Category Archives: Presidential campaign

Inspector General’s Report on Hillary’s Email, TROUBLE Ahead

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Hillary signed the exact same document General Petraeus did. Since Hillary who does not get along at all with the Obama’s, and since Hillary has been in full lockstep with Obama, this can only mean she went to him to get his signature on ‘executive protection’. But, perhaps Congress can move some legislation to have her security clearance stripped, meaning she then cannot be eligible to be president. Just a thought.

Inspector General: Clinton emails had intel from most secretive, classified programs

Herridge/Brown

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton’s emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the U.S. government’s most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers.

Fox News exclusively obtained the text of the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified “several dozen” additional classified emails — including specific intelligence known as “special access programs” (SAP).

That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets.

“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels,” said the IG letter to lawmakers with oversight of the intelligence community and State Department. “According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources.”

Intelligence from a “special access program,” or SAP, is even more sensitive than that designated as “top secret” – as were two emails identified last summer in a random sample pulled from Clinton’s private server she used as secretary of state. Access to a SAP is restricted to those with a “need-to-know” because exposure of the intelligence would likely reveal the source, putting a method of intelligence collection — or a human asset — at risk. Currently, some 1,340 emails designated “classified” have been found on Clinton’s server, though the Democratic presidential candidate insists the information was not classified at the time.

“There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material,” a former senior law enforcement with decades of experience investigating violations of SAP procedures told Fox News. “It is the most sensitive of the sensitive.”

Executive Order 13526 — called “Classified National Security Information” and signed Dec. 29, 2009 — sets out the legal framework for establishing special access programs. The order says the programs can only be authorized by the president, “the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each.”

The programs are created when “the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional,” and “the number of persons who ordinarily will have access will be reasonably small and commensurate with the objective of providing enhanced protection for the information involved,” it states.

According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding “unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling … could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.” Clinton signed an identical non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009.

Fox News is told that the recent IG letter was sent to the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees and leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and State Department inspector general.

Fox News has asked the committees to make the letter public because its findings are unclassified.

Representatives for the ODNI and intelligence community inspector general had no comment, but did not dispute the findings.

The intelligence community IG was responding in his message to a November letter from the Republican chairmen of the Senate intelligence and foreign relations committees that questioned the State Department email review process after it was wrongly reported the intelligence community was retreating from the “top secret” designation.

As Fox News first reported, those two emails were “top secret” when they hit the server, and it is now considered a settled matter.

The intelligence agencies now have their own reviewers embedded at the State Department as part of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. The reviewers are identifying intelligence of a potentially classified nature, and referring it to the relevant intelligence agency for further review.

There is no formal appeals process for classification, and the agency that generates the intelligence has final say. The State Department only has control over the fraction of emails that pertain to their own intelligence.

While the State Department and Clinton campaign have said the emails in questions were “retroactively classified” or “upgraded” – to justify the more than 1,300 classified emails on her server – those terms are meaningless under federal law.

The former federal law enforcement official said the finding in the January IG letter represents a potential violation of USC 18 Section 793, “gross negligence” in the handling of secure information under the Espionage Act.

Ruh Roh, State Dept. Knew of Hillary’s Emails

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While Hillary blamed her ‘Blackberry’ for malfunctions, she knew so little that it was the server, not her NON-issued mobile device(s). Huma pushed back hard to several at the State Department, calling for more secure conditions, calling them silly. State even offered generators to ensure that private server would not fail. What????

EXCLUSIVE: Clinton Aides Resisted State Department Suggestion That Clinton Use State.gov Account

Great job to DC and Chuck:

Bombshell emails from the State Department show that a top official at the agency suggested to Hillary Clinton’s aide, Huma Abedin, in Aug. 2011 that the then-secretary of state begin using a government email account to protect against unexpected outages of her private email server.

But as the emails show, Abedin pushed back on the suggestion, telling the official, Stephen D. Mull, then the executive secretary of the State Department, that a State-issued Blackberry equipped with a state.gov email address “doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Besides showing that Clinton’s top aides were against the idea of her using a state.gov email account, the emails show for the first time that top State Department officials were aware of Clinton’s private email server arrangement.

The Daily Caller obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed on its behalf by the government watchdog group, Cause of Action.

The State Department — and Clinton — have resisted questions about who inside the State Department knew about and signed off on the private server, which Clinton kept at her house in New York. The FBI seized that device in August after it was discovered that two “top secret” emails had been sent to Clinton.

Besides Mull, the emails show that Patrick Kennedy, the under secretary for management at the State Department, knew of the private server. Kennedy is a powerful figure within the State Department. The career diplomat handles logistical issues within the agency and was the official responsible for requesting emails from Clinton and her aides.

