Tag Archives: Russia

Mueller: Trump Not Currently A “Criminal Target”

The Washington Post reports: Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III informed President Trump’s attorneys last month that he is continuing to investigate the president but does not consider him a criminal target at this point, according to three people familiar with the discussions. In private negotiations in early March about a possible presidential interview, Mueller described Trump as a subject …

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Trump: Nobody’s Been Tougher On Russia Than Me And Only “Very Stupid People” Think We Shouldn’t Get Along

The Hill reports: President Trump on Tuesday argued he has been tougher on Russia than any of his predecessors, despite frequent criticisms from lawmakers over his relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin. “Ideally we want to get along with Russia. Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe we will maybe we won’t,” Trump told …

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OF COURSE: Russian Bots Rally Behind Laura Ingraham

The Chicago Tribune reports: Embattled Fox News host Laura Ingraham has found some unlikely allies: Russian bots. Russian-linked Twitter accounts have rallied around the conservative talk-show host, who has come under fire for attacking the young survivors of the Parkland school shooting. According to the website Hamilton 68, which tracks the spread of Russian propaganda on Twitter, the hashtag #IstandwithLaura …

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Kremlin: Trump Pitched Putin On White House Summit

The Daily Beast reports: President Trump has reportedly invited Vladimir Putin to the White House for a visit, according to a statement from the Kremlin. According to an Agence France-Presse reporter, a senior U.S. official did “not deny” that Trump “floated the idea of a White House summit,” noting that “no planning has begun as yet.” This comes after Trump …

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Rodents And Fake News: Former Fox Analyst Claims He Was Blocked From Commenting On Trump/Russia

Last week Fox News analyst Ralph Peters quit the network with a scorched-earth statement declaring that he was ashamed to have ever worked for their “propaganda machine.” Peters goes even farther today in an op-ed for the Washington Post: You could measure the decline of Fox News by the drop in the quality of guests waiting in the green room. …

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Roger Stone: Sam Nunberg Is A Lying Cocaine Addict

The Daily Beast reports: Two former aides to Donald Trump waged a war of words against each other this week, using cable news and social media as their battlefields. Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of Trump’s, took to his personal Instagram page on Thursday to call fellow ex-aide Sam Nunberg, a man who once viewed Stone as a mentor, a …

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Russia Test-Fires New “Satan 2” Nuclear Missile [VIDEO]

EuroNews reports: The Russian Defence Ministry has published a video showing its new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) being test-launched in the north of the country. The footage shows the Sarmat missile – dubbed ‘Satan 2’ by NATO – being launched from the Plesetsk spaceport. The missile was one of several advanced Russian weapons President Vladimir Putin promoted in his state-of-the-nation …

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WH Lawyer Ty Cobb: Mueller Is My Only Audience

Politico reports: While he may work for the West Wing, White House attorney Ty Cobb said this week that the audience for his job is Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading an investigation of the 2016 campaign. Cobb, in an interview on Wednesday with Vox, said the Trump administration’s cooperation with the Mueller investigation was delayed at one point because …

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Mueller Pumped Trump Aide For Info On Collusion

CNN reports: Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team last year made clear it wanted former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates’ help, not so much against his former business partner Paul Manafort, but with its central mission: investigating the Trump campaign’s contact with the Russians. New information disclosed in court filings and to CNN this week begin to show how they’re getting …

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Sessions Rejects GOP Calls For Second Special Counsel To Investigate FBI Over Clinton And Russia Probes

The Washington Post reports: Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday rebuffed — at least for now — a call from GOP leaders to appoint a second special counsel to look into the FBI’s handling of its most high-profile probes and announced that he has asked the U.S. attorney in Utah to spearhead a broad review. Sessions made the revelation in …

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REPORT: Ecuador Is Now Electronically Jamming Their Own Embassy To Block Assange From The Internet

Because just cutting off his WiFi wasn’t enough. Australia’s News Corp outlet reports: Electronic jammers have been placed inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London to prevent WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange having access to the internet or social media, sources say. The Ecuadorian government took the measure on Tuesday evening, stopping Assange from tweeting, using the internet or phone. He has …

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McCabe Launches GoFundMe For Legal Costs

The Washington Post reports: Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe on Thursday launched an online fundraiser to help cover the legal costs that might come as he navigates investigations and congressional inquiries and explores whether he will sue over his abrupt ouster from the bureau. McCabe’s team unveiled the legal defense fund, hosted on the GoFundMe website, about 2 p.m. …

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Moscow Retaliates: 60 US Diplomats To Be Expelled

The Associated Press reports: Russia’s foreign minister says Moscow will expel the same number of diplomats from the nations that have expelled Russian diplomats over the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain. Sergey Lavrov said U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, where he was given notice that Russia is responding quid pro …

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LONDON: Ecuador Cuts Off Julian Assange’s Internet

The Guardian reports: Ecuador has cut Julian Assange’s communications with the outside world from its London embassy, where the founder of the whistleblowing WikiLeaks website has been living for nearly six years. The Ecuadorian government said in statement that it had acted because Assange had breached “a written commitment made to the government at the end of 2017 not to …

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REPORT: Trump Lawyer John Dowd Pitched Possible Pardons For Flynn And Manafort As Mueller Built Cases

The New York Times reports: A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The discussions came as the special counsel was building cases against both men, and they raise questions …

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LIVE VIDEO: White House Press Briefing

How many lies will she tell today? White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is set to take questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon. The briefing follows revelations from the special counsel’s office that former Trump deputy campaign manager Richard Gates communicated with an associate who was a known former Russian intelligence officer. The news briefing is set to begin …

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REPORT: Trump “Obsessed” With Punishing Amazon

Axios reports: Capitol Hill wants Facebook’s blood, but President Trump isn’t interested. Instead, the tech behemoth Trump wants to go after is Amazon, according to five sources who’ve discussed it with him. “He’s obsessed with Amazon,” a source said. “Obsessed.” What we’re hearing: Trump has talked about changing Amazon’s tax treatment because he’s worried about mom-and-pop retailers being put out …

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Trump Aide Rick Gates Linked To Russian Intelligence

The Daily Beast reports: Prosecutors working on the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election have linked Rick Gates, Donald Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, to a person with ties to a Russian intelligence service. In a court filing released Tuesday night, prosecutors said Gates and the unnamed person, who had lived in Kiev and Moscow and …

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Two More Top Lawyers Reject Working For Trump

Politico reports: A pair of veteran white-collar lawyers have turned down President Donald Trump’s offer to help lead his defense in the Russia probe, marking another setback for a legal team that’s seen its numbers dwindle over the past week while it prepares for a potentially critical interview between the president and special counsel Robert Mueller. The law firm Winston …

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NRA Admits Moving Around Foreign Donations

Talking Points Memo reports: The National Rifle Association is acknowledging that it accepts donations from foreign entities, and that it moves money between its various accounts “as permitted by law.” The gun group insists it has never received foreign money in connection with an election. But campaign finance experts say that, since money is fungible, that assurance doesn’t mean much. …

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