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The Pronk Pops Show 1275, June 17, 2019, Story 1: Trump Hypothetical vs. Democrat Actual — Digging Up Dirt on Your Political Opponents — Opposition Research, Dirty Tricks, Blow Back — Legal vs Criminal Opposition Research –Criminal Conspiracy Smear Campaigns — Lying Lunatic Leftist Losers — Videos — Story 2: Radical Extremist Democrat Polls — Trump Loses — Reality Deniers — Videos — Story 3: Iran Promises To Break Nuclear Agreement If Sanctions Not Removed — Pathway To Nuclear Bomb and Long Range Missile and War — Videos
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Pronk Pops Show 1232 March 29, 2019 Part 1
Pronk Pops Show 1231 March 28, 2019
Pronk Pops Show 1223 March 8, 2019
Story 1: Trump Hypothetical vs. Clinton Actual — Digging Up Dirt on Your Political Opponents — Opposition Research, Dirty Tricks, Blow Back — Legal vs Criminal Opposition Research — Criminal Conspiracy Smear Campaigns — Lying Lunatic Leftist Losers — Videos
President Trump: 30 Hours l Interview with George Stephanopoulos l Part 1
A preview of ABC News' exclusive one-on-one interview with Trump
Trump says he may not alert FBI if info is offered by foreigners on 2020 candidates
Levin slams Democrats for declaring Trump a criminal
Shields and Brooks on Trump and foreign campaign help, Democratic debates
Partisan sparks fly over Trump's opposition research remarks
Trump defends saying he'd take foreign intel on rivals
Ingraham: Democrats' foreign phony outrage
Hannity: The left's selective outrage on opposition research
Hannity: Steele dossier was full of lies, misinformation, propaganda
The ethical dos and don'ts of opposition research
[youtube-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE9X1hMhvwQ]
Inside the Democrats' opposition research shop
FBI must identify origin of Trump-Russia collusion idea: Rep. DeSantis
Nunes: Not possible FBI didn't know who paid for dossier
Strassel: FBI, DOJ obstructing on Trump dossier
Strassel: Fusion GPS dossier a dirty trick for the ages
Podesta, Wasserman Schultz deny knowledge of dossier funding
Did Hillary Clinton know about the Russian dossier?
Did Hillary Clinton Finance The Infamous Dossier?
Fusion GPS victim: They are out to destroy people
Does the dossier bombshell spell trouble for the Democrats?
Potential legal implications from Trump dossier scandal
Trump, Russia and Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm run by ex-journalists
Kurtz: Journalists don't hire opposition research firms
York: Washington Free Beacon was original Fusion GPS funder
Conservative website funded Fusion GPS opposition research
Where does 'opposition research' cross a line?
Why Is The EPA Hiring GOP Oppo Research Firms??
Clinton campaign, DNC helped fund dossier research
The Curious Art and Science of Opposition Research
How Republican Opposition Research Dig Up Dirt on Dems
Political Opposition Research Reveals All – Alan Huffman
2015 Personality Lecture 12: Existentialism: Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard
Jordan Peterson on The Necessity of Virtue
Trump in testy exchange with Stephanopoulos: 'You're being a little wise guy'
BY JOE CONCHA – 06/14/19 10:51 AM EDT
President Trump pushed back at ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos during a testy interview, calling him "a little wise guy."
Stephanopoulos was pressing the president on not answering questions in person from special counsel Robert Mueller's team.
"Wait a minute. I did answer questions. I answered them in writing," Trump said
"Not on obstruction," Stephanopoulos replied.
"George, you're being a little wise guy, OK, which is, you know, typical for you," Trump hit back.
"Just so you understand. Very simple. It's very simple. There was no crime. There was no collusion. The big thing's collusion. Now, there's no collusion. That means … it was a setup, in my opinion, and I think it's going to come out," he continued.
Stephanopoulos, 58, was a White House communications director and senior advisor for policy and strategy for President Clinton.
He joined ABC News as a political analyst after Clinton's first term in 1997 and is now ABC News's chief anchor and host of "Good Morning America" and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/448571-trump-in-testy-exchange-with-stephanopoulos-youre-being-a-little-wise-guy
Trump successfully baits his foes with comments to Stephanopoulos on foreign information on opponents
By Thomas Lifson
In classic Trumpian maneuver, President Trump yesterday chummed the waters of the House Democratic Caucus with raw meat the impeachment-crazed radicals driving Nancy Pelosi — who really doesn't want to talk about impeachment — to distraction. He also laid the groundwork for the coming prosecutions on the Russia Hoax.
In a clip that already has been endlessly run on every news channel, he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that he would not necessarily turn down information on his opponent from a foreign source or call in the FBI.
YouTube screen grab.
Responding to a question from Stephanopoulos about his son Donald Jr.'s Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, the POTUS let fly:
As summarized by Politico:
[T]he president pushed back when asked whether a candidate should report information on an opponent if it came from a foreign agent, and denied that accepting the information counted as election interference.
"It's not an interference, they have information — I think I'd take it," Trump said. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI — if I thought there was something wrong."
"It's called oppo research," he added.
Stephanopoulos pointed out that FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that a candidate should offer that kind of information to the agency, but Trump flatly rebuffed the notion: "The FBI director is wrong."
"Give me a break," Trump said, scoffing. "Life doesn't work that way."
He got exactly what he wanted from the haters:
But the gasps of horror were not limited to haters. Laura Ingraham and Victor Davis Hanson were aghast:
"Setting aside the question of why you would have George Stephanopoulos standing over the president in the Oval Office — I don't know who approved that — what about this notion of accepting foreign Intel about an opponent? Is that a risk for President Trump, getting pulled back into Mueller? Again, why he was put in that situation is beyond me."
Victor Davis Hanson agreed that "you shouldn't ever talk to George Stephanopoulos," and said Trump probably "intended to" bring up something like Adam Schiff getting called by Russian pranksters.
He added, "I think the cardinal rule is in Trump's case you don't even discuss that. You just say I don't want to talk about it."
Ingraham said it seemed like he was "playing with" Stephanopoulos a bit but added, "Putting him in that situation, I don't get it."
Here is some help for the perplexed: as the DOJ inspector general's report looms and U.S. attorney John Durham's mandate has been described in the broadest terms by A.G. Barr, Trump has the Democrats nattering on about how treasonous it is to accept any information from any foreign country. How about paying Russian agents with campaign money for fake dirt on an opponent, even if laundered through a law firm and Fusion GPS?
When and if indictments related to Fusion GPS are revealed, the defense lines of the progressives will have some Trump-sized holes in them.
Even NeverTrump Erick Erickson, of the anti-Trump Resurgent, sees the trap:
[W]e should point out that the Steele dossier involved a lot of dirt about Donald Trump from Russia and we now know that a good bit of it was made up. The Mueller report itself notes the supposed 'pee tape' the Democrats have been all hot and bothered over was fabricated by the Russians.
Perhaps the President should not have said it, but let's not pretend the Democrats would actually go racing to the FBI if presented with sensational information about Trump. They'd run to opposition research firms instead.
By the way, before you claim the Democrats handed the Steele dossier over to the FBI, please note that they used it to spread anti-Trump stories in the media for months before doing so not very long before Election Day 2016.
The Steele Dossier was an important foundation of the entire Russia Hoax. Trump has now got many of his worst enemies on the record about how heinous it was to accept any intelligence from a foreign source. Trump mentioned Norway. Hillary and the DNC paid for dirt from Russia.
Trump, it must always be remembered, is the most successful reality TV producer in the history of the medium of television. He knows how to set up a storyline for a payoff later in the season — in this case, the election season.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/trump_successfully_baits_his_foes_with_comments_to_stephanopoulos_on_foreign_information_on_opponents.html
Candidate Hillary Clinton endorsed idea of political dirt from overseas
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton checks her phone after attending a U.S.-Russia meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam on July 23, 2010. The revelation that Mrs. Clinton used an off-the-books email account during her time as secretary of state has raised … more >By Rowan Scarborough – The Washington Times – Thursday, June 13, 2019
Hillary Clinton has endorsed the idea of obtaining political dirt from overseas, saying her campaign's Kremlin-sourced dossier was "part of what happens in a campaign."
President Trump is taking heat from Democrats for telling ABC News on Wednesday that he would listen to negative information from a foreign country about a political opponent in 2020.
That is basically the same position Mrs. Clinton took when she was interviewed on Nov. 1, 2017, on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."
A week earlier, the nation learned that the Christopher Steele dossier, with its dozen conspiracy charges against Trump associates, was financed by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
The Robert Mueller report effectively destroyed the dossier. His 22-month investigation failed to establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to interfere in the election that Mrs. Clinton lost.
Mrs. Clinton was asked on the show about the dossier, whose sources are listed in the document as Kremlin intelligence and government leaders.
"It's part of what happens in a campaign where you get information that may or may not be useful and you try to make sure anything you put out in the public arena is accurate," she said. "So this thing didn't come out until after the election, and it's still being evaluated."
She provided this chronology: "When Trump got the nomination of the Republican Party, the people doing it came to my campaign lawyer and said, 'Would you like us to continue it?'" she said. "He said 'yes.' He is an experienced lawyer. He knows what the law is. He knows what opposition research is."
Work on the dossier didn't begin until June 2016 when Fusion GPS, Mrs. Clinton's opposition research firm, sought funds from her campaign, via her law firm, to pay Mr. Steele.
Mr. Steele's claims about Mr. Trump did surface before Election Day, though the dossier didn't.
Fusion arranged for Mr. Steele to brief a number of Washington reporters. Yahoo News published a story in September outlining Mr. Steele's assertions that a Trump volunteer, Carter Page, had discussed bribes with top associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin in exchange for removing U.S. sanctions.
The Clinton campaign quickly cited the story.
Jennifer Palmieri, the Clinton campaign's communications director, said on one broadcast, "Michael Isikoff had a piece yesterday about Carter Page, who is a foreign policy adviser of Trump's and that he had met with someone from the Kremlin that … according to Michael's reporting, U.S. intelligence officials believe is behind the hack."
The Mueller report cleared Mr. Page of collusion with Russia's interference in the U.S. election.
Also before the election, then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, wrote a letter to the FBI summarizing Mr. Steele's charges. The letter was leaked to The New York Times, which published a story.
Clinton operatives busily circulated the dossier before and after the election.
A Fusion GPS middleman took the dossier to the FBI on several occasions. Perkins Coie, Mrs. Clinton's law firm, also tried to present Mr. Steele's charges to the Justice Department.
The FBI put the dossier to extensive use. It cited Mr. Steele to judges to obtain a wiretap on Mr. Page for a year and briefed President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump.
FBI agents were briefed by Mr. Steele in July 2016 and again in October in Europe.
The FBI offered Mr. Steele $50,000 to continue investigating Mr. Trump, though it never confirmed the former British spy's allegations.
The Justice Department inspector general is investigating how the FBI used the dossier. In addition, Attorney General William Barr has tapped John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, to investigate how the Obama Justice Department and FBI decided to target the Trump campaign.
