A recently declassified government document suggests the FBI opened its most recent investigation of Paul Manafort in January 2016, two months before President Trump hired the lobbyist as a senior official in his campaign. The revelation is prompting new questions about why the bureau did not provide the GOP candidate with a defensive briefing.
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The information about the start of the Manafort probe was contained in footnote 332 of a spreadsheet that FBI analysts constructed analyzing the lack of corroboration for Christopher Steele's now infamous dossier alleging Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election, an allegation that has since been disproven.
The spreadsheet was declassified earlier this month, revealing the FBI found little to no corroboration for Steele's allegations against Trump but nonetheless used the dossier to support a FISA surveillance warrant to spy on the Trump campaign through adviser Carter Page.
The information in the footnote and spreadsheet states an "opening EC" or electronic communication was generated in the Manafort probe on Jan. 13, 2016, and by August 2016 "Manafort is an active subject of a money laundering and tax evasion criminal case out of Washington Field Office."
File
Steele SpreadsheetManafortProbeReference.pdf
File
SteeleSpreadsheetManafortProbeFootnote.pdf
The timing suggested in the spreadsheet is consistent with an account from Ukrainian prosecutors, who revealed last year they were summoned on short notice to Washington by the Obama White House for a series of meetings in January 2016 during which Justice Department officials pressed them to find evidence against Manafort and his work for the Ukrainian Party of Regions. The prosecutors also stated the Obama DOJ officials asked the Ukrainians to drop their investigation of the Hunter Biden-related Burisma Holdings gas company and let the FBI take it over.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson last week wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking for verification of the claim in the spreadsheet and demanding to know why Trump wasn't given a courtesy warning before he hired Manafort if in fact the probe into the lobbyist started in January 2016 like the spreadsheet stated.
Presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, have gotten defensive briefings over the years when an issue involving national security concerns affects their campaigns.
"What steps, if any, did the FBI take to alert the Trump campaign about its investigation into Manafort when he joined the Trump campaign in March 2016?" Johnson wrote. Wray has yet to respond.
File
2020-10-14 RHJ CEG to ODNI FBI (Steele Spreadsheet).pdf
Manafort Had been investigated for his Ukraine business dealings in 2014 but the FBI closed the case without charges. He was hired by Trump in March 2016 to help wrangle delegates at the GOP nominating convention and promoted to campaign chairman in June 2016.
Kevin Brock, the former intelligence chief for the FBI, said the question surrounding a defensive briefing would likely depend on whether the Manafort probe involved a counterintelligence matter or just crimes.
"Some may wonder why the Trump campaign wasn't warned by the FBI that the bureau had Manafort under investigation when Trump made him his campaign manager in June 2016. The answer lies in the distinction between a criminal investigation and a counterintelligence investigation," he said.
"If the case against Manafort opened by the FBI in January 2016 was strictly based on suspected financial crimes, then the FBI was under no obligation to disclose their case," Brock explained. "However, if the FBI instead opened a counterintelligence investigation that January into Manafort's ties to Russia-supported political operatives in Ukraine, then, yes, a defensive national security briefing to candidate Trump by the FBI sometime in the summer of 2016 would have been a normal and prudent course of action. But we now know the Crossfire Hurricane team at the FBI was not inclined to brief the campaign on anything.”
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch whose conservative watchdog group has unearthed many of the documents showing abuses in the FBI Russia probe, said he believes Manafort's work for the Ukrainians involved adequate counterintelligence and national security concerns to warrant a defensive briefing.
"I presume that this was mishandled given the FBI's conduct throughout the Russia probe. They had it out for Trump," Fitton said, referring to FBI text message in which agents, lawyers and analysts expressed anti-Trump bias including a desire to "stop" him from becoming president.
"Given that Manafort's work in Ukraine necessarily involved a national security component, Trump should have been notified, especially given that the candidate himself had nothing to do with Manafort's issues in Ukraine," he added.
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We can argue about whether or not a debate held less than two weeks before the election actually matters in terms of changing anyone’s mind, but it certainly proved to be a boost for the president’s reelection campaign in one way: It led to one of Trump’s biggest fundraising hauls of the entire year. Putting together the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, supporters gave the president his “largest digital fundraising day ever” after the final debate with Joe Biden. Clearly, either Trump’s donors saw something they really liked from the president on Thursday…or something they really hated from his opponent.
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A fundraising haul like this is invaluable at this crucial point in the race. Polls be damned, it all comes down at this point to getting the vote out. If Trump’s supporters flock to the polls and Biden’s voters stay home, there is still an excellent chance of securing four more years. And with more than $26 million fresh dollars being injected into the campaign, Trump will have every opportunity to flood the airwaves with ads to go along with his in-person rallies, television interviews, and other methods of inspiring conservatives to come out and cast their ballots.
