Category Archives: Presidential campaign

Hillary – Sid: There is a Hezbollah Base in Cuba

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Just for collaboration on the matter, the Justice Department published a 2014 report.

Additional Hezbollah facts.

A few years before the Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism Hezbollah established an operational base on the communist island, according to intelligence received by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.

This Sid fella is good, but why didn’t  Hillary get the intelligence from her own State Department ops department? Did she ever really have security clearance or did she waive it and hand it over to Sidney Blumenthal? (snarky)

JW: The information comes straight from electronic mail released by the State Department over the weekend as part of ongoing litigation from several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server to send and receive classified information as Secretary of State. This alarming information has been ignored by the mainstream media, which served as the president’s most vocal cheerleader when he established diplomatic ties with Cuba last summer. After appearing for decades on the U.S. government’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, the Obama administration officially removed it to lay the groundwork for a full renewal of diplomatic ties.

Nevertheless, the administration knew that the radical Lebanon-based Islamic group Hezbollah had opened a base in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S, a few years earlier. In a cable dated September 9, 2011 Clinton is informed that “extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America.” The cable goes on to say that “the Hezbollah office in Cuba is being established under direct orders from the current General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, who replaced Musawi in 1992. According to the information available to this source, in preparation for establishment of the base, Nasrallah, working from inside of Lebanon, carried out secret negotiations with representatives of the Cuban Government, particularly the Cuban Intelligence Service (General Intelligence Directorate — DGI), agreeing to , maintain a very low profile inside of Cuba. Nasrallah also promised to take measures to avoid any trail of evidence that could lead back to Cuba in the event of a Hezbollah attack in Latin America.”

Obama’s report to Congress indicating his intent to rescind Cuba’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation included a certification that Cuba had not provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six-months. It also claimed that Cuba had provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future. This was May, 2015 when the State Department announced the island nation was officially off the terrorist list because it “meets the statutory criteria for rescission.” In the announcement the agency also wrote this: “While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a State Sponsor of Terrorism designation.” The new Clinton email creates a number of questions relating to the agency’s abrupt move to clear Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism.

Hezbollah’s involvement in Latin America is nothing new and in fact Judicial Watch has been reporting it for years. In 2013 JW published a story about Hezbollah infiltrating the southwest U.S. border by joining forces with Mexican drug cartels that have long operated in the region. The recently released Clinton email, states that a “particularly sensitive source” confirmed that in the 1980s Hezbollah carried out similar contingency casing operations against U.S., British, and Israeli facilities and businesses in Latin America, Europe and North Africa. In 1992 Islamic Jihad, acting on behalf of Hezbollah, bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in retaliation for the death of Hezbollah General Secretary Abbas al-Musawi, the email says.

A few years before the Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism Hezbollah established an operational base on the communist island, according to intelligence received by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.

The information comes straight from electronic mail released by the State Department over the weekend as part of ongoing litigation from several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server to send and receive classified information as Secretary of State. This alarming information has been ignored by the mainstream media, which served as the president’s most vocal cheerleader when he established diplomatic ties with Cuba last summer. After appearing for decades on the U.S. government’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, the Obama administration officially removed it to lay the groundwork for a full renewal of diplomatic ties.

Nevertheless, the administration knew that the radical Lebanon-based Islamic group Hezbollah had opened a base in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S, a few years earlier. In a cable dated September 9, 2011 Clinton is informed that “extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America.” The cable goes on to say that “the Hezbollah office in Cuba is being established under direct orders from the current General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, who replaced Musawi in 1992. According to the information available to this source, in preparation for establishment of the base, Nasrallah, working from inside of Lebanon, carried out secret negotiations with representatives of the Cuban Government, particularly the Cuban Intelligence Service (General Intelligence Directorate — DGI), agreeing to , maintain a very low profile inside of Cuba. Nasrallah also promised to take measures to avoid any trail of evidence that could lead back to Cuba in the event of a Hezbollah attack in Latin America.”