The first email in the Aug. 30, 2011 chain was sent from Mull and addressed to Mills, though Abedin, Kennedy, and Monica Hanley, another Clinton aide, were copied on the correspondence.

“Thanks for alerting me to the communications issues the Secretary has been having,” Mull wrote.

In the email, Mull mentioned Clinton’s use of the personal email server and also proposed providing Clinton with a new Blackberry equipped with a state.gov email account.

“We are working to provide the Secretary per her request a Department issued Blackberry to replaced her personal unit which is malfunctioning,” wrote Mull, noting that the device was malfunctioning “possibly because of [sic] her personal email server is down.”

He offered to prepare two Blackberries, one of which would include “an operating State Department email account.”

And curiously, Mull noted that the official version “would mask her identity” but “would also be subject to FOIA requests.”

Mull also suggested a new communications package for Clinton which, he wrote, “will include things that anticipate the normally unexpected such as hurricanes, power outages, earthquakes, locusts, etc.”

The package included “generators, uninterrupted power supplies, supplementary satellite capabilities, including satellite phones for when local infrastructure fails.”

Other emails released by the State Department have showed that Clinton’s email sever crashed at least three other times. The crash in and around Aug. 30, 2011 seems to be the fourth documented outage. Other crashes occurred in Oct. 2012, well after Mull offered suggestions to Clinton’s staff, suggesting that the problem was never fixed.

Likewise, Mull’s suggestion that Clinton begin using a state.gov-equipped Blackberry device was met with resistance from Abedin, the emails show.

“Let’s discuss the state blackberry, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Abedin wrote.

The State Department has claimed in court filings that Clinton was not provided a government-issued Blackberry. In August, the agency stated in response to another FOIA lawsuit that it “does not believe that any personal computing device was issued by the Department to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and has not located any such device at the Department.”

The filing made no mention of the effort to provide Clinton with an official device.

In her email to Mull, Abedin also asserted that “even the white house attested” that outages were a “pretty wide spread problem, not just affecting us.”

“Thanks for reminding all of this very helpful context,” Mull responded solely to Abedin.

She emailed back: “Its pretty silly and she knows it.” It is unclear if Abedin was referring to Clinton or to Mills, who was the first to email Mull about the communications issues.

 

Stephen Mull Emails to Cheryl Mills

No comment from the State Department…Hillary?

 

 

 

 

Davos: Europe’s Social Breakdown, Begins with Immigration

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And all the signals are beginning to apply to the United States….fair warning.

Davos/World Economic Forum

Davos Boss Warns Refugee Crisis Could Be Precursor to Something Much Bigger

Bloomberg: As the crash in commodities prices spreads economic woe across the developing world, Europe could face a wave of migration that will eclipse today’s refugee crisis, says Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.

“Look how many countries in Africa, for example, depend on the income from oil exports,”Schwab said in an interview ahead of the WEF’s 46th annual meeting, in the Swiss resort of Davos. “Now imagine 1 billion inhabitants, imagine they all move north.”

Whereas much of the discussion about commodities has focused on the economic and market impact, Schwab said he’s concerned that it will also spur “a substantial social breakdown.”

That fits into what Schwab, the founder of the WEF, calls the time of “unexpected consequences” we now live in. In the modern era, it’s harder for policy makers to know the impact of their actions, which has led to “erosion of trust in decision makers.”

“First, we have to look at the root causes of this,” Schwab said. “The normal citizen today is overwhelmed by the complexity and rapidity of what’s happening, not only in the political world but also the technological field.”

That sense of dislocation has fueled the rise of radical political leaders who tap into a rich vein of anger and xenophobia. For reason to prevail, Schwab said, “we have to re-establish a sense that we all are in the same boat.”

The theme for this year’s meeting is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which the WEF defines as a “fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

While that presents huge opportunities, Schwab warns that technological innovation may result in the loss of 20 million jobs in the coming years. Those job cuts risk “hollowing out the middle class,” Schwab said, “a pillar of our democracies.”

At the same time, Schwab argues, trends like the sharing economy and the changes wrought by technology mean economists must adapt the tools they use to assess well-being. “Many of our traditional measurements do not work anymore,” he said.

After decades watching the ebbs and flows of the global economy, Schwab said the current anxiety is “not new” for him. But he said that as the world gets ever more interconnected, the consequences of such turmoil could become more grave. This week’s WEF meeting, he said, will offer policy makers “the first opportunity after the markets have come down to look at the situation and coordinate.”

Davos facts for this year:

CNNMoney: Around 2,500 participants from more than 100 countries, including 40 heads of state, attend the gathering in Switzerland, formally known as the World Economic Forum annual meeting. This year, the theme is “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

It takes place in the mountains. Way up. At 1,560 meters (5,120 feet) above sea level, Davos is Europe’s highest town. Its population is just over 11,000 and the average temperature in January is -5°C/23°F.

