters of defense products. Its partner company, Rostec, promotes technology products in both the civil and defense sectors and is also on the list. On the intelligence side, the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) are included.

The State Department is making the entire list public in advance of actual sanctions implementation in order to alert U.S. stakeholders, primarily those who do business with these companies, early notice, so they can draw down those transactions. If they don’t, they, too, will face sanctions.

“These are the types of entities that they can no longer do business with,” State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “So it helps them to at least make their business decisions and be able to decide on the best course of action going forward,” she said.”

Making the list public before sanctions go into effect is a departure from the usual State Department policy of waiting for the sanctions to be announced. Congressional aides acknowledged that this caveat, which essentially enables both U.S. companies and the Russian companies to prepare, was a concern as the legislation was nearing its final hours before passage. In the end, there was no major effort to change this.

Once the Senate passed its sanctions legislation with an overwhelming majority, it put pressure on the House to pass it as well. Democrats applied intense pressure not to change anything because they did not want to water down the bill.

Senator Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the list a “good first step in responsibly implementing a very complex piece of legislation.” Senators Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, and John McCain, R-Arizona also welcomed the list as part of the effort to hold Russia accountable for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The two senators noted that questions remain about the implementation of the sanctions. Under the current plan, beginning Jan. 29, individuals involved in “significant” transactions with entities on the list will also be sanctioned. It’s still up to the State Department to determine how the sanctions are applied. McCain and Cardin are concerned about how the agency will come up with the staffing and resources to carry out the sanctions. In their statement they pointed out reports that say the sanctions office has been closed and “a number of its staff have resigned.” The policy planning staff, which doesn’t usually play a role in operations, is being tasked with implementing the sanctions.

Providing dedicated staffing and resources within the State Department will demonstrate the administration’s commitment to carrying out this vitally important law,” wrote McCain and Cardin.

The sanctions law signed by Mr. Trump in August targeted Iran and North Korea, in addition to Russia. It maintains and expands sanctions against the Russian government, Russian crude oil projects and also targets those who evade foreign sanctions and entities that abuse human rights. The legislation also prevents the president from unilaterally easing or lifting sanctions against Russia, a provision that came after Mr. Trump had consistently espoused the idea of a warming of relations with Russia, even in the face of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had meddled in the 2016 elections.

Uranium One Goes Back to ‘Senator’ Hillary Clinton

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The Clinton’s were masters at cunning operations for power, money and access. Along the way, they exploited people for help and threw others under the bus. The Clinton’s were crafty and cunning enough to ensure their fingerprints were never on the evidence and deferred to loyal lawyers due to the ability to apply attorney client privileges.

Going back in time and space with Hillary takes us to at least as far back as when she was a New York senator, the foundation and her craft in politics. Conspiracy and connivance were and are a daily action by Hillary. Not all the blame with Uranium One belongs to Hillary. There are her lawyers and powerbrokers globally that belong to this network.

Russia has intruded into all things America because at least Hillary and the Obama administration allowed them in.

There were several members of congress that had various depths of knowledge regarding selling uranium to Russia and expressed concerns including documents to Obama administration officials only to get nothing. Assigned FBI agents admitted being stonewalled due to ‘politics’ as well to the informant.

So, what did the media know and did they report? Yes, some of them for sure, yet there were so many scandals running concurrently, it was hardly noticed if at all. Even the New York Times reported.

As a refresher:

2015/The story involves a Canadian company called Uranium One, a Russian investor, the State Department, and The Clinton Foundation.

“As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation,” The Times reports.

Here’s the high-level summary. There are more details below.

• Canadian company Uranium One owned uranium mines in the US and Kazakhstan.

• Uranium One’s mines account for 20% of the uranium mined in the US. Uranium is used for nuclear weapons, and it’s considered a strategic asset to the US.

• Russia’s state-owned atomic agency, Rosatom, bought a 17% stake in Uranium One in June 2009.

• The Russian atomic agency decided it wanted to own 51% of Uranium One in June 2010. To take a majority stake in Uranium One, it needed approval from a special committee that included the State Department, which Hillary Clinton led at the time.

