Hillary Clinton personally approved leaking to the media information alleging a connection between Donald Trump and a Russian bank in 2016, which the campaign itself had not fully confirmed, according to testimony Friday by Clinton’s campaign manager.
Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign chief, said in federal court that as the campaign against Trump heated up in the late summer and early fall of 2016, Marc Elias, who was then a lawyer with the Perkins Coie law firm and served as the campaign’s top legal adviser, told Mook that “people with expertise” in cyberactivity had briefed the campaign on data alleging links between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Russian financial institution with ties to the Kremlin.
Mook’s testimony for the first time puts Clinton in the middle of a leak to the news media that ultimately blew up in the campaign’s face. The FBI quickly determined that the purported connection between the Russian bank and the Trump Organization was implausible, and Michael Sussmann, Elias’s then law partner who brought the claims to the FBI, has since been indicted by Justice Department special counsel John Durham on charges he lied to the bureau’s general counsel to hide his connection to the Clinton campaign.
The account from Mook came on the fourth day of the trial of Sussmann, a cyber and national security law expert who worked at Perkins Coie in 2016. The closely watched case is widely seen as a major test for Durham, the longtime U.S. attorney in Connecticut who had been initially appointed by Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, to investigate alleged wrongdoing by the FBI and other federal agencies in the course of their investigation into alleged Trump-Russia ties.
Tag: Hillary Clinton
Hillary Wants Trump Impeached
Do you think she knows that she doesn’t become president if Trump is removed from office?
WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran against Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, said in an interview exerpt [sic] released Tuesday that she is “favor of moving toward impeachment” and that “we are in a crisis.”
Clintons Begin Speaking Tour
You know, there was a time when it would have been considered unbecoming for an ex-president to attack the current president from a foreign nation. It was considered that because it was… and is.
Bill and Hillary Clinton launched their 13-city paid speaking tour in a Canadian hockey arena Tuesday evening, where there were banks of empty seats and the power couple accused President Trump of joining a Saudi ‘cover-up.’
The Clintons riffed on issues ranging form the U.S. elections to the Iran deal, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the murder of Saudi dissident Khashoggi, and got a warm reception from the crowd as they jabbed at the Trump administration from north of the border.
[…]
Organizers blocked off the upper deck of seats. Officials said the Clintons sold about 3,300 seats in a venue that can hold about 19,000 for a big hockey game when the Maple Leafs play.
FBI Investigating Clinton
Why keep investigating? The Clintons are old news? Right?
The FBI has been quietly investigating the Clinton Foundation for months, according to people familiar with the inquiry, US media report.
The investigation is reportedly being led by FBI agents from Little Rock, Arkansas, where the foundation was founded.
They have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, reports the Hill, a Washington DC political news outlet.
Agents are said to be looking into whether policy favours were traded for unspecified donations to the foundation while Mrs Clinton was secretary of state.
Why? Because it is possible that a person at the highest reaches of our federal government with access to almost every national secret was selling influence for cash. We should find out for sure, no?
Brazile Breaks Bad
It confirms what we already knew, but the real news is in the “who” and “how” that this reveals.
In excerpts from “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House,” published in Politico, Brazile writes the DNC was rigged in Clinton’s favor because her campaign was largely financing the party early on in the presidential election.
[…]
“Hillary for America (the campaign) and the Hillary Victory Fund (its joint fundraising vehicle with the DNC) had taken care of 80% of the remaining debt in 2016, about $10 million, and had placed the party on an allowance,” Brazile wrote.As Politico reported, Brazile notes that while Clinton claimed support for the DNC meant supporting state parties, state parties kept less than half of 1% of the $82 million raised by Clinton’s campaign fundraisers.[…]
“Secretary Clinton is looting funds meant for the state parties to skirt fundraising limits on her presidential campaign,” Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, said in a statement at the time. “We think the Clinton campaign should let the state parties keep their fair share of the cash.”
The legacy of Russian influence
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online. Here you go:
Harry Hopkins was an energetic and tireless social worker who helped shape much of the world as we know it today. His work in New York in the early 1930s attracted the attention, and then the friendship, of New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor.