Perkins Coie briefed the Clinton campaign on the dossier, according to testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The communications director for Mr. Trump's 2020 reelection campaign took to Twitter to slam the media's "selective" memory.
"The selective outrage and short memory of the media are staggering. The DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign actually PAID FOR the discredited, fake Steele Dossier, which was compiled by a foreign national and contained information from alleged Russian sources," Tim Murtaugh wrote.
— Tim Murtaugh (@TimMurtaugh) June 13, 2019
• Dave Boyer contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/13/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-endorsed-idea-politic/
The FBI Tragedy: Elites above the Law
After decades in the FBI, the top brass came to believe they could flout the law and pursue their own political agendas.
One of the media and beltway orthodoxies we constantly hear is that just a few bad apples under James Comey at the FBI explain why so many FBI elites have been fired, resigned, reassigned, demoted, or retired — or just left for unexplained reasons. The list is long and includes director James Comey himself, deputy director Andrew McCabe, counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, attorney Lisa Page, chief of staff James Rybicki, general counsel James Baker, assistant director for public affairs Mike Kortan, Comey's special assistant Josh Campbell, executive assistant director James Turgal, assistant director for office of congressional affairs Greg Bower, executive assistant director Michael Steinbach, and executive assistant director John Giacalone. In short, in about every growing scandal of the past two years — FISA, illegal leaking, spying on a presidential candidate, lying under oath, obstructing justice — someone in the FBI is involved.
We are told, however, that the FBI's culture and institutions are exempt from the widespread wrongdoing at the top. Such caution is a fine and fitting thing, given the FBI's more than a century of public service. Nonetheless, many of those caught up in the controversies over the Russian-collusion hoax were not recent career appointees. Rather, many came up through the ranks of the FBI. And that raises the question, for example, of where exactly Peter Strzok (22 years in the FBI) learned that he had a right to interfere in a U.S. election to damage a candidate that he opposed.
And why would an Andrew McCabe (over 21 years in the FBI) think he had the duty to formulate an "insurance policy" to take out a presidential candidate? Or why would he even consider overseeing an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's improper use of emails when his wife had been a recent recipient of Clinton-related PAC money? And why would McCabe contemplate leaking confidential FBI information to the press or even dream of setting up some sort of operation to remove a sitting president under the 25th Amendment? And how did someone like the old FBI vet Peter Strozk ever end up at the center of the entire mess — opening up the snooping on the Trump campaign while hiding that fact and while briefing the candidate on Russian interference in the election, interviewing Michael Flynn, preening as a top FBI investigator for Robert Mueller's dream team, right-hand man of "Andy" McCabe, convincing Comey to change the wording of his writ in the Clinton-email-scandal investigation, softball coddling of Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, instrumental in the Papadopoulos investigation con — all the while conducting an affair with fellow FBI investigator and attorney Lisa Page and bragging about his assurance that the supposedly odious Trump would be prevented from being elected. If a group of Trump zealots were to call up the FBI tomorrow and allege that a member of Joe Biden's family has had unethical ties with the Ukrainian or Chinese government, would that gambit "alarm" the FBI enough to prompt an investigation of Biden and his campaign? How many career-professional Peter Strozks are still at the agency?
In sum, why did so many top FBI officials, some with long experience in the FBI, exhibit such bad judgment and display such unethical behavior, characterized by arrogance, a sense of entitlement, and a belief that they were above both the law and the Constitution itself? Were they really just rogue agents, lawyers, and administrators, or are they emblematic of an FBI culture sorely gone wrong?
How and why would James Comey believe that as a private citizen he had the right to leak classified memos of presidential conversations that he had recorded on FBI time and on FBI machines?
Does the FBI inculcate behavior that prompts its officials to repeatedly testify under oath that they either don't know or can't remember — in a fashion that would earn an indictment for most similarly interrogated private citizens? Was Strozk's testimony to the Congress emblematic of a career FBI agent in his full? Was Comey's? Was McCabe's?
To answer those questions, perhaps we can turn to an analogous example of special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller. We are always advised something to the effect that the admirable Vietnam War veteran and career DOJ and FBI administrator Bob Mueller has a sterling reputation, and thus we were to assume that his special-counsel investigation would be free from political bias. To suggest otherwise was to be slapped down as a rank demagogue of the worse kind.
But how true were those beltway narratives? Mueller himself had a long checkered prosecutorial and investigative career, involving questionable decisions about the use of FBI informants in Boston, and overseeing absolutely false FBI accusations against an innocent suspect in the sensationalized anthrax case that began shortly after 9/11.
The entire Mueller investigation did not reflect highly either on Mueller or the number of former and current DOJ and FBI personnel he brought on to his team. In a politically charged climate, Mueller foolishly hired an inordinate number of political partisans, some of whom had donated to the Clinton campaign, while others had legally defended the Clinton Foundation or various Clinton and Obama aides. Mueller's point-man Andrew Weissman was a known Clinton zealot with his own past record of suspect prosecutorial overreach.
Mueller did not initially disclose why FBI employees Lisa Page and Peter Strozk were taken off his investigative team, and he staggered their departures to suggest that their reassignments were normal rather than a consequence of the couple's unprofessional personal behavior and their textual record of rank Trump hatred. Mueller's very appointment was finessed by former FBI director and Mueller friend James Comey and was largely due to the hysteria caused by Comey's likely felonious leaks of confidential and classified FBI memos — a fact of no interest to Mueller's soon-to-be-expanded investigation.
During the investigation, Mueller was quite willing to examine peripheral issues such as the scoundrelly behavior of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the inside lobbying of Paul Manafort for foreign governments. Fine. But Mueller was curiously more discriminating in his non-interest in crimes far closer to the allegations of Russian collusion. That is, he was certainly uninterested about how and when the basis for his entire investigation arose — the unverified and fallacious Steele dossier that had been deliberately seeded among the FBI, CIA, and DOJ to achieve official imprimaturs so it could then be leaked to the press to ruin the campaign, transition, and presidency of Donald Trump.
Mueller's team also deliberately edited a phone message from Trump counsel John Dowd to Robert Kelner, General Michael Flynn's lawyer, to make it appear incriminating and possibly unethical or illegal. Only after a federal judge ordered the full release of the transcript did the public learn the extent of Mueller's selective and misleading cut-and-paste of Dowd's message.
Mueller's own explanations about the extent to which he was guided by the precedent of presidential exemption from indictment are at odds with his own prior statements and in conflict with what Attorney General Barr has reported from a meeting with Mueller and others. In those meetings, Mueller assured that he was after the truth and did not regard prior legal opinions about the illegality of indicting a sitting president as relevant to his own investigations. But when he essentially discovered he had no finding of collusion, he then mysteriously retreated to the previously rejected notion that he was powerless to indict Trump on a possible obstruction charge.
Mueller displayed further contortions when he recited a number of alleged Trump wrongdoings but then backed off by concluding that, while such evidence for a variety of different reasons did not justify an indictment of Trump, nonetheless Trump should not be exonerated of obstruction of justice.
Mueller thereby established a new but lunatic precedent in American jurisprudence in which a prosecutor who fails to find sufficient cause to indict a suspect nonetheless releases supposedly incriminating evidence, with a wink that the now-besmirched suspect cannot be exonerated of the alleged crimes. Think what Mueller's precedent of not-not-guilty would do to the American criminal-justice system, as zealous prosecutors might fish for just enough dirt on a suspect to ruin his reputation, but not find enough for an indictment, thereby exonerating their own prosecutorial failure by defaming a "guilty until proven innocent" suspect.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Mueller's team knew early on in their investigation that his lead investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had been correct in their belief that there was "no there there" in the charges of collusion — again the raison d'être of their entire investigation.
Yet Mueller's team continued the investigation, aggregating more than 200 pages of unverified or uncorroborated news accounts, online essays, and testimonies describing all sorts of alleged unethical behavior and infelicities by Trump and his associates, apparently in hopes of compiling their own version of something like the Steele dossier. Mueller sought to publish a compendium of Trump bad behavior that fell below the standard of criminal offense but that would nonetheless provide useful fodder for media sensationalism and congressional partisan efforts to impeach the now supposedly not-not guilty president.
Note again, at no time did Muller ever investigate the Steele dossier that had helped to create his existence as special counsel, much less whether members of the FBI and DOJ had misled a FISA court by hiding critical information about the dossier to obtain wiretaps of American citizens, texts that Mueller himself would then use in his effort to find criminal culpability.
We were told throughout the 22-month investigation that "Bob Mueller does not leak." But almost on a weekly schedule, left-wing cable news serially announced in formulaic fashion that "the walls were closing in on" and the "noose was tightening around" Trump as another "bombshell" disclosure was anticipated, according to "sources close to the Mueller investigation," "unnamed sources," and "sources who chose to remain unidentified." On one occasion, CNN reporters mysteriously showed up in advance at the home of a Mueller target, to capture on camera the arrival of paramilitary-like arresting officers.
When it is established beyond a doubt that foreign surveillance of and contact with George Papadopoulos was used to entrap a minor Trump aide as a means of providing an ex post facto justification for the earlier illegal FBI and CIA surveillance of the Trump campaign, and when it is shown without doubt that Steele had little if any corroborating evidence for his dirty dossier, Mueller's reputation unfortunately will be further eroded.
Yet the question is not merely whether a Comey, McCabe, or Mueller is atypical of the FBI. Rather, where in the world, if not from the culture of the FBI, did these elite legal investigators absorb the dangerous idea that FBI lawyers and investigators could flout the law and in such arrogant fashion use their vast powers of the government to pursue their own political agendas? And why was there no internal pushback at a supercilious leadership that demonstrably had gone rogue? Certainly, the vast corpus of the Strzok-Page correspondence does reflect a unprofessional, out-of-control culture at the FBI.
Just imagine: If an agent Peter Strozk interviewed you and overstepped his purview, would you, the aggrieved, then appeal to his boss, Andrew McCabe? And if Andrew McCabe ignored your complaint, would you, the wronged, then seek higher justice from a James Comey, who in turn might rely on a legal opinion from a Lisa Page or a brief from a James Baker? And failing that, might a Robert Mueller as an outside auditor rectify prior FBI misconduct?
Fairly or not, the current FBI tragedy is that an American citizen should be duly worried about his constitutional rights any time he is approached by such senior FBI officials. That is not a slur on the rank and file, but the legacy of the supposed best and brightest of the agency and their distortions of the bureau's once professional creed.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/fbi-tragedy-elites-above-law/
The Justice Department's investigation of the investigators involved in the Trump-Russia probe will look at actions both by the U.S. government and by foreigners.
That's what the agency said Monday, telling Congress its review is "broad in scope and multifaceted" in a letter from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.
The DOJ said the wide-ranging inquiry led by Attorney General William Barr, along with his right-hand man U.S. Attorney John Durham, would seek to "illuminate open questions regarding the activities of U.S. and foreign intelligence services as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals."