Why in such a remote, cold place? Tradition. Also, it’s much easier to secure a little town wedged between the mountains than a conference center in a big city — remember, 40 heads of states are coming.

Only once was the meeting held outside of Davos: In 2002, in New York, as a gesture of solidarity after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Davos is safe. The organizers don’t release specific information, but it is estimated that around 5,000 Swiss troops, police and security personnel guard the town.

Davos is pricey. The ticket is around $20,000 and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Travel can cost thousands, and a night in a medium-range hotel is around $600. Add to it wining, dining, and essential accessories like snow boots, and the total bill can add up to around $40,000.

Davos is green. The town’s CO2 levels fall on average up to 30% during the annual meeting, thanks to controls on vehicle emissions and the use of electric transport.

Besides the skiing, what’s it all about? Meetings. Hundreds of them. With major companies, countries and media represented, there is hardly a better opportunity to schmooze and make deals. But the forum is not about big public announcements. Meetings are informal and take place behind closed doors.

Who is coming this year? Nearly everyone who matters in the world of business. Bill Gates will be there, as will Mary Barra, Satya Nadella, Jack Ma, Eric Schmidt, Sheryl Sandberg and dozens of other CEOs.

The IMF chief Christine Lagarde will be in Davos, with ECB President Mario Draghi and the governors of 10 national central banks.

The U.S. will be represented by Joe Biden and John Kerry. Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney General, is also coming, as is Penny Pritzker, the Secretary of Commerce.

The King and Queen of Jordan will be there, as will Bono, Leonardo DiCaprio, Yao Chen and will.i.am.

They’ll all be closely followed by around 250 journalists, including a posse from CNN.

And the no-shows? Neither Barack Obama nor Vladimir Putin are coming to Switzerland. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also sitting it out this year.

Iran Implementation Day and Iran’s Connection to Islamic State

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The money to Iran is already moving.

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This is going to be a long read, but an important one such that history is included, details of diplomacy is included and described implications are described. Imagine what the next president of the United States will have to deal with, but more, imagine what Iran may do in the immediate coming months with $100 billion dollars, which by the way is bigger than Iran’s current economic value.

Iran Is More Deeply Tied to ISIS Than You Think

As the West continues to partner with Iran to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, it is worth remembering that one of Iran’s highest-ranking terrorists was instrumental in founding Al-Qaeda, and that the split between Shia and Sunni jihadis is murky at best.

Iranian operative Imad Mughniyeh was instrumental in the training, development, and support of Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda – and thus its offshoot, the Islamic State.

The power vacuum Mughniyeh created helped to further Iran’s geopolitical agenda. (This is a very long, detailed and important read, don’t miss the whole summary)

In part from the WSJ: The head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence is in Europe to discuss joint counterterrorism finance efforts and where things stand with the global agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Talks on the former will be straightforward enough, but the latter could get bumpy.

Over the past few months, investors from Europe and Asia have gone to Tehran in droves, searching for post-sanction deals and bolstering Iranian hopes that the lifting of international sanctions will draw significant investment. Some in Europe have described Iran “as ‘an El Dorado’ and potential ‘bonanza.’ ” The chief of Iran’s central bank has cited the country’s “unique geographical advantage,” its “sense of timeliness and discipline,” and “very good history of being a trade partner.” In October, he predicted that “Iran will be a very favored destination for many international investors.”

But Treasury officials bear mixed news: The U.S. is preparing to meet its commitments on sanctions relief tied to implementation of the nuclear deal. Still, many U.S. sanctions tied to Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and other negative behaviors remain in place.

And within days of the Iranian central banker’s comments in October, the Financial Action Task Force, which sets global standards on countering money laundering and terrorist financing, issued another searing rebuke of Iran’s “strategic deficiencies.” Only Iran and North Korea, the task force said, present such “on-going and substantial money laundering and terrorist financing” risks that the international community should apply active “counter-measures” to protect the global financial system.

The task force said that as sanctions are being lifted under the nuclear agreement, it “remains particularly and exceptionally concerned about Iran’s failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system.” It repeated its long-standing call for financial institutions to “give special attention to business relationships and transactions with Iran, including Iranian companies and financial institutions.” The full story is here.