• Investors in Uranium One gave money to the Clinton Foundation starting in 2005 and through 2011. On June 29, 2010, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 to speak in Russia by an investment bank with ties to Russia’s government that had a buy rating on Uranium One’s stock.

• In January 2013, despite assurances to the contrary, a subsidiary of Rosatom took over 100% of the company and delisted it from the Toronto Stock Exchange.

• Clinton was required to disclose all of her foundation’s contributors before she became secretary of state, but the Clintons did not disclose millions of dollars donated by the chairman of Uranium One while the review of the deal was ongoing.

“Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million,” The Times reports. “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.”

The Times’ revelations appear to have originated from reporting in “Clinton Cash,” a forthcoming book by conservative author Peter Schweizer, which was provided to the newspaper for advance reporting. The report said The Times “scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own reporting.”

The Clinton campaign and its allies have aggressively dismissed the book as partisan conspiracy-mongering. In a statement to The Times, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said the State Department was only one of multiple US government bodies that approved the transaction.

“[No one] has produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation,” Fallon told The Times. “To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the US government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless.”

Here are some key points from the Times report:

  • According to The Times, Uranium One’s involvement with the Clintons stretches back to 2005, when former President Bill Clinton accompanied Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra to Kazakhstan, where they met with authoritarian president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Going against American foreign policy at the time, Bill Clinton expressed support for Nazarbayev’s bid to lead an international elections monitoring group.
  • Soon after, Giustra’s company, UrAsia Energy (the predecessor to Uranium One) won stakes in three uranium mines controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-run uranium agency. Months after the deal, Giustra reportedly donated $31.3 million to Clinton’s foundation.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev greets former U.S. president Bill ClintonKazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev with former US President Bill Clinton in Almaty in 2005. Clinton traveled to the ex-Soviet Central Asian state to sign an agreement with the government, admitting Kazakhstan into the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative Procurement Consortium.REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov SZH/DH

  • After the legality of the Kazakhstan deal was called into question, Uranium One asked the American embassy in Kazakhstan for help. Uranium One’s executive vice president copied then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a cable saying he wanted an official written confirmation that the company’s licenses in Kazakhstan were still valid, according to The Times. Soon after, the embassy’s energy officer met with Kazakh officials.
  • In June 2009 ARMZ, a subsidiary of Russia’s atomic energy agency Rosatom, finalized a deal for a 17% stake in Uranium One. In June 2010, the Russian government sought a 51% controlling stake in the company that would have to be approved by the American government. Rosatom also said that after that, the agency “did not plan to increase its stake in Uranium One or to take the company private,” The Times noted in a timeline of the events.
  • Investors with ties to Uranium One and UrAsia donated millions to the foundation in 2010 and 2011. These donations were disclosed. In addition to this, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 to speak in Moscow in June 2010, the same month that the Russians closed the deal for the majority stake in Uranium One. The speaking fee was one of Clinton’s highest, according to The Times.
  • The US Committee on Foreign Investment, which includes the attorney general, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state, were charged with reviewing the deal that would give Rosatom a majority stake because uranium is “considered a strategic asset with implications for national security,” according to The Times.
  • The concern was American dependence on foreign uranium. The Times notes that while the US “gets one-fifth of its electrical power from nuclear plants, it produces only around 20% of the uranium it needs, and most plants have only 18 to 36 months of reserves.”
  • Four members of Congress signed a letter expressing concern over the deal, and two others drafted legislation to kill it. One senator contended that the deal “would give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s uranium production capacity” as well as “a significant stake in uranium mines in Kazakhstan.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission made assurances that the US uranium would be preserved for domestic use regardless of the deal.
  • Final say over the deal rested with the foreign investment committee, “including Mrs. Clinton — whose husband was collecting millions of dollars in donations from people associated with Uranium One,” The Times notes.
  • After the deal was approved in October 2010, Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko, said in an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Few could have imagined in the past that we would own 20% of US reserves.”
    • A source with knowledge of the Clintons’ fundraising pointed out to The Times that people donate because they hope that money will buy influence. The source said: “Why do you think they are doing it — because they love them?”
    • Despite claims by Russia that the country didn’t intend to increase its stake in Uranium One or take the company private, ARMZ — the subsidiary of Russia’s atomic energy agency — took over 100% of the company and delisted it from the Toronto Stock Exchange in January 2013.