The letter made it clear that DOJ's review is not limited just to their specific agency, but would also scrutinize the intelligence community as a whole. The letter stated that the DOJ review team had already asked certain intelligence community agencies to preserve records, make witnesses available, and start putting together documents that the DOJ would need to carry out its inquiry.
And the DOJ made it clear that they weren't just looking to see if policies were violated — they'll be looking at whether any laws were broken, too.
In 2016, the DOJ and FBI launched an investigation into any links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Special counsel Robert Mueller took over the ongoing effort in May 2017 after FBI Director James Comey was fired, and Mueller's probe culminated in a 448-page report in April 2019. Mueller found that the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election through cyberattacks and social media disinformation campaigns, but did not establish that anyone associated with Trump criminally colluded with Russia. Mueller left the door open on obstruction of justice by Trump, but Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined that he had not.
Barr believes "there remain open questions relating to the origins of this counter-intelligence investigation and the U.S. and foreign intelligence activities that took place prior to and during that investigation," the letter states, and the DOJ review will look at "the efficacy and propriety" of the steps that the DOJ, the FBI, the broader U.S. intelligence community, and foreign governments and actors took before and during the course of the probe — and to answer those questions "to the satisfaction of the Attorney General."
The letter said Barr is coordinating with members of the U.S. intelligence community and "certain foreign actors" on the "collaborative" and "ongoing effort."
Trump recently gave Barr "full and complete authority to declassify information" during his review, a move that has been harshly criticized by many Democrats. Nadler called the move part of a "plot to dirty up the intelligence community, to pretend that there's something wrong with the beginning of the Mueller investigation and to persecute and bring into line the intelligence agencies." And former FBI General Counsel Jim Baker called the move a "slap in the face" to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
Apparently to push back against such concerns, DOJ said Monday it would work hard to make sure that U.S. intelligence agents as well as foreign partners were protected during the probe, along with sensitive methods, techniques, and materials that could compromise national security.
This broad probe by DOJ is separate from the investigation by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse by the Justice Department and the FBI. That inquiry includes a focus on the FBI's handling of the unverified dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and its extensive use in the FBI's FISA applications and renewals to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Barr has previously said, however, that Horowitz's "ability to get information from former officials or from other agencies outside the Department [of Justice] is very limited." Thus, Barr picked Durham to carry out a beefed-up inquiry.
Durham will continue serving as Connecticut's U.S. attorney, the DOJ said, but his review is already "being conducted primarily in the Washington D.C. area" and his DOJ team will operate out of "existing office space."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-outlines-to-congress-its-investigation-of-the-investigators
Opposition research
Part of the Politics series
Canvassing
Election promise
Post-truth politics
Negative campaigning
Attack ad
Fearmongering
Campaign staff
In the politics of the United States, opposition research (also called oppo research) is the practice of collecting information on a political opponent or other adversary that can be used to discredit or otherwise weaken them. The information can include biographical, legal, criminal, medical, educational, or financial history or activities, as well as prior media coverage, or the voting record of a politician. Opposition research can also entail using "trackers" to follow an individual and record their activities or political speeches.[1]
The research is usually conducted in the time period between announcement of intent to run and the actual election; however political parties maintain long-term databases that can cover several decades. The practice is both a tactical maneuver and a cost-saving measure.[2] The term is frequently used to refer not just to the collection of information but also how it is utilized, as a component of negative campaigning.
Origins and history
In the 1st century BC, Cicero is said to have gathered information that was damaging to opponents and used it in attacks against them. He accused one political opponent, Catiline, of murdering one wife to make room for another. He attacked Mark Antony in speeches known as the Philippicae, eventually prompting Antony to chop off his head and right hand and display them at the Roman Forum.[3]
Opposition research also has its origins in military planning, as evident in such ancient texts as The Art of War, published in the 5th century BC by Sun Tzu. This manual for warriors describes the necessity for understanding an opponent's weaknesses, for using spies, and for striking in moments of weakness.
In 18th-century England, opposition research took the form of scandal-mongering pamphlet wars between the Whig and Tory parties. Writers such as Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Henry Fielding participated, often writing under assumed names.[4] This tradition of robust attack was replicated later in the American colonies, when writers such as Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin conducted opposition research and published their results.
The first appearance of the phrase "opposition research" in the New York Times occurred on December 17, 1971, in an article that describes the infiltration of the Edmund Muskie presidential campaign by a female Republican volunteer: "…an article appeared in a Washington newspaper describing the 'opposition research' program at Republican headquarters…"[5]
Opposition research became systematized in the 1970s when Ken Khachigian, in the Nixon Administration, suggested that the GOP keep files on individuals as insurance against future races, rather than "scramble" in an ad hoc fashion race by race.[2]
Opposition research differs immensely depending on the size and funding of a campaign, the ethics of the candidate, and the era in which it is conducted. Information gathering can be classified into three main categories: open-source research enabled by the Freedom of Information Act, covert operations or "tradecraft, " and maintenance of human systems of informants. Increasingly, data-mining of electronic records is used. Information is then stored for future use, and disseminated in a variety of ways.[6] A local election sometimes has a staff member dedicated to reading through all of the opponents' public statements and their voting records; others initiate whisper campaigns that employ techniques of disinformation or "black ops" to deliberately mislead the public by advancing a pre-determined "narrative" that will present the opponent in a negative light.
Another technique is to infiltrate the opposition's operations and position a paid informant there. "Gray propaganda" techniques are often used to release damaging information to news media outlets without its source being identified properly, a technique inherited from disinformation tactics employed by intelligence agencies such as the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.[7]
File-sharing between operatives of political parties is quite common. In the 2008 presidential election, a dossier of opposition research against Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin was posted in its entirety on a political blog site, Politico.com. The file was compiled by the staff of her opponent in the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial race, Tony Knowles.[8]
"Oppo dumps" are used by political campaigns to systematically supply files of damaging information to press outlets, including matters of the public record, video footage from party archives and private collections, as well as private intelligence gathered by operatives. Many prime time television and radio news commentaries rely on this supply of party-generated material because it is free, and therefore more cost-effective than paying investigative reporters.[9][10]
Candidates and incumbents who benefit from opposition research often choose to remain uninformed about their campaign's operations and tactics, to ensure plausible deniability should criminal charges be brought against researchers.
"Trackers" and videography
Yet another technique is to position information or personnel within media outlets. Often the information is video footage gathered in campaign-funded "tracker programs" wherein videographers use candidates' itineraries to track them and record as many remarks as possible, since anything they say can and will be used against them, as was the case in former Senator George Allen's "macaca moment."[2] In the 2006 election cycle, a Virginia senator, George Allen, was unseated because of videotape of the senator calling a videographer/opposition researcher as "macaca" or monkey. The name was considered to be an ethnic slur, and Allen's campaign could not overcome the damage when the incident was broadcast widely in mainstream media and on the internet.[11]
Digital media and Wikipedia
A 2005 analysis of digital media strategies published by the American Academy of Political Science took the view that new technologies enable "political elites" to use database and Internet technologies to do opposition research more easily, but they use data-mining techniques that outrage privacy advocates and surreptitious technologies that few Internet users understand. Data becomes "richer" about political actors, policy options, and the diversity of actors and opinion in the public sphere, but citizenship is "thinner" by virtue of "the ease in which people can become politically expressive without being substantively engaged."[12]
Facebook photos became a tool of opposition researchers in California's 32nd congressional district special election, 2009 to replace Hilda Solis. Front-runner Democrat Gil Cedillo sent out mailers targeting 26-year-old Emanuel Pleitez, grouping Pleitez's Facebook photos to suggest that he parties to excess with alcohol, and fraternizes with gangs. The text of the mailer suggested Pleitez, posing with a Latino stage actress and using a Latino voter registration drive hand sign, was "flashing gang signs".[13]
In 2006, the campaign manager of Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cathy Cox, Morton Brilliant, resigned after Cox's opponent, Lt. Gov, Mark Taylor, revealed Cox's campaign had added information from an opposition research dossier to a Wikipedia page on Taylor. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales confirmed that the material had come from an IP address affiliated with the Cox campaign. Citing an Associated Press analysis, CNN reported that Wikipedia being used as a "popular tool" for opposition researchers became so widespread a problem that Wikipedia altered its submission guidelines and set up alerts so that its operators know when Capitol Hill staffers alter Wikipedia content.[14] However, anyone who wanted to could simply bypass this by using an IP address not associated with Capitol Hill.
Grassroots oppo-research
Opposition research is a necessary component of "grassroots" activist groups. Research on corporate or political opponents may enable activist groups to target neighborhoods from which to increase their numbers, to refine their focus or "target," to pinpoint the target's vulnerabilities, to reveal hidden sources of funding or little-known connections, to investigate scare tactics, and to augment a legislative initiative.[15]
In the presidential election of 2008, the blog Talking Points Memo pioneered "collaborative citizen-reporting projects" based on groups of volunteers examining public documents that shed light on the George W. Bush administration's U.S. attorneys firings controversy. Other organizations such as the Sunlight Foundation encouraged citizen examination of such public domain records as Mitt Romney's financial disclosure statements and Bill Clinton's income statements.[16]
Political strategies for campaigns often include coaching on preventive measures to avoid providing too much information in public disclosure procedures that can provide ammunition for opponents' opposition researchers, particularly in itemized expenditure reports. "To eliminate some of these potential issues your campaign should take the time to review the wording of your campaign finance reports", advises one strategist writing for The Hill:
Instead of reporting that you spent $3,000 on a 'background check and public records search on Congressman X,' list the expenditure as 'issue research' or simply 'research'… One bonus financial filing tip: warn your candidate about spending campaign funds on fancy restaurants for 'strategy meetings.' Eating at Ruth's Chris or Morton's Steak House on your campaign's dime just looks bad. The press may poke a little fun at your candidate's expense; your donors may feel their donation in being misspent and may never give again.[17]
Funding and institutions
Congressional and presidential opposition research is often conducted by or funded by a political party, lobbying group, political action committee (PAC), or a 527 group that coalesces around a certain issue. In the U.S., both the Republican and Democratic parties employ full-time "Directors of Research" and maintain databases on opponents. In recent years the task of opposition research has been privatized in many areas. Full-time companies with permanent staff specializing in media productions or "grassroots" operations have replaced volunteers and campaign officials. Political media consultants may also opt for astroturfing techniques, which simulate wide popular appeal for a candidate's platform.
