Tag Archives: Russia

The Daily Beast reports: Standing beside an approving Donald Trump at a rally in Kentucky on Monday night, Republican Sen. Rand Paul demanded the media unmask the whistleblower whose report about the president’s alleged abuse of power dealing with Ukraine sparked impeachment proceedings. American news organizations resisted the pressure, but — in a 2019 re-play of “Russia, if  you’re listening” …

The Guardian reports: A potentially explosive parliamentary report on the security threat posed by Russia to the UK has been effectively blocked from being published before the general election by Downing Street. The 50-page document from the intelligence and security committee (ISC) examined allegations that Kremlin-sponsored activity distorted the result of the 2016 EU referendum – but has to be …

Newsweek reports: Former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that tensions between nuclear powers is putting the whole world at risk, calling for all weapons of mass destruction to be outlawed by the international community. Speaking with the BBC, the last leader of the Soviet Union warned that the U.S. and Russia remain in a state of conflict even though …

New York Magazine reports: “Hillary Clinton emerged recently to claim, with no basis in fact, that I am being ‘groomed’ by the Russian government to undermine America,” claims Tulsi Gabbard in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today. In fact, as even the conservative Washington Examiner acknowledges, Clinton did not say that. She said Republicans were grooming Gabbard. Gabbard’s Journal op-ed …

Reuters reports: Russian national Maria Butina, who was jailed in the United States in April after admitting to working as a Russian agent, arrived in Moscow on Saturday, greeted by her father and Russian journalists who handed her flowers. “Russians never surrender,” an emotional Butina told reporters at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, flanked by her father and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s …

Reuters reports: Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina was released from a Florida prison on Friday after serving most of her 18-month sentence for conspiring to influence U.S. conservative activists and infiltrate a powerful gun rights group, and taken into custody by immigration officials to be deported to her native country. A prison official confirmed she was released on Friday morning …

The New York Times reports: For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began. Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia …

Law & Crime reports: The White House on Wednesday said President Donald Trump would veto a bill requiring federal election campaigns to report “illicit offers” of campaign assistance from foreign governments and their agents. House Democrats earlier in the day passed the Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy Act (SHIELD), an election security bill which would require …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine for information he could use against political rivals came as he was being urged to adopt a hostile view of that country by its regional adversaries, including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, current and former U.S. officials said. Trump’s conversations with Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and others reinforced his …

The Washington Post reports: Facebook on Monday said it removed a network of Russian-backed accounts that posed as locals weighing in on political issues in swing states, praising President Trump and attacking former Vice President Joe Biden, illustrating that the familiar threat of Russian interference looms over the next U.S. presidential race. Facebook said the network bears the hallmark of …

NBC News reports: Facebook unveiled new plans Monday to fight 2020 election interference. It will clearly label news that comes from state-owned media, and will give greater transparency for the origins of Facebook pages. And it has already found interference coming from authoritarian regimes overseas. In an interview with NBC News, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company has thwarted …

“I’ve been very clear, I will not be leaving the Democratic party, I will not be running as an independent or a third-party candidate. “I am running as a Democrat to take our party back, away from the control of people like Hillary Clinton and the warmongering and corrupt, powerful establishment and return our party into the hands of the …

From the right wing Washington Examiner: Tulsi Gabbard responded to Hillary Clinton’s assertion that Russia is behind a plan to turn the Hawaii congresswoman into a spoiler candidate by calling the former secretary of state the “queen of warmongers” and invited her to join the 2020 Democratic presidential race. Clinton suggested in a podcast released Friday that Russia is grooming …

The Washington Post reports: In a conversation on former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe’s podcast, Hillary Clinton suggested the Russians are leveraging a number of top U.S. politicians. She suggested Russia had kompromat on Trump. She accused 2016 Green Party nominee Jill Stein of being a “Russian asset.” And she suggested Russia might back Gabbard as a third-party candidate. “They’re …

Reuters reports: U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday played down the crisis in Syria touched off by Turkey’s incursion against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces, saying the conflict was between Turkey and Syria and that it was “fine” for Russia to help Damascus. Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said imposing U.S. sanctions on Turkey would be better than fighting …

NBC News reports: The White House tried to limit what Fiona Hill, who until August served as President Donald Trump’s top Russia analyst, could say to Congress in its impeachment inquiry, correspondence between her lawyers and a White House deputy counsel shows. The letters, obtained by NBC News, illustrate that while the White House did not try to block Hill …

The Associated Press reports: Russia moved to fill the void left by the United States in northern Syria, deploying troops Tuesday to keep apart advancing Syrian government and Turkish forces. At the same time, tensions grew within NATO as Turkey defied growing condemnation from its Western allies of its invasion across the border. Now in its seventh day, Turkey’s offensive …

From the military blog Task & Purpose: On Sunday, the official Twitter account of Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), a decorated Army staff sergeant and freshman congressman from Florida’s 18th district, posted what was probably intended as a simple birthday message to the U.S. Navy featuring an imposing warship contrasted against a vanilla sky. Unfortunately, the unlucky staffer who likely produced …

The Washington Post reports: A bipartisan panel of U.S. senators Tuesday called for sweeping action by Congress, the White House and Silicon Valley to ensure social-media sites aren’t used to interfere in the coming presidential election, delivering a sobering assessment about the weaknesses that Russian operatives exploited in the 2016 campaign. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been investigating foreign …

The New York Times reports: First came a destabilization campaign in Moldova, followed by the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria and then a thwarted coup in Montenegro. Last year, there was an attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in Britain using a nerve agent. Though the operations bore the fingerprints of Russia’s intelligence services, the authorities initially …