When Roosevelt moved to the White House, he called upon Hopkins to be one of the principal architects of the New Deal. Throughout the decade, Hopkins grew to become one of Roosevelt’s closest advisors and was probably the most influential person throughout Roosevelt’s administration except for Mrs. Roosevelt.
When World War II began, Roosevelt called upon Hopkins again to be Roosevelt’s personal emissary in high-level diplomatic discussions with Britain and the Soviet Union. Hopkins was appointed to administer the famed LendLease program and was a permanent fixture in the White House throughout the war.
One aspect about Hopkins’ work during the war had sought explanation from historians. He was energetic and consistent about advocating for the Soviet Union even to the detriment of the U.S and other allies. Hopkins greatly directed Lend-Lease resources to the Soviets, strongly pushed Stalin’s demands for a second front, dismissed the fact that the Soviets massacred 22,000 Poles in the Katyn Forest, and generally tilted every scale he could put his finger on in favor of the Soviet Union.
The fall of the Soviet Union and the release of many of the Soviet archives has begun to offer some explanation for Hopkins’ behavior. He was almost certainly a Soviet agent. The only real remaining question is to what extent. The first indication came when Oleg Gordievsky, a senior KGB defector, recalled a lecture in which another KGB office bragged that Hopkins was the Soviet’s most important agent during the war.
The confirmation came when New York Senator Daniel Moynihan forced the release of The Verona Papers — a trove of decades’ worth of coded messages from Soviet agents in the U.S. to Moscow. Those documents revealed a message from Agent 19 to Moscow about a highlevel conversation between the Western Allies. Scholars have deduced that Hopkins was the only person in a position to share the details of that conversation. The evidence points to the fact that Hopkins was not just a zealous friend of the Soviet Union, he was an active agent for their interests.
We do not want to think that there was a traitor so close to the central nervous system of American power — especially during war. We do not want to think that Joseph Stalin’s hand was at work shaping American policy. But facts are facts whether we want to believe them or not.
It took half a century for the facts about Hopkins’ treachery to come to light. Evidence of another high-level treachery is coming to light much sooner for former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Here are a few facts that have been reported by The Hill and others:
■ Former President Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 in 2010 by a bank controlled by the Russian government for a 90-minute speech to Renaissance Capital in Russia and then had a meeting with Vladimir Putin. This happened right after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been in Russia and was actively working on a variety of follow up items for Russia after those meetings.
■ One of the issues Hillary Clinton worked on was her department’s approval of a deal whereby a Russian nuclear company purchased a Canadian uranium company to control 20 percent of America’s strategic uranium reserves.
■ Around the same time, a Canadian uranium magnet involved in the deal donated about $145 million to the Clinton Foundation, whose main purpose has been to support the Clinton’s lavish lifestyle rather than any meaningful charitable purpose.
■ Another issue was for another Russian company that used to sell recycled uranium to the U.S., but needed a new market as their deal was ending.
■ A third issue was to arrange for a group of venture capitalists from Silicon Valley to travel to Russia to look for ways to create a Silicon Valley in Russia.
■ Also in 2010, the FBI broke a Russian spy ring that had been trying to get access to the State Department for a decade. They had recently gained access to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton through a Democratic donor before the FBI arrested them.
■ Since 2009, the FBI had also been investigating a huge bribery and kickback program inside a Russian nuclear energy company with a division in America. As part of that investigation, the informant overheard numerous conversations from Russians about their efforts to influence the Clintons.
A kind, if naïve, reading of these facts might excuse them away as independent and unrelated events that were each conducted with the utmost propriety. After all, we do not want to believe that there could have been someone working for the benefit of the Russian government at the highest level of our national government. But at some point, the accumulation of facts point to only one reasonable conclusion whether we want to believe it or not.
Clinton Funded Trump Dossier
Wow.
Hillary Clinton‘s campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped bankroll research that led to the ‘golden showers’ dossier on Donald Trump.
Clinton’s campaign lawyer Marc Elias hired research firm Fusion GPS back in April 2016 to look into allegations of Trump’s ties to Russia, according to the Washington Post.
Fusion GPS, the Washington-based research firm, then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to dig up the unconfirmed dirt on Trump.
Clinton’s lawyer and his law firm Perkins Coie continued to fund the research until October 2016 – just days before the presidential election.