In presidential elections
Opponents of Andrew Jackson in the 1824 and 1828 presidential elections unearthed his marriage records to imply that he was an adulterer for marrying Rachel Robards before she was legally divorced from her first husband. Jackson had married her in 1791 on the strength of a statement from her husband that he had divorced her; Jackson had two wedding ceremonies, the not-recognizable one of 1791 and the legally corrective one of 1794. His political opponents used this information decades later against him, and he fought many duels over his wife's honor. Rachel Robards died before Jackson took office in his first term; he maintained that the stress of the opposition had killed her.[18]
In 1858, William Herndon, the law partner of Abraham Lincoln, did research in the Illinois State Library to collect "all the ammunition Mr. Lincoln saw fit to gather" to prepare for the run against Stephen A. Douglas in the 1860 presidential race.[19]
In preparation for Ronald Reagan's debate with President Jimmy Carter in the presidential race 1980, Reagan's campaign staff acquired under mysterious circumstances a 200-page briefing book, including information on Carter's strategy, which staffers David Stockmanand David Gergen had used to prepare Reagan. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department investigated to see how the information had been obtained by the Reagan camp. Two law professors filed suit in federal district court in Washington to request a special investigation, based on the 1978 Ethics in Government Act.[20] Carter's staff believed the book to have been stolen from the White House, but the inquiry did not uncover any credible evidence that any law had been violated. The House of Representatives conducted its own investigation, and concluded in a 2,314-page report that the Reagan staff had two copies of the book, one from Reagan's campaign director William J. Casey, future head of the Central Intelligence Agency.[21] James Baker attributed the acquisition of the documents to Casey, who claimed to know nothing about them, and an analysis of Carter campaign documents found in the "Afghanistan" files of Reagan aide David Gergen indicated they came from three White House offices: the National Security Council, Vice President Walter Mondale and Domestic Adviser Stuart Eizenstat.[22] Many years afterward, Carter himself stated in a PBS interview that the book had been taken by columnist George Will, but Will denied it, calling Carter "a recidivist liar."[23]
Lee Atwater is considered to be the "father" of modern aggressive "oppo" techniques. Atwater honed his style working in his native South Carolina for Senator Strom Thurmond and to elect Congressman (later Governor) Carroll Campbell. From his posts on the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Atwater encouraged and helped direct what was then the advanced oppo work of the Republican National Committee against Democrats Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. During the 1988 presidential campaign, dozens of RNC researchers worked three shifts around the clock to feed the then-burgeoning 24-hour news cycle. The now-infamous "Willie Horton" TV ads crafted by Floyd Brown helped turn voters away from Dukakis and towards the Republican, although Atwater and Bush were protected by plausible deniability because Brown's ads were independently funded and produced. Academic research into the Bush archives decades later revealed that a Bush staffer, Candice Strother, had released a dossier of information on Willie Horton to Elizabeth Fediay, of the non-profit group that contracted for the ad.[24] (The Horton story had been completely public for an entire year, part of news coverage that won a Pulitzer Prize for the Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune newspaper.) Willie Horton was an African-American convicted murderer released on a weekend furlough during Governor Dukakis's tenure, who escaped and committed a brutal rape in Maryland, also stabbing his victim's husband.[25] Atwater is also credited with originating "push polls" and "whisper campaigns" that use disinformation strategies to alienate voters from opponents. A biography of Atwater, quotes him as saying in an interview toward the end of his life that he regretted some of his less ethical techniques.[26]
In the 1992 presidential campaign, Republicans reported that they spent $6 million on a "state of the art (opposition research) war machine" to investigate Bill Clinton, who was running against George H. W. Bush. In the same election, the Clinton campaign paid more than $100,000 to a private investigator to look into allegations about Clinton's womanizing, investigating more than two dozen women.[27]
In the 2000 presidential election, longtime opposition researcher and Nixon loyalist Roger Stone was recruited by former Secretary of State James Baker to oversee the recount of the disputed Presidential election in Miami-Dade County in 2000. Stone is credited with organizing the street demonstrations and eventual shut-down of the recount in that pivotal county.[28]
In the 2004 presidential race, Chris Lehane, a Democratic opposition researcher attracted notoriety and built a reputation not for deploying his skills against Republican opponents, but for using them against other Democrats in the primary races. Working for retired Army general Wesley Clark, Lehane sought to establish a media "narrative" that Howard Dean was hypocritical and dishonest, based on surveys of his administrative archive as governor of Vermont.[29]
A protege of Atwater's, Karl Rove, is considered to be the "architect" of George W. Bush's election to the governor's office in Texas, and to the presidency in 2000 and 2004. In the 2000 race, Rove is credited with masterminding the push poll that initiated the "John McCainhas a black love child" whisper campaign in South Carolina.[30] Anonymous telephone pollsters, upon determining that a voter was pro-McCain, asked the question, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered a black child out of wedlock?" The question was not overt slander, but it prompted the president of Bob Jones University to launch his own internet campaign against McCain, and succeeded in crippling the trust of voters McCain had attracted. The Bush camp knew, as the general public did not, that in reality, John McCain was the adoptive father of a dark-skinned Bangladeshi refugee who was rescued by his wife Cindi.[31]
In the 2008 presidential election, opposition researchers for Barack Obama unearthed the fact that John Edwards had paid $400 for haircuts at campaign expense, and supplied Politico's Ben Smith with the tip, according to a memoir later published by campaign manager David Plouffe.[32] Though the Democratic National Committee continues to fund a research department, after the 2008 presidential election, the New York Times reported that "The legacy of the Democratic National Committee itself is hardly clear going forward. Mr. Obama effectively subsumed all the responsibilities in his campaign: fundraising, voter turn-out and opposition research.[33]
Franklin Roosevelt Administration: In 1940, the White House accidentally taped a conversation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt instructing a lower level aide to disseminate a rumor about his opponent Wendell Willkie having an extramarital affair: "We can't have any of our principal speakers refer to it, but the people down the line can get it out."[34]
Johnson Administration: In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent 30 FBI agents to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., to avert assassination attempts, and to monitor his political rival Robert Kennedy and civil rights activists. Johnson later also placed his Republican challenger, Barry Goldwater, under FBI surveillance, with a federal wiretap.[35]
Nixon Administration: During the Richard Nixon administration, White House staffers compiled lists of names of political opponents, journalists who had criticized Nixon, and artists and actors (such as Jane Fonda and Paul Newman) who had dissented with Nixon policy, especially on the subject of Vietnam, with the intent of prompting Internal Revenue Service investigations. The full extent of Nixon's surveillance of private citizens solely on the basis of their dissent was not known until years after Nixon was forced to resign, as former staff members such as Charles Colson and John Dean began to disclose details.[citation needed] Nixon's Enemies List is the informal name of what started as a list of President Richard Nixon's major political opponents compiled by Charles Colson, written by George T. Bell [1] (assistant to Colson, special counsel to the White House) and sent in memorandum form to John Dean on September 9, 1971. The list was part of a campaign officially known as "Opponents List" and "Political Enemies Project." The official purpose, as described by the White House Counsel's Office, was to "screw" Nixon's political enemies, by means of tax audits from the IRS, and by manipulating "grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc."[36]
Ford Administration: During the Gerald Ford presidency, Deputy Assistant Dick Cheney suggested in a now-infamous memo to Donald Rumsfeld that the White House use the United States Justice Department to conduct opposition research and retaliate against political opponents and critical journalists such as Seymour Hersh and the New York Times, arguing that the executive branch had the power to prosecute journalists as they saw fit, under the provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917.[37]
Reagan Administration: In 1984, during the Ronald Reagan presidency, the Republican National Committee formed The Opposition Research Group, with its own budget of $1.1 million. These staff amassed information on eight Democratic presidential candidates based on data from voting records, Congressional Record speeches, media clippings and transcripts, campaign materials, all of which was stored on a computer for easy access. In this way the Reagan team was able to track inconsistencies and attack them. This original data base evolved into a network that linked information gleaned by Republicans in all 50 states, creating a master data base accessible to high-ranking Republican staff, even aboard Air Force One.[38] Though this RNC database was accessible to both the Reagan White House and campaign team, no evidence has surfaced that U.S. federal dollars funded The Opposition Research Group or its efforts.
Clinton Administration: During the Bill Clinton administration, the "Filegate" scandal erupted when White House staffers said to be acting on the directions of First Lady Hillary Clinton improperly accessed 500 FBI files compiled for security checks of Reagan and Bush staffers in previous administrations. Craig Livingstone, said to be hired by Mrs. Clinton with dubious credentials, resigned amid public outcry. In testimony under oath during the Kenneth Starr special prosecutor's investigation, Mrs. Clinton stated that she had neither hired Livingstone nor improperly perused the files.[39]
George W. Bush Administration: Two former opposition researchers for the RNC appointed to Justice Department posts, Timothy Griffin and Monica Goodling, were implicated in efforts to use data collected on Democratic-appointed federal attorneys as ground for dismissal. See Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. See also Karl Rove. Also during this administration, Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), an intelligence gathering arm of the Pentagon was disbanded in 2008, after investigations into the bribery activities directed at Duke Cunningham revealed that the U.S. government kept a sizeable database of information about 126 domestic peace activist groups, including Quakers, about 1,500 "suspicious incidents" including peace demonstrations outside armed forces recruiter offices, even though the groups posed no specified threat to national security. The program was known as Talon. About two years elapsed between the program's disbanding and the Post report. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed "official" as saying,"On the surface, it looks like things in the database that were determined not to be viable threats were never deleted but should have been," the official said. "You can also make the argument that these things should never have been put in the database in the first place until they were confirmed as threats."[40]
Barack Obama Administration: In February 2009, Shauna Daly, a former opposition researcher for the Democratic National Committee was appointed as a researcher for the White House's Office of Legal Counsel. Daly was Barack Obama's deputy research director during the presidential campaign, spent much of the cycle rebutting viral online attacks on Obama's character and biography under the rubric of "Stop the Smears." Shortly thereafter, amid speculations that she would be conducting research against political opponents, she was reassigned as Research Director to the DNC. Politico.com reported on February 27, 2009 that "the counsel's office – which doesn't face the sort of rapid-response demands that were common in the late Clinton years – doesn't plan to fill the research post."[41]The American Spectator reported on its "Washington Prowler" blog that Daly was posted in the White House Counsel's Office for "about a month," and thus had access to "reams of Bush administration documents related to such things as the firings of U.S. Attorney, the use and internal debate over the USA PATRIOT Act, FISA and the Scooter Libby and Karl Rove investigations. The "Prowler" quoted "a DNC staffer" as saying, "She realized that she could do more with all the material she saw outside of the building than inside where she'd be bound by the rules and legalities of the White House Counsel's Office. Now she isn't. She's good at what she does; her time at the White House means we've got a mother load (sic) of material that will have Republicans scrambling. At least that's what we hope."[42]
In 1916, after President Woodrow Wilson nominated Louis Brandeis for the Supreme Court, "concerned" citizens seeking to block his confirmation offered information that Brandeis was a "radical Zionist," even though he was not a practicing Jew. Brandeis aggressively outmaneuvered his detractors by mounting his own opposition research efforts, including a carefully constructed chart that exposed the social and financial connections of the group, mostly from Boston's Back Bay, and including Harvard president Lawrence Lowell, as well as a group headed by former President William Howard Taft and a host of American Bar Association past presidents. Brandeis sent the chart to Walter Lippman at the New Republic who penned an editorial condemning "the most homogeneous, self-centered, and self-complacent community in the United States." Brandeis was confirmed after four months of hearings, in a Senate vote of 47–22.[43]
Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987, prompting a Senate floor speech from Democratic Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, which later became known as the "Robert Bork's America" speech:
Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is – and is often the only – protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.