Obama’s report to Congress indicating his intent to rescind Cuba’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation included a certification that Cuba had not provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six-months. It also claimed that Cuba had provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future. This was May, 2015 when the State Department announced the island nation was officially off the terrorist list because it “meets the statutory criteria for rescission.” In the announcement the agency also wrote this: “While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a State Sponsor of Terrorism designation.” The new Clinton email creates a number of questions relating to the agency’s abrupt move to clear Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism.

Hezbollah’s involvement in Latin America is nothing new and in fact Judicial Watch has been reporting it for years. In 2013 JW published a story about Hezbollah infiltrating the southwest U.S. border by joining forces with Mexican drug cartels that have long operated in the region. The recently released Clinton email, states that a “particularly sensitive source” confirmed that in the 1980s Hezbollah carried out similar contingency casing operations against U.S., British, and Israeli facilities and businesses in Latin America, Europe and North Africa. In 1992 Islamic Jihad, acting on behalf of Hezbollah, bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in retaliation for the death of Hezbollah General Secretary Abbas al-Musawi, the email says.

 

c 05782918 – FOIA State Cuba Hezbollah by Jason I. Poblete

Joint Chiefs, ‘NO’ on Closing Gitmo

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Obama tweets: I’m going to Cuba

BI: President Barack Obama announced Thursday on Twitter that he was going to Cuba next month, which will be the first time a sitting president has visited the country since 1928.

The US recently restored diplomatic relations with the communist country after a 54-year break.

“14 months ago, I announced that we would begin normalizing relations with Cuba — and we’ve already made significant progress,” Obama tweeted.

In subsequent tweets, he said:

Our flag flies over our Embassy in Havana once again. More Americans are traveling to Cuba than at any time in the last 50 years. We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world. Next month, I’ll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people.

Obama also tweeted a link to a post on the website Medium that explained the thinking behind his trip.

Ben Rhodes, a national security adviser to Obama, wrote that the president would “have the opportunity to meet with President [Raúl] Castro, and with Cuban civil society and people from different walks of life” on the trip.

“Yes, we have a complicated and difficult history,” Rhodes wrote. “But we need not be defined by it. Indeed, the extraordinary success of the Cuban-American community demonstrates that when we engage Cuba, it is not simply foreign policy  —  for many Americans, it’s family.”

JW: As President Obama frees droves of terrorists—including five Yemenis this week—from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo news reports confirm that a Gitmo alum who once led a Taliban unit has established the first Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) base in Afghanistan.

His name is Mullah Abdul Rauf and international and domestic media reports say he’s operating in Helmand province, actively recruiting fighters for ISIS. Citing local sources, a British newspaper writes that Rauf set up a base and is offering good wages to anyone willing to fight for the Islamic State. Rauf was a corps commander during the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports. After getting captured by U.S. forces, he was sent to Gitmo in southeast Cuba but was released in 2007. More here.

*** The Obama administration is in somewhat of a panic over the most recent development of Ibrahim al Qosi.

FNC: When Ibrahim al Qosi was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2012, a lawyer for the former Usama bin Laden aide said he looked forward to living a life of peace in his native Sudan.

Three years later, Qosi has emerged as a prominent voice of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, appearing in a number of AQAP propaganda videos — including a 50-minute lecture calling for the takeover of Saudi Arabia.

The 56-year-old Qosi delivered a scathing critique of the Saudi monarchy — which appeared online on Feb. 6 — denouncing the Saudi government’s execution of more than 40 “mujahedeen” in January, according to the Long War Journal.

Joint Chiefs Issue Resounding ‘No’ to Obama on Gitmo Closure

Granger – TheBlaze: Just in case it couldn’t be more clear, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces of the United States said “no, we won’t help” to the president in a letter regarding his possible use of an executive order to close the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and then bring the remaining detainees to the United States.

Quoting the law, Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr., the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote:

“Current law prohibits the use of funds to ‘transfer, release or assist in the transfer or release’ of detainees of Guantanamo Bay to or within the United States, and prohibits the construction, modification or acquisition of any facility within the United States to house any Guantanamo detainee. The Joint Staff will not take any action contrary to those restrictions.”

Sixteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives with military experience had written to the Joint Chiefs regarding the legal question of whether or not they would follow an executive order by President Barack Obama to close Gitmo by relocating the remaining detainees to the U.S.

Getty Images

The president is now alone in his fantasy of bringing detainees to U.S. shores.

Without the cooperation of the military, no physical transfer of Gitmo detainees can take place.

The president said in his end-of-year press conference, “We will wait until Congress has definitively said no to a well-thought-out plan with numbers attached to it before we say anything definitive about my executive authority here.”

Apparently, the Joint Chiefs beat Congress to the punch. There is no authority of the president to move anybody anywhere against the law.

Far from just an opinion, the Joint Chiefs are factually correct in their decision. Unless an order, even coming from the commander in chief, is legal, ethical and moral, the nation’s most responsible generals may not carry it out.

The letter is a first response in what could be a legal argument that could reach the attorney general and/or the Supreme Court.

With the balance of power in the highest court tilting slightly to the left now that conservative Antonin Scalia has passed away and his seat is vacant for the foreseeable future, any decision made by that body in question of the president’s Constitutional authority would probably side with him.

Without reaction to the letter, the Obama administration is surely scrambling for ideas on what next to do.

The really disappointing aspect of Obama’s obsession with closing Gitmo is the fact that he has forgotten the reason for the facility in the first place.

Sept. 11, 2001, is the reason for Gitmo. It is the reason for detaining as many potential sources of important information (that could save many lives) as possible. It is the reason so many lives have been lost and others changed forever.

Why has Obama forsaken the safety and security of the American people by releasing unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill Americans before the Global War on Terror is won?

Thirty percent of all released Gitmo detainees are known or are suspected of returning to the fight. If that isn’t bad enough, there is NO information on the other 70 percent. Where are they; your neighborhood?

The president’s reckless behavior, from releasing dangerous enemies to wanting to bring others to the U.S. is proof that his priorities are confused. Thankfully, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have just reminded him that even he is bound by law, and they will not help him break it.

Montgomery Granger is a three-times mobilized U.S. Army major (Ret.) and author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior.” Amazon, Blog, Facebook

Ooops, What Hillary and her Aide did NOT Sign

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EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton And Cheryl Mills Did Not Sign Mandatory Agreement to Return Classified Materials

Howley – Breitbart:

Breitbart News has obtained confirmation on State Department letterhead that Hillary Clinton did NOT sign a mandatory OF-109 “Separation Statement” when she left the State Department.

That statement would have required her to affirm that she had returned all classified materials in her possession. Clinton’s top aide Cheryl Mills also avoided signing a separation statement.

Additionally, Clinton never certified that she went through a mandatory security debriefing to learn how to handle classified information. State Department officials, meanwhile, admitted that they “mistakenly” mailed out sensitive information involving the Clinton case.

Citizen researcher Larry Kawa has provided to Breitbart News the most clear-cut evidence to date that Clinton avoided going through mandatory channels to return classified government information.

Clinton failed to sign a separation agreement when she left the State Department, around the time she was required to give back all of her classified materials. Clinton signed a “Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement” on January 22, 2009. This document is known as an SF-312. It is standard for government employees to sign an SF-312 when they begin working in a role that gives them access to classified information. But she was also required to sign an OF-109, or “Separation Statement,” when she left the job.

That OF-109 document would have required her to affirm the following:

I have surrendered to responsible officials all classified or administratively controlled documents and material with which I was charged or which I had in my possession. I am not retaining in my possession, custody, or control, documents or material containing classified or administratively controlled information furnished to me during the course of such employment or developed as a consequence thereof…

But Clinton never signed an OF-109, even though the State Department Foreign Affairs Manual requires all employees to do so. The office of the Speaker of the House and others have been desperately trying to figure out if Clinton signed an OF-109. Now we know.

On September 11, 2015, researcher Larry Kawa received a letter from State Department official Clarence N. Finney Jr. from the Office of Executive Secretariat Staff (S/ES-S). Finney claimed that, “Departing secretaries of state do not complete an OF-109 due to their continued need for a security clearance after their resignation.”