“Voters saw exactly what is at stake in this election: four more years of strengthening the economy, protecting American jobs, and revamping our broken health care system under President Trump versus Joe Biden’s ‘dark winter’ vision for America,” said RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. “With only 11 days left until the most important election of our lifetimes, Trump Victory is using every resource to mobilize our volunteer army, reach every last voter, and deliver historic wins for President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.”
Even the Democrats had to admit that the post-debate fundraising victory went to Trump. The Biden campaign sent out an email to supporters, warning them in plain and simple terms: “Trump outraised us.”
To literally no one’s surprise, everyone in the mainstream media declared Biden the winner of the second debate, even though Trump went out of his way to rein in his discipline and extend politeness to both Biden and moderator Kristen Welker. But Trump could have decimated every single one of Biden’s arguments in a precise and systematic way and Biden’s cheerleaders in the liberal press would have declared him the winner.
We say, forget about the insta-polls, forget about the focus groups, and forget about the op-eds. The financials tell the tale, and the financials say that Trump trounced Biden at the debate.
Is there enough time left to translate that last-minute victory into a big win at the voting booth?
We will soon find out
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Some Alabama Ballots Have Incorrect Witness Information
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In the ultimate act of impotence, Democrats who know they can’t do anything to stop Amy Coney Barrett from being confirmed to the Supreme Court are boycotting the Judiciary Committee’s vote to send Barrett’s nomination to the floor on Thursday. In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that showing up for their jobs would only give this wholly-constitutional process “legitimacy” that it doesn’t deserve.
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“We will not grant this process any further legitimacy by participating in a committee markup of this nomination just 12 days before the culmination of an election that is already underway,” said Schumer. “Republicans broke the promises they made and rules they created when they blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination for eight months under President Obama. Now, Republicans have moved at breakneck speed to jam through this nominee, ignoring her troubling record and unprecedented evasions, and breaking longstanding committee rules to set tomorrow’s vote.”
Schumer did not explain how it was somehow “legitimate” for Obama to nominate Garland in 2016 and yet illegitimate and shameful for Republicans to do the same thing with Barrett, but we’re used to this confused logic.
“That is a choice they are making,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said of the boycott. “I believe it does a disservice to Judge Barrett who deserves a vote, up or down.”
Instead of showing up to do their jobs, Democrats pulled this stunt, as reported by the Washington Post: “In place of the Democratic senators Thursday morning, aides had placed 10 large portraits of people who benefited from the Affordable Care Act in their seats. Each person was someone that the Democratic senators spoke about at Barrett’s confirmation hearings last week, which senators centered around the issue of health care and the future of the Affordable Care Act.”
How touching.
The Democrats’ absence did nothing to stop Barrett’s nomination from being voted out of committee.
“Judiciary Committee approves Judge Barrett. Moves to full Senate for final vote. Big day for America!” tweeted President Trump on Thursday.
Presiding over the hearing, Graham said that Democrats’ concerns about Judge Barrett were unfounded.
“I’ve been here for a while, and I’ve never seen anyone more capable than Judge Barrett on the law,” he said. “And to all the people out there wondering about Judge Barrett I can tell you this: The law of Amy will not be applied to the case and controversy. It will be the law as written in the Constitution or by statute or whatever regulatory body she is going to review. She will take her job on without agenda.”
A big difference, quite frankly, from the woman she’ll be replacing.
The full Senate is scheduled to vote on Barrett’s confirmation on Monday.
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Pelosi commits to running for Speaker if Democrats retain House | TheHill
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I complete list of the Promises that have been kept by the first President since John Kennedy, that cared for the American people, and AMERICA.
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TRUMP has done a good job on policies
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resident Donald Trump swept into office nearly four years ago as a populist outsider who promised to get things done quickly on behalf of the American people through sheer force of will and unrivalled knowledge about the art of the deal.
He has checked off some items on his to-do list.
Trump pushed through the most significant overhaul of the US tax system since President Ronald Reagan. Trump, as he said he would, tilted the Supreme Court further to the right with confirmation of two conservative justices and likely a third, Amy Coney Barrett, in the coming days. His promise to get tough on illegal immigration has resulted in a surge in migrant apprehensions at the US-Mexico border.
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But Trump has also faced the same hard truth that each of his White House predecessors learned: governing is rarely easy.
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Despite their promises, the Minneapolis City Council has been unable to completely defund and abolish the police department. However, their attempts to “reimagine” policing in the wake of George Floyd’s death has still had plenty of undesired effects on the city’s safety. That’s the claim being made by a group of residents who are suing Minneapolis for failing to live up to the city’s charter in terms of properly staffing the Minneapolis Police Department.
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“A group of residents have had enough of the crime and violence in the city of Minneapolis, arguing in a lawsuit that there aren’t enough police patrolling the streets right now,” reported a local Fox affiliate.