Kennedy's speech prompted a rapid-response opposition research effort from Democrats, but the White House waited two and a half months to respond. The Senate Judiciary Committee, under the direction of Delaware senator and presidential hopeful Joseph Biden, commissioned a report in response to the materials Reagan's staff had released in support of Bork's nomination. Prepared by a panel of lawyers, including two Duke University law professors, the 78-page became known as "The Biden Report." The report detailed Bork's record, and analyzed the pattern of his rulings, and deeming him to be a conservative "activist" rather than an impartial jurist Ultimately, Bork's embattled nomination failed, and Anthony Kennedy (no relation to Ted) was later confirmed to fill the position.[44][45] The fierce research-based opposition to Bork's nomination attracted significant media attention, even though a Gallup Poll on the eve of the confirmation vote showed that very few Americans could name the nominee in question, much less recall his rulings.[46] A new verb was later coined; "to bork" a candidate or nominee by mounting such voluminous research and vocal opposition that the person in question would be forced to withdraw.[47]
After President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Boston Globe reported that Republican conservative advocacy groups were conducting opposition research against her: "Groups are circulating lists of questions they want members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask Miers at her confirmation hearings. The activists' thinly veiled hope is that Miers will reveal ignorance of the law and give senators a reason to oppose her."[48] Miers later withdrew her name from consideration for the court.
On July 7, 2005, soon after the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Democratic National Committee gathered and circulated information on the "anti-civil rights" and "anti-immigrant" rulings of Samuel A. Alito, Jr., by then nominated by President George W. Bush to replace her. Upon inspection, the documents were revealed to have been amended by Devorah Adler, research director for the DNC. Alito's "record" had been pointedly altered to present him in a negative light. While the incident was not unusual, it received publicity in prominent places because it drew attention to the "meta-data" that is often unwittingly stored in documents that are altered and forwarded electronically.[49]
On May 2, 2009, after Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced his intent to retire from the court, the New York Times reported that Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, had noted that conservatives were "focusing opposition research efforts on 17 women, whom they have divided into two tiers based on their perceived chances."[50]
See Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission.
Seven aides to members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives pleaded guilty on January 7, 2010, to illegal use of state resources for campaign activities, including opposition research against the political opponents of incumbent officeholders during 2007. These seven were Democrats; a total of 25 indictments have been handed down to a mix of Democrats and Republican politicians.[51]
During Lamar Alexander's 2002 campaign for the U.S. Senate, Alexander's campaign staff received an anonymous mailing of a photograph of opponent Bob Clement obviously serving as a board member of a failed bank whose owners had been imprisoned for bank fraud. When the Alexander campaign raised the issue of Clement's financial ties with the convicted felons, Clement denied any connection. When the Alexander campaign produced the photograph as evidence, Clement claimed his role was only an informal advisory one.[52]
In early July 2009 Alaska governor Sarah Palin announced that she would be resigning as governor, partly due to complications from opposition research and ethics inquiries after her inclusion on the 2008 GOP presidential race ballot as John McCain's running mate. At a later news conference Palin told reporters, "Obviously conditions had changed so drastically on August 29, the day I was tapped to be VP," she said. "The opposition research and the games that began there — which I think is the new normal in Alaska politics, until I hand the reins over to Sean Parnell — have been so distracting."[53]
In the Pennsylvania state legislature in July 2009, former state House Democratic Campaign Committee Chair, Rep. Stephen Stetler found himself amidst an investigation when he rejected a plan that would have shifted the job of opposition research from employees on the state payroll to private firms. Attorney General Tom Corbett alleged that millions in public funds were paid to state employees who did such research on the 2006 and 2004 campaigns of Democrats in the state. Stetler left the House after 2006 to become the state's revenue secretary. A former aide, Dan Wiedemer testified before grand jurors that the suggestion to remove politically motivated research from the hands of public employees "was more or less shot down." Though Stetler has not been charged, 12 former House members and members of their staff were charged with diverting public funds for political campaign work.[54] Stetler was among those subpoenaed, said Chuck Ardo, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell. The hearing will be held before President Judge Richard Lewis in September.[55]
In October 2011, a media storm erupted in Australia over the leaking of 'dirt files' compiled by the Liberal National Party and further revelations that a former Australian Labor Party operative had been engaged to help compile the dossiers.[56]
Despite protestations that key party personnel had no knowledge of the dossiers it was later revealed a Liberal National Party opposition research strategist had been compiling the files as part of a SWOT analysis at previous elections which formed the basis of negative attack messaging for a 'rapid response unit'.[57]
In January 2017, the African National Congress (ANC) was exposed when Sihle Bolani filed an affidavit in the Johannesburg High Court, demanding payment for her part in project War Room. The War Room's mandate was to "disempower DA and EFF campaigns" and set a pro-ANC agenda using a range of media, without revealing the ANC's hand.[58]
Mass media ethics
The practice of using tips from opposition research sources was examined in 1994 by Howard Kurtz, media analyst for The Washington Post. Kurtz surveyed the major networks, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and other influential media outlets, and found varying levels of use of oppo research information on David Hale as a witness in the Whitewater controversy. At this time, Brown confirmed that he had been the source of four mainstream media stories that had received attention from the Columbia Journalism Review because they bore striking resemblance to the opposition research being disseminated by Citizens United.[59]
"Far from being detached observers, reporters constantly call oppo staffs looking for tidbits and sometimes trading information," wrote three reporters, Matthew Cooper, Gloria Borger, and Michael Barone, for U.S. News & World Report in 1992.[60]
Political infighting
In spring 2007, Roger Stone, a political consultant in the employ of New York state senator Joseph Bruno, resigned after leaving threatening phone messages on the answering machine of the 85-year-old father of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, alleging that Spitzer's campaign finances were conducted improperly.[61] In November of that same year, Stone sent a letter to the FBI detailing Spitzer's sexual preferences with prostitutes and sexual props, right down to his black calf-length socks.[62] Stone was considered to be an authoritative source because he frequented the same prostitutes himself as a client. A subsequent Justice Department investigation produced evidence that ultimately led to Spitzer's resignation as governor. Bruno, Stone's client, has been a longtime political enemy of Spitzer.
The television show House of Cards depicts many examples of opposition research, particularly the character of Doug Stamper, the loyal adviser to Francis "Frank" Underwood, who regularly engages in the practice with little morality and few ethics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_research
For other people with similar names, see Christopher Steel (disambiguation).
24 June 1964 (age 54)
Aden, South Arabia (now Yemen)
Girton College, Cambridge (BA)
Secret Intelligence Service(1987–2009)
Private intelligence consultant
Christopher David Steele (born 24 June 1964) is a British former intelligence officer with the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009. He ran the Russia desk at MI6 headquarters in London between 2006 and 2009. In 2009 he co-founded Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based private intelligence firm.
Steele authored a dossier that claims Russia collected a file of compromising information on U.S. President Donald Trump.[1][2]
It has been claimed[3][4] by President Donald Trump and his supporters that U.S. intelligence community probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election were launched due to Steele's dossier.[5] The House Intelligence Committee, then in Republican control, concluded in an April 2018 report that the probe was triggered based on information on Trump adviser George Papadopoulos; meanwhile the February 2018 Nunes memo written by staff members for that committee also reached the same conclusion.[6][7]
Christopher David Steele was born in the Yemeni city of Aden (then part of the Federation of South Arabia), on 24 June 1964.[8][9] His parents, Perris and Janet, had met while working at the Met Office, the United Kingdom's national weather service. His paternal grandfather was a coal miner from Pontypridd in Wales.[10] Steele spent time growing up in Aden, the Shetland Islands, and Cyprus, as well as at Wellington College, Berkshire.[10]
Steele matriculated at Girton College, Cambridge in 1982. While at the University of Cambridge, he wrote for the student newspaper, Varsity.[8][10][11] In the Easter term of 1986, Steele was President of The Cambridge Union debating society.[12][13] He graduated with a degree in Social and Political Sciences in 1986.[14]
Steele was recruited by MI6 directly following his graduation from Cambridge, working in London at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) from 1987 to 1989.[9] From 1990 to 1993, Steele worked under diplomatic cover as an MI6 agent in Moscow, serving at the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Moscow.[8][13][15] Steele was an "internal traveller", visiting newly-accessible cities such as Samara and Kazan.[10][16][17]
He returned to London in 1993, working again at the FCO until his posting with the British Embassy in Paris in 1998, where he served under diplomatic cover until 2002. But Steele's identity as an MI6 officer and a hundred and sixteen other British spies had their cover blown by an anonymously published list that Her Majesty's Government attempted to suppress through a DSMA-Notice in 1999.[18][8][15][19][20][21]
In 2003, Steele was sent to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan as part of an MI6 team, briefing Special Forces on "kill or capture" missions for Taliban targets, and also spent time teaching new MI6 recruits.[15] Steele returned to London and between 2006 and 2009 he headed the Russia Desk at MI6.[8][10][13][22]
Steele's expertise on Russia remained valued, and he served as a senior officer under John Scarlett, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), from 2004 to 2009.[22] Steele was selected as case officer for Alexander Litvinenko and participated in the investigation of the Litvinenko poisoning in 2006.[15] It was Steele who quickly realised that Litvinenko's death "was a Russian state 'hit'".[22] Twelve years later he allegedly was included himself into a hit list of the Russian Federal Security Service, along with Sergei Skripal who was poisoned in 2018 by a binary chemical weapon Novichok in Britain.[23]
Since 2009 Steele has not been to Russia, or visited any former Soviet states and in 2012, an Orbis informant quoted an FSB-agent describing him as an "enemy of Mother Russia".[8] Steele has refrained from travelling to the United States since his identity became public, citing the political and legal situation.[24]
Steele has worked with Oleg Deripaska.[25]
In March 2009, Steele with his fellow MI6-retiree Chris Burrows co-founded the private intelligence agency Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd., based in Grosvenor Square Gardens.[26][13] Between 2014 and 2016, Steele created over 100 reports on Russian and Ukrainian issues, which were read within the United States Department of State, and he was viewed as credible by the United States intelligence community.[10] The business was commercially successful, grossing approximately $20,000,000 in the first nine years of operation.[8]
Steele ran an investigation dubbed "Project Charlemagne", which noted Russian interference in the domestic politics of France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.[8] Steele concluded in April 2016 that Russia was engaged in an information warfarecampaign with the goal of destroying the European Union.[8]
In 2017, Steele established a new company called Chawton Holdings, again with Christopher Burrows.[27] In November 2018, Steele sued the German industrial group Bilfinger, alleging that the company owed €150,000 for an investigation into Bilfinger's activities in Nigeria and Sakhalin.[28]
FIFA research
In 2010, The Football Association (FA), England's domestic football governing body, organized a committee in hopes of hosting the 2018 or 2022 World Cups.[29] The FA hired Steele's company to investigate FIFA (International Federation of Association Football). In advance of the FBI launching its 2015 FIFA corruption case, members of the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force met with Steele in London to discuss allegations of possible corruption in FIFA.[26][30] Steele's research indicated that Russian Deputy Prime MinisterIgor Sechin had rigged the bidding of the 2018 World Cups by employing bribery.[8]
Trump dossier
Main article: Trump–Russia dossier
Background and information gathering
In September 2015, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication, retained the services of Fusion GPS, a private Washington D.C. political research firm, to conduct research on several primary Republican Party candidates including candidate Trump. The research was unrelated to Russia and was ended once Trump was determined to be the presidential nominee.