The research was previously funded by an unknown anti-Trump Republican donor during the primary, but Clinton’s campaign then paid for it to be finished.
Clinton Decries Use of Private Email
Hillary Clinton has called reports that six Trump White House officials used private email accounts for official business the “height of hypocrisy”.
President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked Mrs Clinton’s use of personal email while she was secretary of state during the 2016 campaign.
Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner admitted to using his email while five other aides reportedly did so as well.
Congress has asked the White House to provide details on the practice.
Hillary Clinton’s Book
Even the BBC is poking fun at her.
The beauty of Hillary Clinton’s new book title, What Happened, is it can be interpreted in so many ways.
Perhaps it’s a definitive account of the 2016 presidential election. “Here’s what happened”.
Maybe it’s an exclamation, like someone reacting to an unexpectedly loud noise (or an electoral earthquake). “Yikes! What happened!?”
Then again, it could be a stern mom, who just walked in on the mess her children (the voters) made in the living room. “Whaaaaat happened …”
Or is she the dazed boxer, picking herself up off the canvas after getting knocked out by a surprise punch from her opponent.
“Wha-, wha-, what happened???”
It’s up to readers to decide for themselves, but in Mrs Clinton’s recent interviews and in her book, which was formally released on Tuesday, she offers plenty of explanations from which to choose.
Here’s a list of just some of the factors to blame for the fact that she’s hitting book stores across the country, while Donald Trump is redecorating the Oval Office.
Hint: it’s a looooooooong list.
What I find interesting is the media coverage of Clinton’s book tour. After all, it is a tour by a failed politician trying to sell her book. And yet, she is getting daily headline coverage from almost every media outlet in the nation. I think they are fare ore interested in Hillary’s post-defeat soul searching than we are.
All of her, and the media’s, explanations rest on the presumption that she could have won. It is entirely possible that Clinton was disliked by so many people that a bowl of hot steaming mayonnaise would have defeated her.
Emails Reveal More Russian Collusion
“The new Abedin emails also reveal additional instances in which Clinton’s then- scheduler Lona Valmoro forwarded the former secretary of state’s detailed daily schedule to top Clinton Foundation officials. The new emails also reveal a number of favors that were requested and carried out,” Judicial Watch found. “In May 2010, Abedin tells Band that she has ‘hooked up’ people from the Russian American Foundation with ‘the right people’ at the State Department after Abedin received a request from Russian American Foundation Vice President Rina Kirshner, forwarded by Clinton Foundation donor Eddie Trump (no relation to President Trump).”
Clinton’s Pity Tour
Hillary Clinton on Wednesday broadly spread around the blame for her loss in last year’s presidential election, pointing to suspected Russian cyberattacks, the Democratic National Committee’s data operation and a “very broad assumption that I was going to win.”
Clinton, interviewed onstage in California at a tech conference by Recode’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, made a point to say that she took responsibility for her campaign and “every choice” she made, as she has in other public appearances this year. “But,” she said, “that’s not why I lost.”
I echo Jay Weber on this point, but what a shame for the women and girls who were so proud to see a woman getting a major party nomination for president to see how sore a loser Clinton is. It has been six months since the election and Clinton is so bitter. She is casting blame on everyone else and showing the class in losing that proves the caricature painted of her by the Right. We din’t see anything like this from McCain, Romney, Kerry, Dole, Bush Sr., Mondale, Carter, or even Gore.
Bitter Much?
Heh.
Russia! Russia! Russia!
Of course, I trust Putin’s mouthpiece about as far as I can throw him, but he’s right in the fact that it’s the JOB of an ambassador to talk to people and build multilateral relationships.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said in an interview Sunday that the Russian ambassador who met with Trump campaign officials also met with “people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.”
“Well, if you look at some people connected with Hillary Clinton during her campaign, you would probably see that he had lots of meetings of that kind,” Dmitry Peskov told CNN “GPS” host Fareed Zakaria. “There are lots of specialists in politology, people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.”
Peskov said it is the job of Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to meet with officials on both sides to talk about “bilateral relations.”
Faithless Electors Abandon Clinton
And Trump, but more Clinton.
(CNN)Donald Trump surpassed the necessary 270 votes in the Electoral College on Monday, taking the next step in the official process to become President.