    “Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown,” The Times concluded. “But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation’s donors.”

    Now that Hillary Clinton formally announced a presidential run, her foundation has come under increasing scrutiny.

    Her family’s charities are refiling at least five tax returns after Reuters found errors in how the foundations reported donations from governments, the news wire reported this week.

 

 

Trump Delays Release of Some JFK Files

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Donald Trump delays release of some of the final JFK assassination files

Here is the link to the archives.

The National Archives will release 2,800 documents on Thursday, the White House said in a call with reporters that afternoon. The release of a number of other documents with redactions will be postponed for 180 days to allow for further review. “The vast majority” of the redactions were requested by the FBI and CIA, according to a White House spokeswoman.

According to the archives, “much of what will be released will be tangential to the assassination events.”

The documents were expected to focus on Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and his exploits in Mexico City two months before he shot the president in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, according to USA Today.

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ChicagoTribune: President Donald Trump acted Thursday to block the release of hundreds of records on the John F. Kennedy assassination, bending to CIA and FBI appeals to keep those secrets.

“I have no choice,” Trump said in a memo, according to White House officials. He was placing those files under a six-month review while letting 2,800 other records come out Thursday evening, racing a deadline to honor a law mandating their release.

Officials say Trump will impress upon federal agencies that JFK files should stay secret after the six-month review “only in the rarest cases.”

Much of Thursday passed with nothing from the White House or National Archives except silence, leaving unclear how the government would comply with a law requiring the records to come out by the end of the day — unless Trump had been persuaded by intelligence agencies to hold some back.

White House officials said the FBI and CIA made the most requests within the government to withhold some information.

No blockbusters had been expected in the last trove of secret files regarding Kennedy’s assassination Nov. 22, 1963, given a statement months ago by the Archives that it assumed the records, then under preparation, would be “tangential” to what’s known about the killing.

But for historians, it’s a chance to answer lingering questions, put some unfounded conspiracy theories to rest, perhaps give life to other theories — or none of that, if the material adds little to the record.

Researchers were frustrated by the uncertainty that surrounded the release for much of the day.

“The government has had 25 years_with a known end-date_to prepare #JFKfiles for release,” University of Virginia historian Larry Sabato tweeted in the afternoon. “Deadline is here. Chaos.”

Asked what he meant, Sabato emailed to say: “Contradictory signals were given all day. Trump’s tweets led us to believe that disclosure was ready to go. Everybody outside government was ready to move quickly.”

Trump had been a bit coy about the scheduled release on the eve of it, tweeting: “The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!”

Experts say the publication of the last trove of evidence could help allay suspicions of a conspiracy — at least for some.

“As long as the government is withholding documents like these, it’s going to fuel suspicion that there is a smoking gun out there about the Kennedy assassination,” said Patrick Maney, a presidential historian at Boston College.

The collection includes more than 3,100 records — comprising hundreds of thousands of pages — that have never been seen by the public. About 30,000 documents were released previously — with redactions.

Experts said intelligence agencies pushed Trump to keep some of the remaining materials secret — the CIA didn’t comment on that.

Whatever details are released, they’re not expected to give a definitive answer to a question that still lingers for some: Whether anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in the assassination.

The Warren Commission in 1964 reported that Oswald had been the lone gunman, and another congressional probe in 1979 found no evidence to support the theory that the CIA had been involved. But other interpretations, some more creative than others, have persisted.

The 1992 law mandating release of the JFK documents states that all the files “shall be publicly disclosed in full” within 25 years — that means by Thursday — unless the president certifies that “continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense; intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations.”

That doesn’t allow the president, for example, to hold some records back because they might be embarrassing to agencies or people.

“In any release of this size, there always are embarrassing details,” said Douglas Brinkley, a professor at Rice University.

The law does not specify penalties for noncompliance, saying only that House and Senate committees are responsible for oversight of the collection.