Tag Archives: Russia

Reuters reports: The Trump administration is exploring whether it can use an obscure ethics rule to undermine the special counsel investigation into ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russia, two people familiar with White House thinking said on Friday. Trump has said that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s hiring of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel …

CNN reports: Russian officials bragged in conversations during the presidential campaign that they had cultivated a strong relationship with former Trump adviser retired Gen. Michael Flynn and believed they could use him to influence Donald Trump and his team, sources told CNN. The conversations deeply concerned US intelligence officials, some of whom acted on their own to limit how much …

Here we go. CNBC reports: The Senate Intelligence Committee said ousted FBI Director James Comey has agreed to testify in an open session. The committee said in a late Friday statement that it plans to schedule the hearing for after Memorial Day. The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election and any possible links between …

The Independent reports: Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has reportedly been identified as a “person of interest” in the ongoing investigation into possible ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign. The Washington Post said that a senior advisor to Mr Trump had been identified as someone that investigators wanted to speak to. A New York magazine reporter then reported that …

The Washington Post reports: The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter. The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone …

The New York Times reports: President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which …

The Guardian reports: Swedish prosecutors are to drop their preliminary investigation into an allegation of rape against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, bringing an end to a seven-year legal standoff. The decision was taken after prosecutors concluded that “at this point, all possibilities to conduct the investigation are exhausted”, Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, said on Friday. “In …

The New York Times reports: Several White House advisers and personal associates of President Trump have urged him to hire an experienced outside lawyer to help him deal with issues arising from a surging controversy over whether his campaign had ties to Russia, according to several people briefed on the conversations. The recommendations came even before a special counsel was …

“I believe it hurts our country terribly, because it shows we’re a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country. And we have very important things to be doing right now, whether it’s trade deals, whether it’s military, whether it’s stopping nuclear — all of the things that we discussed today. And I think this shows a very divided country. It also happens to …

The Hill reports: President Trump dropped by a meeting Thursday with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), one day after a report that that lawmaker privately accused Trump of being on Russia’s payroll. Trump and Vice President Pence made an unscheduled appearance at a meeting of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s innovation initiative. McCarthy was participating in the Roosevelt …

NBC News reports: A top Republican has clarified that while former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn hasn’t yet cooperated with the Senate Intelligence Committee, his lawyers have “not yet indicated their intentions” regarding a subpoena issued last week for documents relevant to the panel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. North Carolina Republican and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman …

Reuters reports: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the appointment of former FBI chief Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate alleged Russian efforts to sway the U.S. presidential election in favor of Donald Trump and whether there was any collusion between Trump’s campaign team and Moscow. “There is nothing to comment on. It is an internal matter …

Raw Story reports: “This is a bad story for Pence, either way,” said John Heilemann, managing editor of Bloomberg Politics and MSNBC political analyst. “Either he knew and is lying or he did not know and was wildly incompetent. Either way, not a great story for him. By the way, it seems to me the import of this story is …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Thursday said there was never a special counsel appointed when illegal acts were committed during the administration of former President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In another tweet, Trump appeared to refer to the probe into his campaign’s ties to Russia as the “single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.” With …

And the hits keep coming. Reuters reports: Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters. The previously undisclosed interactions form …

“As I have stated many times, a through investigation will confirm what we already know — that there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country.” – …

The Washington Post reports: A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin. “There’s two people …

NBC News reports: The Justice Department will appoint former FBI Director Robert Mueller to be special counsel of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, NBC News reported. Robert Mueller became FBI director on Sept. 4, 2001. A Vietnam veteran who served in the Marine Corps, he was U.S. Attorney in San Francisco for three years before …

J. Lester Feder reports at Buzzfeed: The United States has declined visas to gay Chechens fleeing a wave of kidnappings, torture, and disappearances in the semi-autonomous Russian region, according to the organization Russia LGBT Network. A group of around 40 Chechens are now in hiding in other parts of Russia, Russia LGBT Network spokesperson Svetlana Zakharova told BuzzFeed News, and …

Hemant Mehta reports at The Friendly Atheist: Over the weekend, the WannaCry ransomware attack targeted Microsoft Windows systems across the globe, even disrupting hospitals in Britain. But Russia won’t have to worry about anything like that happening because the Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill apparently visited the Ministry of Internal Affairs and sprayed holy water on the computers. They can hack …