“We are here because of people’s safety,” plaintiff Cathy Spann explained in a press conference. “We want law and order. We want reform. But we are in this city to say, enough is enough.”
Another plaintiff said that they tried to take their concerns directly to the City Council, but their problems were not addressed.
“We have made the emotional appeal,” he said. “We have demonstrated the statistical uptick and now this is the legal action we are exercising because it seems as if the City Council cannot hear us and doesn’t feel what we feel.”
“The group of petitioners questioned city leaders about the number of police officers currently deployed across the city,” Fox Minneapolis reports. “They contend the MPD has fallen below the minimum thresholds required in the city’s charter because of the number of officers who have either gone out on some type of leave or quit since [George Floyd’s] deadly Memorial Day arrest.”
The litigants were quick to assure reporters that they do not stand opposed to bringing reasonable reforms to policing.
Plaintiff Sondra Samuels said the city has to improve the Police Department while also providing public safety.
“We all know we have to have reform of the police department,” said plaintiff Sondra Samuels. “Everybody wants that. Everybody! There’s nobody who thinks that shouldn’t happen. But in addition — with that, we need protection. We need adequate police protection. We have to do both.”
Well, it can’t be like that when the City Council’s first move is to promise radical activists that they’re going to completely get rid of the police department. That was a bad faith move right off the bat. Police – especially in Minneapolis – are facing unprecedented hostility from the public, and there comes a point where it’s just not worth it anymore. If good officers are reviewing their employment options, who could blame them? Minneapolis Democrats have only themselves to blame.
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The University of Minnesota put on a webinar series this month to help white people recover from alcohol and drugs. Oh wait, that’s not it. No, the goal was not to help whites recover from substance abuse – it was to use the tools of addiction recovery to help these white people…recover from whiteness itself.
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The program was developed by therapist Cristina Combs, who knows what she’s talking about. After all, she learned it all through “years of struggling to navigate the role and presence of whiteness in her personal, academic, and professional journeys.” At least, that’s what the website says.
While we’re inclined to think that life is plenty hard enough without adding imaginary burdens like the “presence of whiteness” to the load, we’re sure it’s paying off in spades for women like Combs who can now use their “struggle” to make a fortune preying on the New Woke Economy. Good for her. We hope she’s being well-compensated for helping to destroy our society.
“Combs began the lecture by acknowledging that ‘I am on traditional Dakota land,’ the territory of a Native American tribe which settled in Minnesota,” The College Fix informs us. “She also acknowledged ‘George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and all of the other lives stolen from families and communities and our world due to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence.’”
Combs also gave her virtual audience this heaping helping of word-salad nonsense: “When BIPOC activists would use the term ‘white supremacy’ to talk about the systems that needed to change and the work that white people needed to do, my instinct was to recoil. It felt like too hard or too raw of a word, and I didn’t like it. And I ultimately realized that that is my ego. Stepping into that tension and accepting my connection to white supremacy has been a freedom of sorts to show up in better alignment with my values and do the work for the rest of my life.”
If you’d like to “step into that tension” and “show up in better alignment” with your values, you can put yourself through Combs’s 12-step process for whiteness recovery.
Some highlights include the need to “journey bodily inward, exploring and acknowledging ways in which white supremacist teachings have been integrated into our minds and spirits.” When you’re done with that, perhaps you’ll be ready to “deconstruct previous ways of knowing, as they have been developed through the lens of white supremacy.”
Well, we’ll say this for Combs and her woke brethren: They are definitely committed to deconstructing “previous ways of knowing.”
It’s hard to imagine why anyone would see this as a good thing, but there you have it.
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This article serves the best interest of all Americans, regardless of Party Affiliation, or if Independent. If Joe Biden happens to win the Presidency, there are numerous Red Flags here, that should make everyone apprehensive about the Freedom of our country. The more China becomes involved here in the U.S., the higher threat of a take-over, and that doesn't appear to be a concern of Biden; his main objective is Wealth Building for himself & his family. These revelations should frighten us all. He is Highly Compromised, & we need to understand how devastating these ties with China can affect our daily way of life.
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Below the Two links I have posted here, is a screenshot of High ranking names of Democrats who are also involved, or have been involved with either the same deal the Biden's have made with China, or from a different Deal. Whichever it may be, this is frightening, as these as hidden deals going on behind American's backs. Highly Illegal to say the least.
This First link goes to an article on Zero Hedge, but the actual investigation in the report is written by an Anonymous person, however, Zero Hedge makes it clear he didn't write this but feels the American Public has a right to know about the deeper connections between Joe & Hunter Biden's Compromising Relationship with China, due to our strictly Partisan MSM, who are determined to keep this type of information hidden. Zero Hedge has evaluated the information and finds no problems, and although he knows who the original writer is, he is obligated in keeping that info confidential to keep this person safe from harm. He also makes it clear he is not a Trump supporter, didn't vote for him, nor will he vote for him next month.