The firm was subsequently hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through their shared attorney at Perkins Coie, Marc Elias. Fusion GPS then hired Steele[31] to investigate Trump's Russia-related activities.[26] According to CNN, Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee took over the financing of the inquiry into Donald Trump and produced what became known as the Trump dossier.[32]
In July 2016, Steele supplied a report he had written to an FBI agent in Rome.[33] His contact at the FBI was the same senior agent with whom he had worked when investigating the FIFA scandal.[15][8]
In September 2016, Steele held a series of off the record meetings with journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo! News, The New Yorker and CNN.[10] In October 2016, Steele spoke about his discoveries to David Corn of the progressive American political magazine Mother Jones. Steele said he decided to pass his dossier to both British and American intelligence officials after concluding that the material should not just be in the hands of political opponents of Trump, but was a matter of national security for both countries.[34] Corn's resulting 31 October article in Mother Jones was the first to publicly mention the dossier, although the article did not disclose Steele's identity.[34] The magazine did not publish the dossier itself, however, or detail its allegations, since they could not be verified.[35]
Post-election work on the dossier
Steele continued to work for Fusion GPS on the dossier without a client to pay him.[36] After the election, Steele's dossier "became one of Washington's worst-kept secrets, and journalists worked to verify the allegations.[36] On 18 November 2016, Sir Andrew Wood, British ambassador to Moscow from 1995 to 2000, met with U.S. Senator John McCain at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, and told McCain about the existence of the collected materials about Trump.[37] Wood vouched for Steele's professionalism and integrity.[38] In early December, McCain obtained a copy of the dossier from David J. Kramer, a former U.S. State Department official working at Arizona State University.[36] On 9 December 2016, McCain met personally with FBI Director James Comey to pass on the information.[37]
In a second memo Steele wrote in November 2016, after the termination of his contract with Fusion, he reported that Russian officials had claimed that Russia had blocked Donald Trump from nominating Mitt Romney to be his Secretary of State, due to Romney's hawkishness on Russia.[8][39]
Revealed identity
On 11 January 2017, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Steele was the author of the dossier about Trump, citing "people familiar with the matter".[2] Although the dossier's existence had been "common knowledge" among journalists for months at that point and had become public knowledge during the previous week, Steele's name had not been revealed. The Telegraph asserted that Steele's anonymity had been "fatally compromised" after CNN published his nationality.[31]
The Independent reported that Steele left his home in England several hours before his name was published as the author of the dossier, as he was fearful of retaliation by Russian authorities.[31] In contrast, The Washington Post reported that he left after he had been identified earlier in the day by the initial Wall Street Journal report.[40]
Christopher Burrows, director of Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd., said he would not "confirm or deny" that Orbis had produced the dossier.[41]
Steele's relationship with the FBI ended, variously associated with either the public revelation of Steele's identity, or Steele's release of information to the press, or Steele's denial to the FBI of having spoken to the press.[42][43] One source dates this event to late October 2016.[44]
On 7 March 2017, as some members of the United States Congress were expressing interest in meeting with or hearing testimony from Steele, he reemerged after weeks in hiding, appearing publicly on camera and stating, "I'm really pleased to be back here working again at the Orbis's offices in London today".[45]
Disclosure and reactions
In early January 2017, a two-page summary of the Trump dossier was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in meetings with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.[46]
On 10 January 2017, BuzzFeed was the first media outlet to publish the full 35-page dossier. In publishing the Trump dossier, BuzzFeed stated that it had been unable to verify or corroborate the allegations.[47] The UK issued a DSMA notice on 10 January 2017, requesting that the media not release Steele's identity,[48] although the BBC and other UK news media released the information in news stories the same day.[16] Trump vigorously denied the dossier's allegations, calling it fake news during a press conference.[49] Vladimir Putin also dismissed the claims.[50]
Ynet, an Israeli online news site, reported that American intelligence advised Israeli intelligence officers to be cautious about sharing information with the incoming Trump administration, until the possibility of Russian influence over Trump, suggested by Steele's report, has been fully investigated.[51]
Former British ambassador to Russia, Sir Tony Brenton, read Steele's report. Speaking on Sky News he said, "I've seen quite a lot of intelligence on Russia, and there are some things in it which look pretty shaky". Brenton expressed some doubts due to discrepancies in how the dossier described aspects of the hacking activities, as well as Steele's ability to penetrate the Kremlin and Russian security agencies, given that he is an outsider.[52]
On 15 March 2017, former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell raised questions about the dossier. He was concerned about the accuracy of the information, due to the approach taken by Steele to gather it. Steele gave money to intermediaries and the intermediaries paid the sources. Morell said, "Unless you know the sources, and unless you know how a particular source acquired a particular piece of information, you can't judge the information – you just can't". Morell continues to believe that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[53]
Role in the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation
Although the dossier later became one factor among many in the Russia investigation, it had no role in the start of the investigation. This fact has been the subject of intense discussion and controversy, largely fueled by false claims made by Trump and his supporters.[54][55][56]
In early February 2018, the Nunes memo, written by aides of Republican U.S. Representative Devin Nunes (who was at the time the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee), described that the information on George Papadopoulos "triggered the opening of" the original FBI investigation in late July 2016 into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.[57] In late February 2018, a rebuttal memo by Democrats in the House Intelligence Committee stated that "Christopher Steele's reporting … played no role in launching the counterintelligence investigation … In fact, Steele's reporting did not reach the counterintelligence team investigating Russia at FBI headquarters until mid-September 2016, more than seven weeks after the FBI opened its investigation, because the probe's existence was so closely held within the FBI."[58][59]
In April 2018, the House Intelligence Committee, then in Republican control, released a final report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential American election, which stated that the House Intelligence Committee found that "in late July 2016, the FBI opened an enterprise CI [counterintelligence] investigation into the Trump campaign following the receipt of derogatory information about foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos".[6][7][60]
Role in subsequent investigations
In the summer of 2017, two Republican staffers for the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence travelled to London to investigate the dossier, visiting the office of Steele's lawyer but not meeting with Steele.[61] In August 2018, RepresentativeDevin Nunes, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, travelled to London in an attempt to meet with the heads of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ for information about Steele, but was rebuffed by the three agencies.[62][63]
Steele reportedly revealed the identities of the sources used in the dossier to the FBI.[64] Investigators from Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation team met with Steele in September 2017 to interview him about the dossier's claims.[65][66] The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is in continued contact with lawyers representing Steele.[67]
On April 5, 2019 the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Walter Soriano the owner of USG Security Limited based in Britain and Israel for his communication with Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Psy-Group,Wikistrat, and Black Cube, Orbis Business Intelligence(a firm co-founded by Christopher Steele).[68][69]
In February 2017, lawyers for Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev filed a libel suit against Steele in London. Gubarev claimed he was defamed by allegations in the dossier.[70]
In August 2017, lawyers for Gubarev demanded Steele give a deposition regarding the dossier, as part of a libel lawsuit against BuzzFeed News[71][72][73] filed in February.[74] Steele objected to testifying but his objections were rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Mancusi Ungaro, who allowed the deposition to proceed.[75][76][74]
In April 2018, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and German Khan – the owners of Alfa Bank – filed a libel suit against Steele, who mentioned the bank in the Trump–Russia dossier. The lawsuit is filed in Washington D.C.[77] The lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Anthony C. Epstein on August 20, 2018.[78][79]
Senate Republicans' referral for a criminal investigation[edit]
Senate Judiciary Committee Interview of Glenn Simpson
House Intelligence Committee Interview of Glenn Simpson
On 5 January 2018, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, joined by senior Republican member Lindsey Graham, issued a criminal referral regarding Steele to the Justice Department for it to investigate whether Steele had lied to the FBI about his interactions with the media.[80][81][82][83] Because the referral is based on classified FBI documents, the context in which the Republican senators allege Steele to have lied is limited to references that he discussed the dossier with media outlets.[83] Both Grassley and Graham declared that they were not alleging that Steele "had committed any crime. Rather, they had passed on the information for 'further investigation only'".[84]
The referral was met with skepticism from legal experts, as well as members of both parties on the Judiciary Committee.[82] Fusion GPS lawyer Joshua A. Levy said that the referral was just another effort to discredit the investigation into Russian interference in the election and that: "After a year of investigations into Donald Trump's ties to Russia, the only person Republicans seek to accuse of wrongdoing is one who reported on these matters to law enforcement in the first place".[82] Veteran prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg called the referral "nonsense" because "the FBI doesn't need any prompting from politicians to prosecute people who have lied to them."[82] Another former federal prosecutor, Justin Dillon said that "it was too early to assume the letter was simply a political attack". The senior Democrat on the Committee, Dianne Feinstein, said that the referral was made without consultation of any Democrats on the committee and released a five-page rebuttal.[85] A Republican aide said that Grassley and Graham were "carrying water for the White House"; that their actions did not reflect the views of the committee as a whole; and that other members were upset with Grassley over the matter.[82]
In an opinion-editorial for Politico, former CIA official John Sipher said that the attacks on Steele, a private citizen who provided information to the FBI that alarmed him, will make future tipsters less likely to approach American law enforcement with information that bears on national security.[86]
His first wife, Laura, with whom he had three children, died in 2009 after a long illness. He remarried in 2012; he and his second wife Katherine had one child and are raising all four children together.[8] He currently lives in Farnham, Surrey.[8]
Sipher, John (5 February 2018). "The Smearing of Christopher Steele." Politico.
Hamburger, Tom; Helderman, Rosalind S. (6 February 2018). "Hero or hired gun? How a British former spy became a flash point in the Russia investigation." The Washington Post.
Mayer, Jane (12 March 2018). "Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier". The New Yorker.