From the White House:

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From the Treasury Department in part:

1/16/2016

​Implementation Day Statement:

On July 14, 2015, the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the European Union, and Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful.  October 18, 2015 marked Adoption Day of the JCPOA, the date on which the JCPOA came into effect and participants began taking steps necessary to implement their JCPOA commitments.  Today, January 16, 2016, marks Implementation Day of the JCPOA.  On this historic day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has implemented its key nuclear-related measures described in the JCPOA, and the Secretary State has confirmed the IAEA’s verification.  As a result of Iran verifiably meeting its nuclear commitments, the United States is today lifting nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, as described in the JCPOA.
In connection with reaching Implementation Day, today the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued several documents.  Specifically, OFAC posted to its website: Guidance Relating to the Lifting of Certain Sanctions Pursuant to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Implementation Day; Frequently Asked Questions Relating to the Lifting of Certain U.S. Sanctions Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Implementation Day; General License H: Authorizing Certain Transactions relating to Foreign Entities Owned or Controlled by a United States Person; and a Statement of Licensing Policy for Activities Related to the Export or Re-Export to Iran of Commercial Passenger Aircraft and Related Parts and Services. The aforementioned documents are effective today, January 16, 2015.
***

Political Challenges to the Iran Deal in Tehran and Washington

By Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi and Timothy Stafford
The Iran deal remains at the mercy of a volatile and unpredictable political climate, both in Tehran and Washington. This could well overwhelm it in the coming year.

Ticking the Boxes: Tehran’s Road to ‘Implementation Day’

By Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi
To make the deal successful, intensive co-ordination between domestic actors in Iran will be required to implement these highly technical processes.

The Devil is in the Detail: The Financial Risks to the Economic Success of the Iran Deal

By Emil Dall, Andrea Berger and Tom Keatinge
Over the last decade, the US and EU have constructed a complex network of sanctions in response to Iran’s nuclear programme, ensuring the near-total isolation of Iran from global markets. On ‘implementation day’, this network starts to be disassembled and reintegration begin.

Iran Implementation Day Recommendations

The signatories to the Iran nuclear deal should move to entrench processes that will enable the agreement to outlast the individuals that put it in place. By this time next year, a new US president will have been sworn in, and presidential elections in Iran will only be just months away. Time must be used wisely.

Senator Session’s Book on Immigration and Green Cards

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Under Barack Obama, the United Nations is also the headquarters of who can claim a new identity, that of an American. The same does for Europe, the world is one big global citizen, loyal to nothing and fully borderless.

Hat tip to Chuck and Daily Caller:

Jeff Sessions Releases Book Of Charts Putting Immigration And Green Card Issuances Into Shocking Perspective

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions released a book of graphs and charts on Wednesday that helps put the U.S.’s relaxed immigration policies in shocking perspective.

“Record-breaking visa issuances propelling U.S. to immigration highs never before seen,” is the sub-title to the Republican immigration hawk’s “chart book.”

Sessions, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, asserts that the federal government will legally add 10 million or more “new permanent immigrants over the next 10 years.”

He also cites polls showing that a “stark” majority of Americans want lawmakers to reduce immigration rates, not increase them. Polls from Gallup and Fox show that Americans support an immigration reduction to an increase by a 2-to-1 margin.

Sessions’s chart book is aimed at providing readers an easy-to-understand frame of reference for immigration flows and green card issuances, past and present.

In one chart, Sessions compares the number of green cards that will be issued in the next decade to the population of the first three presidential primary states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions "Chart Book"

Another chart entitled “Immigration Adds 1 New Los Angeles Every 3 Years,” which is based on U.S. Census Bureau statistics and population projections, shows that the 11.4 million immigrants will enter the U.S. over the next nine years. “Unless immigration reductions are enacted,” the immigration population will increase in size equal to the population of Los Angeles — 3.9 million — every three years, Sessions notes.

sessions2 The number of green card issuances that can be expected over the next decade is also the equivalent of the combined population of seven of the largest cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, Boston, and Atlanta, Sessions notes.

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Other charts include one which shows that the U.S.’s immigration population will grow to more than 700 percent of 1970 levels by 2060.

By then, the U.S. will have 78.2 million foreign-born residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1970, that number was 9.6 million.

And another chart takes aim at immigration from majority-Muslim nations. The U.S. has issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from those nations in the last five years, reports Sessions, citing statistics from the Department of Homeland Security.

Sessions’s “chart book” also includes stats on welfare usage rates for Middle Eastern refugees. According to a 2013 report from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 91.4 percent of refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps. Nearly 70 percent — 68.3 percent to be exact — receive cash welfare assistance.

Other charts compare the U.S.’s immigrant population to other nations’.

“America Has 10 Million More Foreign-Born Residents Than The Entire European Union” and “U.S. Has 6 Times More Migrants Than All Latin American Nations Combined” provide the numbers.

While the U.S. has 45.8 million residents who were born outside of the U.S., the entire European Union has 35 million, according to a United Nations database. That despite the fact that the combined population of EU countries is 60 percent larger than the population of the U.S.