***  Hillary signature

In other words, the State Department claimed that Clinton, as Secretary of State, was exempt from the requirement in the Foreign Affairs Manual. But Kawa was not satisfied.

Kawa wrote to State Department Office of Information Programs and Services director John Hackett on November 19 and asked, “Can you please forward me written documentation that allows for the exemption of the Secretary of State?”

“Mr. Kawa, I do not have this information at hand. I recommend that you submit an additional FOIA request,” Hackett replied. Kawa submitted another FOIA request two days later seeking evidence for the exemption, but his FOIA request was never returned.

The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 12 Section 564.4 is crystal clear that all employees must sign a separation agreement and undergo a security debriefing:

a. A security debriefing will be conducted and a separation statement will be completed whenever an employee is terminating employment or is otherwise to be separated for a continuous period of 60 days or more.The debriefing is mandatory to ensure that separating personnel are aware of the requirement to return all classified material and of a continuing responsibility to safeguard their knowledge of any classified information. The separating employee must be advised of the applicable laws on the protection and disclosure of classified information (see 12FAM 557 Exhibit 557.3) before signing Form OF-109, Separation Statement (see 12 FAM 564 Exhibit 564.4).

b. AID’s Office of Security, IG/SEC, will conduct a security debriefing upon the separation of AID employees.

Kawa asked State Department Office of Information Programs and Services litigation and appeals branch chief Brandi Garrett for the “pertinent exemption” that would have allowed Clinton to skip out on signing a separation statement, but Garrett did not provide any evidence to show that Clinton was exempt. 

Cheryl Mills also skipped the exit procedure.

A Separation Statement exists for top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, and a copy of it was quietly released by the State Department.

You might notice something fairly jarring: the statement was never signed, by Mills or anyone else. It was left blank.

Cheryl Mills, like Clinton, avoided having to affirm that she “surrendered to responsible officials all classified or administratively controlled documents and material with which I was charged or which I had in my possession.”

Unlike Mills, Clinton aide Huma Abedin signed a separation statement and security debriefing acknowledgment in February 2013.

Citizen researcher Larry Kawa found the information during a series of exchanges with State Department officials in which the Department admitted to “mistakenly” mailing out sensitive information on the Clinton case.

On the evening of Friday November 13, 2015, Kawa received an email from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Martha Grafeld. That same night, he received a voicemail message from State Department information officer John Hackett. Both Grafeld and Hackett told Kawa that he had been mailed sensitive information about Clinton and her aides. Even though Kawa had not received any information, the State Department officials seemed panicked.

They both asked him to return the sensitive information as soon as he gets it in the mail. They also both warned him not to disclose any of the information they thought he’d been sent.

Audio of Hackett’s voice mail message, reviewed by Breitbart News, referred to information that was “mistakenly” sent out:

Mr. Kawa, this is John Hackett with the Department of State. Area code [redacted]. The documents we recently mailed you relating to your FOIA request, um, these documents were mistakenly mailed to you without proper processing. They may contain, um, information that is exempt from public disclosure including Social Security numbers. We ask that you not distribute or disseminate these documents. We’ll be sending you an email to ask you to return these documents. Um, also we’ll be sending you a link where these documents that have been properly processed may be found. We regret any inconvenience. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. Thanks a lot. Bye now.

Grafeld wrote:

I am writing to follow up on a phone call you received today.  In that call, our staff informed you that documents you recently received in the mail from the Department of State were mistakenly mailed to you without proper processing, as they include information that is exempt from disclosure, potentially including Social Security numbers.  The Department asked that you not distribute or disseminate these documents or copies of these documents.  Substitute documents that have been properly processed are posted at:  https://foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?collection=HRC_NDAS.

We will forward to you a prepaid envelope to return to us the documents that were mistakenly sent and any copies you may have made. This return will be at no cost to you.

As you may know, many states have enacted privacy laws that prohibit the disclosure of the Social Security number of another person. With that in mind, we appreciate your safeguarding the Social Security numbers on the documents mistakenly sent to you.

We regret any inconvenience that this may cause you and appreciate your cooperation.