Trump received 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 227. Seven “faithless” electors voted for other candidates, costing Trump two votes and Clinton four. Hawaii’s votes — three for Clinton and one breaking from the state’s results and supporting Bernie Sanders — were the last to be counted.
How funny.
On a serious note, thank goodness the Democrats didn’t get their way and usurp the electoral process like the Russians wanted.
Trump Won’t Push for Prosecution of Clinton
(CNN)President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will break a campaign promise and not pursue further investigations of Hillary Clinton related to her private email server or the Clinton Foundation, Trump’s former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday.
“I think when the President-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone, and content” to fellow Republicans, Conway said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”Trump’s decision represents a significant break from a major campaign promise — at the second presidential debate in early October, Trump threatened Clinton, saying that “if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.”
This is a political decision. One can see Trump’s advisers telling him, “she won the popular vote and angering her supporters will make it difficult for you to get things done.” But one of the reasons Trump won was the palpable disgust that many Americans have for the Two Americas where the rules don’t apply to the rich and powerful. Clinton needs to be prosecuted for the simple reason that she is a crook and we live in a nation of laws. Or, at least, we used to.
Clinton’s Questionable Advertising Strategy
Even the Clinton Camp bought into the flawed polls.
In the closing weeks of the presidential race, Hillary Clinton’s campaign — and the outside groups that supported it — aired more television advertisements in Omaha than in the states of Michigan and Wisconsin combined. The Omaha ads were in pursuit of a single electoral vote in a Nebraska congressional district, which Clinton did not ultimately win, and also bled into households in Iowa, which also she did not win. Michigan and Wisconsin add up to 26 electoral votes; she appears not to have won them, either.
Strategic decisions can make all the difference in a close race. Clinton lost the White House (despite winning the popular vote) to Republican Donald Trump on the strength of about 100,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. That is the definition of a close race.
But a review of Democrats’ advertising decisions at the end of the race suggests Clinton and her allies weren’t playing to win a close one. They were playing for a blowout. And it cost them.
Clinton Blames Comey for Loss
Hillary Clinton has blamed her defeat in the US presidential election on interventions by the FBI director.
James Comey’s announcement of a new inquiry into her use of email while secretary of state shortly before election day had stopped her campaign’s momentum, Mrs Clinton said.
The Democratic candidate was speaking to top party donors in a phone call, which was leaked to the media.
Never mind her poor campaign, raging ethical issues, illegal activities, and record of failure – not to mention that she was campaigning on the wildly unpopular and failing Obamacare, tepid economy, and overbearing federal government. Nah… those things didn’t have anything to do with it.
Trump’s Acceptance Speech
Trump’s acceptance speech was everything you would hope it to be. It was gracious, unifying, filled with gratitude, and the uncaveated statement of love for this nation is so welcome after the last 8 years.
Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of division, have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.
It is time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all of Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.As I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign but rather an incredible and great movement, made up of millions of hard-working men and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for themselves and for their family.It is a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions, backgrounds, and beliefs, who want and expect our government to serve the people — and serve the people it will.[…]
And I can only say that while the campaign is over, our work on this movement is now really just beginning. We’re going to get to work immediately for the American people, and we’re going to be doing a job that hopefully you will be so proud of your President. You will be so proud. Again, it’s my honor.It’s an amazing evening. It’s been an amazing two-year period, and I love this country. Thank you.Thank you very much. Thank you to Mike Pence.
Hillary’s concession speech was… non-existent. For all of the pre-election pressure on Trump to lose graciously, the media is giving Clinton a complete pass to act like a spoiled brat.
FBI Clears Clinton (Again)
Of course they did. Did any of you expect a different result?
Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges after a review of new emails.
“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July,” Comey wrote in the new letter to congressional committee chairmen.
It’s pretty amazing how it took years to go through her emails the first time and days to sift through 650,000 of them this time. Technology must have really improved over that time period.
Clinton Emails Found on Weiner’s Computer
Just consider how reckless, to use the kindest word possible, Clinton was to allow this to happen.
The FBI has found emails related to Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the laptop belonging to the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, according to a U.S. official.
These emails, CBS News’ Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary Clinton’s private server. At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are significant to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton. It is also not known how many relevant emails there are.