Home page for Orbis Business Intelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Steele
Fusion GPS
Glenn R. Simpson
www.fusiongps.com
Fusion GPS is a commercial research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington, D.C. The company conducts open-source investigations and provides research and strategic advice for businesses, law firms and investors, as well as for political inquiries, such as opposition research.[1] The "GPS" initialism is derived from "Global research, Political analysis, Strategic insight".[2]
The company was co-founded in 2011 by Glenn R. Simpson, a former investigative reporter and journalist for Roll Call and The Wall Street Journal; Peter Fritsch, former Wall Street Journal senior editor; and former Wall Street Journal journalist Thomas Catan.[3]
Opposition research on Mitt Romney
Fusion GPS was hired in 2012 to do opposition research on U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney.[3] In February 2012, the magazine Mother Jones published an article on Frank VanderSloot and his company Melaleuca, who combined had given $1 million to a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney. After the article was published, an intern at Fusion GPS did a search of Idaho court records on VanderSloot by phone and fax. In January 2013, VanderSloot sued Mother Jones for defamation in the February 2012 article. In the course of the litigation, VanderSloot deposed Fusion GPS founder Simpson on the "theory that Mother Jones conspired with Obama's team to defame VanderSloot".[4][5][6] The seventh Judicial District Court of the State of Idaho dismissed the lawsuit in 2015.[7]
In August 2015, Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS to defensively investigate the veracity of a series of undercover videos released by anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt from The Center for Medical Progress that they claim showed Planned Parenthood officials agreeing to sell fetal tissues obtained through abortions to medical researchers. Fusion GPS hired video and transcription experts to analyze the videos and summarized the findings in a forensic report.[8] The report claimed that the "unedited" videos posted by activists had been "heavily edited". The anti-abortion activists attributed the gaps to "bathroom breaks and waiting periods."[9] The report was provided to U.S. congressional leadership as evidence as they were considering funding and other issues related to Planned Parenthood operations.[10]
After a grand jury declined to indict Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing, on March 28, 2017, Daleiden and Merritt were charged with 15 felonies in the State of California – one for each of the people whom they had filmed without consent, and one for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy.[10] On 21 June 2017, fourteen of these charges were dismissed, with leave to amend, on the grounds that they were legally insufficient.[11] On June 30, 2017, state prosecutors refiled the 14 dismissed charges with numerical identifications for each video.[12][13] On August 24, 2017, the San Francisco Superior Court rejected new defense motions to dismiss the charges and allowed the case to proceed. Daleiden then pleaded not guilty, while Merritt did not enter a plea at the time.[13]
Prevezon Holding
In 2013, the US Department of Justice, represented by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, sued Prevezon Holding, a Republic of Cyprus corporation registered in New York State as a foreign business corporation, under the Magnitsky Act for money-laundering part of $230 million stolen. The lawsuit sought forfeiture of various assets and real estate holdings in the US.[14][15] In May 2017, two months after President Trump had dismissed Bharara, the lawsuit was settled for $6 million, less than half what Bhahara sought[16], without Prevezon admitting to any wrongdoing and with both sides claiming victory.[14][17]
The sole shareholder of Prevezon was Russian citizen Denis Katsyv, whose father is Petr Katsyv, vice president of Russia's state-run rail monopoly and "reportedly a business associate of Vladimir Yakunin, a confidant of Vladimir Putin".[15][18] Katsyv's Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was not licensed to practice in the US, and Katsyv hired the law firm of BakerHostetler to represent Prevezon; BakerHostetler hired Fusion GPS in early 2014 to provide research help for the litigation.[19][20][18][21]
On October 18, 2016, the appellate court disqualified BakerHostetler from the case because they had represented Bill Browder's hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management for nine months in 2008/2009 when the U.S. Justice Department was investigating a tax fraud scheme in Russia involving "co-opted Hermitage portfolio companies". The U.S. Justice Department had argued that Hermitage Capital was a victim of the tax fraud and that BakerHofstetler's prior work on behalf of Hermitage Capital created a conflict of interest.[22][19] As part of their litigation support for BakerHostetler and their client Verezon, Fusion GPS investigated Browder, a witness central to the U.S. Justice Department's case.[23]
On July 27, 2017, Fusion GPS accused the White House of trying to "smear" it for investigating the president's alleged ties to Russia. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed to Browder's testimony as vindication of Trump's claims that ongoing investigations into potential ties between his campaign and Moscow are political ploys to undermine his presidency. Fusion GPS countered that it worked only with a law firm in New York "to provide support for civil litigation" unrelated to Russian efforts to do away with the Magnitsky Act, saying it had no reason to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).[24]
Browder lodged a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department in 2016 that Fusion GPS may have lobbied "for Russian interests in a campaign to oppose the pending Global Magnitsky Act [and] failed to register under [U.S. law]".[20][25] The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (not to be confused with the Magnitsky Act) is a human rights law passed on December 23, 2016.[26] It is also named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor working for Browder who died in a Russian prison after uncovering a corruption scheme that he was then charged with having helped concoct.[18]
On March 30, 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa called for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into purported connections between Fusion GPS and Russia, and an inquiry as to whether Fusion GPS was acting as an unregistered foreign agent. The company denied the claims that they were engaged in lobbying or had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[25][20] According to the Washington Post′s "Fact Checker" column, there is "no evidence that the Russian government paid for Fusion's work on the Prevezon defense at the same time Fusion investigated Trump's business dealings in Russia."[27]
Trump dossier and Christopher Steele
In September 2015, Fusion GPS was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative political website, to do opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. In spring 2016 when Trump had emerged as the probable Republican candidate, the Free Beacon stopped funding investigation into Trump.[28] From April 2016 through October 2016, the law firm Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, retained Fusion GPS to continue opposition research on Trump.[29][30][31] In June 2016, Fusion GPS retained Christopher Steele, a private British corporate intelligence investigator and former MI-6 agent, to research any Russian connections to Trump. Steele produced a 35-page series of memos from June to December 2016, which became the document known as the Donald Trump–Russia dossier.[29][32] Fusion GPS provided Marc Elias, the lead election lawyer for Perkins Coie, with the resulting dossier and other research documents.[30][31]
The firm is being sued for defamation by three Alfa-Bank owners named in the dossier as connected to Putin. German Khan, one of the litigants and one of Russia's wealthiest citizens, is the father-in-law of lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, who was charged in the Mueller probe for making false statements to the FBI.[33] He pleaded guilty to one count and in April 2018 was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a fine of $20,000.[34][35]
House Intelligence Committee investigation
On October 4, 2017, Chairman Devin Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas to the management of the company, demanding documents and testimony in late October and early November 2017. According to a Democratic committee source, the subpoenas were issued unilaterally by the Republican majority of the committee.[36]
On October 18, 2017, the House Intelligence Committee held a private meeting with two executives of Fusion GPS, Peter Fritsch, and Thomas Catan. The purpose was to seek information about their creation of "the opposition-research dossier that makes salacious claims about President Donald Trump's ties to Russia."[37] The meeting was attended by committee staff and a single committee member, Representative Tom Rooney (R-FL). In response to the questions asked at the meeting, Fritsch and Catan invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Their attorney, Joshua Levy, said that prior to the meeting he had informed the committee in writing that his clients would invoke their rights, but they were compelled to appear nevertheless. He added they would cooperate with "serious" investigations but that a "Trump cabal has carried out a campaign to demonize our client for having been tied to the Trump dossier."[37][38]
On October 23, 2017, Fusion GPS filed for a court injunction against Nunes' subpoena seeking the firm's bank records for a period of more than two years, arguing it would damage and possibly destroy the business as well as violate their First Amendment rights.[39] On January 4, 2018 U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon struck down Fusion's application, ruling that Fusion's bank must turn over the financial records subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee; Fusion asked the judge to stay his order because they plan to appeal.[40]
On October 28, 2017, The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative political website, told the House Intelligence Committee that it had retained Fusion GPS's services from 2015 to May 2016, to research Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. The objective was the discovery of damaging information. The Free Beacon and its primary source of funding, hedge fund manager Paul Singer, denied any involvement in the creation of the Steele dossier, pointing out that they had stopped funding research on Trump before Steele was engaged.[28]
On January 2, 2018, the founders of Fusion GPS, Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch, authored an op-ed in The New York Times, requesting that Republicans "release full transcripts of our firm's testimony" and further explaining that, "the Steele dossier was not the trigger for the F.B.I.'s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp."[41]
The committee interviewed Simpson for seven hours on November 14, 2017. The transcript of the interview was released on January 18, 2018.[42][43]
Senate Judiciary Committee investigations
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein made arrangements in July 2017 for Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson to testify before their committee. It was agreed that Simpson would not testify in public but would be interviewed privately.[44][45] The committee wanted to question Simpson about the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). A previous witness, banker and human rights activist Bill Browder, had accused Simpson and Fusion GPS of evading registration as foreign agents for campaigning to influence and overturn the Magnitsky Act.[24] Fusion GPS said through their attorney that they were not required to register under FARA.[24] Senators were expected to also use the hearing "to press Justice Department officials on what they know about Veselnitskaya, Prevezon, Fusion GPS and their connections to both the Trump campaign or the Russian government."[46]
On August 22, 2017, Simpson was questioned for 10 hours by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a closed-door meeting. The Committee did not release a transcript of the hearing, but indicated that Fusion GPS had given more than 40,000 documents for the investigation.[47] Simpson kept the identities of the firm's clients confidential;[48][49] the client names—conservative website The Washington Free Beacon,[28] and a law firm representing the DNC and the Clinton presidential campaign[30]—were revealed in October 2017 as a result of the House Intelligence Committee investigation.