This link has selected highlights from the report with input from Zero Hedge:
www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/b...
This link take you to my Google Drive for a PDF Download, with the full report as written by the Anonymous Author. Anyone with the link has permission to Download and distribute it freely:
drive.google.com/file/d/1Aeht7Zl...
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Elements of and Models for a Treaty on Killer Robots
Fully autonomous weapons would usher in a new era of armed conflict, similar to the advent of air warfare or the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Also known as lethal autonomous weapons systems or “killer robots,” these systems would select and engage targets without meaningful human control. ... The prospect of delegating life-and-death decisions to machines raises a host of moral, legal, accountability, and security concerns, and the systems’ rapid development presents one of the most urgent challenges facing the world today. Since 2014, the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) has held eight meetings, attended by more than 100 countries, to discuss these concerns, but the gravity of the problem warrants a much more urgent response...
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Joe Biden, the Democrat nominee, tried to strike a populist note on Saturday while talking to voters in Pennsylvania–only hours after calling supporters of President Donald Trump “chumps.”
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, announced her support for Amy Coney Barrett Saturday during a floor speech in the Senate, strengthening the Republican votes to confirm the judge on Monday.
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The three nuns wearing purple and white habits folded their hands in prayer, held rosaries during the rally, and raised up the Bible as Trump took the stage.
The purple and white habits are worn by the Children of Mary order.
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It’d be nice if Republicans could rely on the fact-checkers in the mainstream media to hold Democrats to account when they lie through their teeth.
But as I documented Friday, it’s simply not possible to do so because the fact-checkers like CNN’s Daniel Dale who are supposed to thoroughly review claims made by candidates and politicians from a neutral perspective simply cannot keep their liberal biases to themselves.
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Case in point, this tweet from Dale Thursday night, and another from him back in September:
Daniel Dale
@ddale8
Biden was again imperfect from a fact check perspective. He made at least a few false, misleading, or lacking-in-context claims.
Trump was, as usual, a serial liar.
10:41 PM · Oct 22, 2020
Daniel Dale
@ddale8
Look, there's just no equivalence.
Biden makes some false and misleading claims. It's important to note them. We will. But his assertions of fact have been largely factual.
Trump, as we saw at the town hall and see again tonight, has been incessantly and egregiously dishonest.
The double standards at play here are insane. Sadly, Dale is not the only “fact-checker” with this mindset.
Because of that unfortunate reality, Republicans keep archival footage and media clippings themselves in order to fact check their opponents, as Trump and his reelection campaign did Friday over comments Joe Biden made about Social Security and Medicare during the Thursday debate.
Before we get to the Bernie video, here’s the exchange between Biden and Trump during the debate minus the moderator interruptions:
Trump: When he says public health option, he is talking about socialized medicine and health care. When he talks about a public option, he’s talking about destroying your Medicare, totally destroying — he’s destroying your Social Security. And this whole country will come down. You know, Bernie Sanders tried it in his state. His governor was a very liberal governor, they wanted to make it work —
[…]
Biden: And the idea that we’re in a situation and want to destroy Medicare — this is the guy that the actuary of Medicare said, ‘If in fact’ — and, social security — ‘If, in fact, he continues to withhold his plan to withhold the tax on Social Security, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023, with no way to pay for it. This is a guy who’s tried to cut Medicare. So I don’t know. I mean, the idea that Donald Trump is lecturing me on Social Security and Medicare? Come on.
[…]
Trump: — he tried to hurt Social Security years ago, years ago. Go back and look at the records. He tried to hurt Social Security you’ve got —
The day after the debate, Trump took to the Twitter machine to fact check Biden on his Medicare and Social Security claims by using a video of a primary debate between Sanders and Biden where Sanders repeatedly called on him to admit what he’d said on the Senate floor about Social Security and Medicare. Sanders would know perhaps more than any of the other Democratic candidates who ran against Biden because Sanders has served alongside Biden in the Senate for decades.
Boom. That one’s gonna leave a mark, especially considering there is no love lost between the Biden and Sanders camps.
Now, in fairness to Dale, he did fact-check a couple of Biden claims from Thursday and noted they were untrue. But the exception is not the rule, and he doesn’t get a cookie for only doing the bare minimum when it comes to holding Joe Biden to account.
The fact of the matter is that Republicans are left no choice but to do their own fact-checking on claims made by Democrats because the people who have been charged with doing so have been miserable failures in that department going back well before Trump’s presidency – and that will not change in the future.
Good on Trump for using the words of another Democrat to call out Biden’s lies here.
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