Clinton’s lack of an OF-109 is especially relevant in light of her SF-312, a sworn agreement in 2009 that she made to return all classified materials “upon the conclusion of my employment”:

7…I agree that I shall return all classified materials which have, or may come into my possession or for which I am responsible because of such access: (a) upon demand by an authorized representative of the United States Government; (b) upon the conclusion of my employment or other relationship with the Department or Agency that last granted me a security clearance or that provided me access to classified information; or (c) upon the conclusion of my employment or other relationship that requires access to classified information. If I do not return such materials upon request, I understand that this may be a violation of Sections 793 and/or 1924, Title 18, United States Code, a United States criminal law.

But Clinton did not return her private server, with classified information on it, when she left the State Department in January 2013. She only gave her private server to an inter-agency task force led by the FBI in August 2015, more than two years after her employment with the State Department came to an end.

Thus, Clinton violated her sworn SF-312 statement and could have violated the Title 18 sections cited in the agreement: Section 793, on “Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information,” and Section 1924, on “Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.” If she is convicted of violating either of those sections, she could face prison time.

Clinton did not sign the second line on the bottom of the SF-312 document, the “Security Debriefing Acknowledgment.” The signature line was left blank. Thus, Clinton did not certify that she was debriefed on her security obligations regarding classified information.

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the State Department did not return requests for comment for this report.

 

Beyond the Bluster, Obama Missed a Major Deadline

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But Obama did play golf last weekend and it appears he is missing the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antoine Scalia to play golf?

Last year, the White House held a summit on the matter, any achievements? Nah.

 

It appears that perhaps Obama and his national security team has left the matter up the Tony Blinken at the State Department and the Brookings Institute.

The United States has mobilized countries around the world to disrupt and defeat these threats to our common security—starting with Daesh and al-Qaeda and including Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, AQAP, and a number of other groups. Now, the most visible part of this effort is the battlefield and our increasingly successful effort to destroy Daesh at its core in Iraq and Syria. Working by, with, and through local partners, we have taken back 40 percent of the territory Daesh controlled a year ago in Iraq and 10 percent in Syria—killing senior leaders, destroying thousands of pieces of equipment, all the while applying simultaneous pressure against key chock points and isolating its bases in Mosul and Raqqa. In fact, we assess Daesh’s numbers are the lowest they’ve been since we began monitoring their manpower in 2014.

We have a comprehensive strategy includes training, equipping, and advising our local partners; stabilizing and rebuilding liberated areas; stopping the flow of foreign fighters into and out of Iraq and Syria; cutting off Daesh’s financing and countering its propaganda; providing life-saving humanitarians assistance; and promoting political accommodations so that our military success is sustainable.

In each of these areas, we are making real progress. These hard-fought victories undermine more than Daesh’s fighting force. They erode the narrative it has built of its own success—the perception of which remains one of Daesh’s most effective recruiting tools. For the danger from violent extremism has slipped past war’s frontlines and into the computers and onto the phones of citizens in every corner of the world. Destined to outlive Daesh, this pernicious threat is transforming our security landscape, as individuals are inspired to violent acts from Paris to San Bernardino to Jakarta.

So even as we advance our efforts to defeat Daesh on the frontlines, we know that to be fully effective, we must work to prevent the spread of violent extremism in the first place—to stop the recruitment, radicalization, and mobilization of people, especially young people, to engage in terrorist activities. Read all the comments and remarks here.

White House Misses Deadline to Deliver ISIS Strategy to Congress

Brown: (CNSNews.com) – The House Armed Services Committee noted Tuesday that the Obama administration missed their February 15 deadline to deliver a strategy to counter violent extremist groups in the Middle East, such as ISIS and al Qaeda, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, harshly criticized  President Obama’s failure to meet the deadline.

“I fear the President’s failure to deliver this report says far more about the state of his strategy to defeat terrorists than any empty reassurance he may offer from the podium,” Thornberry said in a statement.

“Unsurprisingly, the Administration cannot articulate a strategy for countering violent extremists in the Middle East. Time and again, the President has told us his strategy to defeat extremist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda is well underway,” Thornberry said, “yet, months after the legal requirement was established, his Administration cannot deliver that strategy to Congress.”

Thornberry also outlined the consequences of the administration’s failure, calling it “a lost opportunity” for Congress and the administration to come together for a common approach to respond to the threat.

“The Committee is working now to shape the FY17 National Defense Authorization Act and the Pentagon has already begun requesting authorities our troops need to defeat this enemy. Without a strategy, this amounts to leaving our troops in the wilderness with a compass, but no map,” he wrote.

“Failing to comply with the report deadline represents more than a failure of strategic vision for the White House,” Thornberry emphasized. “It is a lost opportunity for the Administration and Congress to work together on a common approach to face this threat.”

Section 1222 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY16, signed by President Obama in November, “requires the Secretaries of State and Defense to deliver a strategy for the Middle East and countering violent extremism no later than February 15, 2016” according to Thornberry’s statement.

It also requires the Administration to “lay out a number of elements needed to defeat terrorist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda, including a description of the role the U.S. military will play in such a strategy, a description of the coalition needed to carry out the strategy, and an assessment of efforts to disrupt foreign fighters traveling to Syria and Iraq.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) sent the White House a reminder of the deadline on February 10, citing a recent testimony by Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, that ISIS “will probably attempt to conduct additional attacks in Europe, and attempt to direct attacks on the U.S. homeland in 2016.”

“We are aware of the report and are actively working with multiple interagency offices to complete this legal requirement per the NDAA and look forward to submitting the completed report to Congress in the near-term,” Army Lt. Col. Joe Sowers, a Department of Defense spokesman, told The Hill on Friday.

*** Just one reason why Obama being tardy is an issue:

The intercontinental nuclear missile threat arrives in America.

 

Americans have been focused on New Hampshire and Iowa, but spare a thought for Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago. Those are among the cities within range of the intercontinental ballistic missile tested Sunday by North Korea. Toledo and Pittsburgh are still slightly out of range, but at least 120 million Americans with the wrong zip codes could soon be targets of Kim Jong Un…

***

“We assess that they have the capability to reach the [U.S.] homeland with a nuclear weapon from a rocket,” U.S. Admiral Bill Gortney of the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in October, echoing warnings from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the U.S. commander in South Korea…

All of this vindicates the long campaign for missile defense. Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative helped win the Cold War, and North Korea is precisely the threat that continued to justify the cause after the Soviet Union’s collapse… 

You can thank the George W. Bush Administration for the defenses that exist, including long-range missile interceptors in Alaska and California, Aegis systems aboard U.S. Navy warships and a diverse network of radar and satellite sensors. The U.S. was due to place interceptors in Poland and X-Band radar in the Czech Republic, but in 2009 President Obama and Hillary Clinton scrapped those plans as a “reset” gift to Vladimir Putin.

Team Obama also cut 14 of the 44 interceptors planned for Alaska and Hawaii, ceased development of the Multiple Kill Vehicle… and defunded the two systems focused on destroying missiles in their early “boost” phase… By 2013 even Mr. Obama partially realized his error, so the Administration expanded radar and short-range interceptors in Asia and recommitted to the 14 interceptors for the U.S. West Coast. It now appears poised to install sophisticated Thaad antimissile batteries in South Korea.

Hillary has NO Defense Under the Law or Executive Order

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Executive Order #13526  Espionage Act

WASHINGTON — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the president of Afghanistan, gets regular payments from the CIA and has for much of the past eight years, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The newspaper said that according to current and former American officials, the CIA pays Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA’s direction in and around Kandahar.

The CIA’s ties to Karzai, who is a suspected player in the country’s illegal opium trade, have created deep divisions within the Obama administration, the Times said.

Allegations that Karzai is involved in the drug trade have circulated in Kabul for months. He denies them.

Critics say the ties with Karzai complicate the United States’ increasingly tense relationship with his older brother, President Hamid Karzai. The CIA’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

Clinton email chain discussed Afghan national’s CIA ties, official says

FNC: EXCLUSIVE: One of the classified email chains discovered on Hillary Clinton’s personal unsecured server discussed an Afghan national’s ties to the CIA and a report that he was on the agency’s payroll, a U.S. government official with knowledge of the document told Fox News.

The discussion of a foreign national working with the U.S. government raises security implications – an executive order signed by President Obama said unauthorized disclosures are “presumed to cause damage to the national security.”

The U.S. government official said the Clinton email exchange, which referred to a New York Times report, was among 29 classified emails recently provided to congressional committees with specific clearances to review them. In that batch were 22 “top secret” exchanges deemed too damaging to national security to release.

Confirmation that one of these exchanges concerned a reported CIA asset means the emails went beyond issues like the drone strike campaign. Democrats repeatedly have said some messages referred to this, reinforcing Clinton’s position that the documents are over-classified.

Based on the timing and other details, the email chain likely refers to either an October 2009 Times story that identified Afghan national Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of then-Afghan president Hamid Karzai, as a person who received “regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency” — or an August 2010 Times story that identified Karzai aide Mohammed Zia Salehi as being on the CIA payroll. Ahmed Wali Karzai was murdered during a 2011 shoot-out, a killing later claimed by the Taliban.

Fox News was told the email chain included then-Secretary of State Clinton and then-special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and possibly others. The basic details of this email exchange were backed up to Fox News by a separate U.S. government source who was not authorized to speak on the record.

It’s unclear who initiated the discussion – Clinton, Holbrooke or a subordinate – or whether the CIA’s relationship with the Afghan national was confirmed, because the classified documents are not public.

Holbrooke died in December 2010, during his service as a special envoy.

A CIA spokesperson told Fox News they had no comment on the email chain.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General also had no comment.

The U.S. government official’s account of the Clinton email chain dovetails with a Feb. 3 interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” where Republican Rep. Chris Stewart, a member of the House intelligence committee, said, “I have never read anything more sensitive than what these emails contain. They do reveal classified methods. They do reveal classified sources and they do reveal human assets.”

Stewart added, “I can’t imagine how anyone could be familiar with these emails, whether they’re sending them or receiving them, and not realize that these are highly classified.”

While the Clinton campaign claims the government classification review has gone too far, Executive Order 13526, in a section called “classification standards,” says, “the unauthorized disclosure of foreign government information is presumed to cause damage to the national security.”

Fox News was first to report that the Clinton emails contained intelligence beyond “top secret,” and some of the information was deemed “HCS-O” – a code that refers to human intelligence from ongoing operations.

National security and intelligence experts emphasized to Fox News that security clearance holders are trained to not confirm or deny details of a classified program in an unclassified setting, which would include a personal unsecured email network, even if the classified program appears in press reports.

“The rules of handling classified information dictate if something is reported in open source [news reports] you don’t confirm it because it’s still classified information,” said Dan Maguire, who spent more than four decades handling highly classified programs and specialized in human intelligence operations.

As secretary of state, Clinton signed at least two non-disclosure agreements (NDA) on Jan. 22, 2009, and received a briefing from a security officer whose identity was redacted. As part of the NDA for “sensitive compartmented information” (SCI), Clinton acknowledged any “breach” could result in “termination of my access to SCI and removal from a position of special confidence and trust requiring such access as well as the termination of my employment or any other relationships with any Department or Agency that provides me with access to SCI.”

It is remains unclear how classified materials “jumped the gap” from a classified system to her personal server.

On Feb. 12, Clinton’s national press secretary Brian Fallon emphasized that classified information would have been marked as such. “I think when this review plays itself out, at the end they’ll find that what we have said is true,” he told CNN. “Nothing was marked classified at the time it was sent.”

Fallon also attacked the State Department inspector general, Steve Linick, for what he described as “fishing expedition-style investigations” since Clinton decided to run for president. “There is no basis. It is intended to create headwinds for her campaign, but it is not going to work,” Fallon said. He leveled a similar allegation against Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough, III, after his office notified Congress the emails contained information beyond top secret.

Inquiries by Fox News to Clinton’s attorney David Kendall about the status of or changes to her security clearance, and access to classified information, have not been returned.