On January 2, 2018, Simpson and Fritsch co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times, requesting the two congressional committees to "release full transcripts of our firm's testimony".[41] On January 8, 2018, a spokesman for Grassley said he did not plan to release the transcript of Simpson's August 22, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.[50] The next day, January 9, 2018, Feinstein unilaterally released the transcript.[51][52]
2016 Democratic National Committee email leak
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_GPS
Online news site
Managing editors
Sonny Bunch, Victorino Matus, Stephanie Wang
Political alignment
The Washington Free Beacon is an American conservative political journalism website launched in 2012. It states that it is "dedicated to uncovering the stories that the powers that be hope will never see the light of day" and producing "in-depth investigative reporting on a wide range of issues, including public policy, government affairs, international security, and media."[1]
The website is financially backed by Paul Singer, an American billionaire hedge fund manager and conservative activist.[2]
The Free Beacon was founded by Michael Goldfarb, Aaron Harrison, and Matthew Continetti, who remains its editor-in-chief. It launched on February 7, 2012, as a project of the 501(c)4 organization Center for American Freedom.[3] In August 2014, it announced it was becoming a for-profit news site.[4]
The site is noted for its conservative reporting, modeled after liberal counterparts in the media such as ThinkProgress and Talking Points Memo, intended to publicize stories and influence the coverage of the mainstream media.[3][5][6] Jack Hunter, a staff member of U.S. Senator Rand Paul's office, resigned in 2013 after a Free Beacon report detailing his past as a radio shock jock known as the "Southern Avenger" who wore a luchador mask of the Confederate flag.[7] The publication also broke several stories about former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's successful 1975 legal defense of an accused child rapist that attracted national media attention.[5][8] In May 2017, it received an award from The Heritage Foundation for its journalism.[9]
From October 2015 to May 2016, the Washington Free Beacon hired Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on "multiple candidates" during the 2016 presidential election, including Donald Trump. The Free Beaconstopped funding this research when Donald Trump had clinched the Republican nomination.[10] Fusion GPS would later hire former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and produce a dossier alleging links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Paul Singer, a billionaire and hedge fund manager, who is a major donor to the Free Beacon, said he was unaware of this dossier until it was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017.[11]On October 27, 2017, the Free Beacon publicly disclosed that it had hired Fusion GPS, and stated that it "had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele."[12]
The Free Beacon came under criticism for its reporting on Fusion GPS. Three days before it was revealed that it was the Free Beacon that had funded the work by Fusion GPS, the Free Beacon wrote that the firm's work "was funded by an unknown GOP client while the primary was still going on."[13] The Free Beacon has also published pieces that have sought to portray the work by Fusion GPS as unreliable "without noting that it considered Fusion GPS reliable enough to pay for its services."[13] In an editor's note, Continetti said "the reason for this omission is that the authors of these articles, and the particular editors who reviewed them, were unaware of this relationship," and that the outlet was reviewing its editorial process to avoid similar issues in the future.[14]
Jim Rutenburg of The New York Times described the reporting style of the Free Beacon as "gleeful evisceration."[15]
Its tactics have also led to attacks from media critics and watchdog groups. The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf called the Free Beacon's mission "decadent and unethical".[16]
Ben Howe wrote in The Daily Beast that the Washington Free Beacon established "itself as a credible source of conservative journalism with deep investigative dives and exposes on money in politics," but that after Trump's election "shifted away from the template they were establishing and more towards the path of least resistance: spending their time criticizing the left and the media, along with healthy doses of opinion writing."[17] McKay Coppins in the Columbia Journalism Review writes of the Free Beacon that while the website contains "a fair amount of trolling… it has also earned a reputation for real-deal journalism…If a partisan press really is the future, we could do worse than the Free Beacon."[18]
Jeet Heer writes in The New Republic of the Free Beacon, "Unlike other comparable conservative websites, the Free Beacon makes an effort to do original reporting. Its commitment to journalism should be welcomed by liberals."[19] In 2015, Mother Jones wrote positively of the Free Beacon, noting that it is far better than contemporary conservative outlets such as The Daily Caller.[20] Mother Jones however noted that "the Beacon hasn't always steered clear of stories that please the base but don't really stand up," and that it pieces inflammatory pieces that "push conservatives' buttons".[20] That same year, the Washingtonian wrote that "The Beacon's emphasis on newsgathering sets it apart among right-facing publications".[21]
Alternative media (U.S. political right)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Free_Beacon
Story 2: Radical Extremist Democrat Polls — Trump Loses — Reality Deniers — Videos —
New poll shows Trump trailing Biden and four other Democrats
Brian KNOWLTON
A nationwide Fox News poll released Sunday shows President Donald Trump trailing former vice president Joe Biden and no fewer than four other Democratic contenders as early campaigning for the 2020 election begins to gain steam.
A separate survey of battleground states, by CBS, shows Democrats strongly favor Biden as the candidate most likely to beat Trump in next year's elections.
The Fox poll showed Biden leading Trump by 49 percent to 39 percent among all registered voters nationwide, while Senator Bernie Sanders held nearly the same advantage over the president, at 49 percent to 40 percent.
Holding edges of 1 or 2 points over Trump — albeit within the poll's 3-point margin of error — were Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana.
The polling comes more than 500 days before the November 3, 2020 election, an eternity in the political world. One widely viewed tweet this week shows five presidential candidates in recent decades who trailed at this point in their campaigns — including Trump — but who went on to win.
The president does not officially launch his re-election campaign until Tuesday, at a rally-style event in a huge arena in Orlando, Florida.
– Battleground states –
Still, the Fox poll, conducted June 9 to June 12, is seen as heartening by Democrats eager to chip away at Trump's popularity, particularly in key battleground states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump's campaign recently dismissed leaked data from its own pollsters showing Biden with double-digit leads in battleground states. The campaign at first denied the data, but then acknowledged it, branding it as "ancient" because it dated from March.
But the new CBS poll confirms a clear Biden lead in battleground states among Democratic voters, as the crowded race for that party's nomination begins to take shape.
A belief among Democratic voters that Biden is best positioned to defeat Trump in 2020 was cited by three-quarters of Democrats as a decisive factor in their support.
https://news.yahoo.com/poll-shows-trump-trailing-biden-four-other-democrats-164318873.html
Story 3: Iran Promises To Break Nuclear Agreement If Sanctions Not Removed — Pathway To Nuclear Bomb and Long Range Missile and War — Videos
Iran says it will breach nuclear deal 'in days' as its uranium stockpile limit nears
Iran threatens to violate nuclear deal
Iran to increase uranium stockpile as US considering 'all options'
Iran nuclear deal: Tehran to lift cap on uranium enrichment | Al Jazeera English
The Heat: US-Iran sanctions
Iran speeds up uranium enrichment as Mideast tensions mount
By NASSER KARIMI and JON GAMBRELL24 minutes ago
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows the oil tanker Front Altair off the coast of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Monday, June 17, 2019. New satellite photos released Monday show two oil tankers apparently attacked in the Gulf of Oman last week. The U.S. alleges Iran used limpet mines to strike the two tankers. Iran has denied being involved. (Satellite image ©2019 Maxar Technologies via AP)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran will surpass the uranium-stockpile limit set by its nuclear deal in the next 10 days, an official said Monday, raising pressure on Europeans trying to save the accord a year after the U.S. withdrawal lit the fuse for the heightened tensions now between Tehran and Washington.
The announcement by Iran's nuclear agency marked yet another deadline set by Tehran. President Hassan Rouhani already has warned Europe that a new deal needs to be in place by July 7 or the Islamic Republic would increase its enrichment of uranium.
Atomic energy spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi suggested that Iran's enrichment could reach up to 20%, just a step away from weapons-grade levels.
It appears as if Iran has begun its own maximum pressure campaign on the world after facing one from President Donald Trump's administration that deeply cut into its sale of crude oil abroad and sent its economy into freefall. Europe has so far been unable to offer Iran a way around the U.S. sanctions.
The development follows apparent attacks last week in the Strait of Hormuz on oil tankers, assaults that Washington has blamed on Iran. While Iran has denied being involved, it laid mines in the 1980s targeting oil tankers around the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world's crude oil passes.
"If this condition continues, there will be no deal" anymore, Kamalvandi said. He accused the Europeans of "killing time" as the clock runs down.
Rouhani, greeting France's new ambassador to Tehran on Monday, similarly warned that time was running out on the deal.
"The current situation is very critical and France and the other parties to the (deal) still have a very limited opportunity to play their historic role for saving the deal," Rouhani said, according to his website.
The announcement appeared timed to strike just as European foreign ministers met in Luxembourg. Federica Mogherini, the European Union's top diplomat, declined to specifically address the Iranian announcement.
"At the moment, as of today, Iran is still technically compliant and we strongly hope, encourage and expect that Iran continues to comply," Mogherini told journalists. She insisted she would await the next report on the issue from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Under terms of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iran can keep a stockpile of no more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of low-enriched uranium. Kamalvandi said that given Iran's recent decision to quadruple its production of low-enriched uranium, it would pass the 300-kilogram limit on Thursday, June 27.
The Vienna-based IAEA said last month that Iran remained within its stockpile limits and declined to comment on Iran's announcement. Kamalvandi said Iran would continue to allow the U.N. to inspect its nuclear facilities for the time being.
He also raised the specter of increasing its enrichment levels, saying Iran needs 5% enriched uranium for its nuclear power plant in southern Iranian port of Bushehr and 20% enriched fuel for its Tehran research reactor.
The nuclear deal limits Iran to enriching uranium only to 3.67%, enough for power plants and other peaceful purposes.
But after America pulled out of the nuclear accord and escalated sanctions, Rouhani set a July 7 deadline for Europe to come up with better terms for the deal or Tehran would boost enrichment further. So far, a European mechanism called INSTEX to protect trade with Iran has yet to take off.
The danger, nuclear nonproliferation experts warn, is that at 20% enrichment, only a fraction of atoms need to be removed to enrich up to weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the 2015 deal grew out of Western concerns about the program.
Under the accord, Iran agreed to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Since Trump took office, the U.S. has steadily stripped away at the accord, and he pulled America out of the deal in May 2018.
However, Iran's announcement that it was on the verge of surpassing the uranium-stockpile limit set by the nuclear agreement put the U.S. is the awkward position of having to push Iran to abide by the deal Trump has disparaged.
"It's unfortunate that they have made this announcement today," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. "It doesn't surprise anybody and this is why the president has often said that the JCPOA needs to be replaced with a better deal."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the international community should reinstate sanctions if Iran follows through on its threats, adding: "In any case, Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons."
Tensions have risen in the region since last month. The U.S. rushed an aircraft carrier strike group and other military assets to the Middle East in response to what it said were threats from Iran.
Meanwhile, a series of mysterious attacks have targeted oil tankers, and the U.S. blames Iranian-laid limpet mines. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen also have launched a series of drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon on Monday released new photos intended to bolster its case that Iran was responsible for the attacks.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which the U.S. suspects in the attacks, answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and operates outside of the traditional military's control.
Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, the chief of the general staff of Iran's armed forces, denied Tehran was involved in the tanker attacks, saying Monday the country only would respond in "an open, strong and severe way" if needed.
But he also reiterated Iran's traditional stance on the Strait of Hormuz.
"If we decide to block the Strait of Hormuz, we will to do it in a way that even a drop of oil won't pass the strait," Bagheri added.
Kamalvandi spoke to Iranian journalists at the country's Arak heavy water nuclear reactor. Such reactors produce plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons. Iran, under the nuclear deal, had reconfigured the facility to address Western concerns on that issue.
However, Kamalvandi said the country could rebuild the facility to make it produce plutonium. He made a point to give an interview to Iranian state television, standing next to the open pit where the reactor would be in the facility.
As the camera panned down to what would be the reactor's core, Kamalvandi stressed that piping could be replaced and the reactor could be built to make plutonium. Hard-liners opposed to the nuclear deal had constantly accused the agency of filling the entire pit with concrete.
"They had previously photoshopped a picture of this place having been filled up with concrete," Kamalvandi said.
He added: "The message that we tried to get across to Europeans today was that not much time is left for them."
https://www.apnews.com/30353bd0f0494522b9f5753e23f3f9b9
ATOMIC THREAT
Iran reveals it will break America's uranium stockpile limits within 10 DAYS dramatically ramping up tensions with Trump
By Jon Lockett
IRAN announced today it intends to smash the strict uranium stockpile limits set under the nuclear deal it struck with the world's leading powers.
The hardline country's shock statement is another blow to a pact already crumbling since the US's high-profile withdrawal.
President Rouhani said his country would stop observing restrictions on its stocks of enriched uraniumCredit: EPA
Donald's Trump's administration has already imposed tough economic sanctions on Tehran.Credit: AFP or licensors
"Today the countdown to pass the 300 kilograms reserve of enriched uranium has started and in 10 days time we will pass this limit," said Iran's atomic energy organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi.
"This is based on the Articles 26 and 36 of the (nuclear deal), and will be reversed once other parties live up to their commitments."
Kamalvandi acknowledged the country has already QUADRUPLED its production of low-enriched uranium.
The news is bound to ramp up tensions between Iran and the West already at breaking point following the shock bomb attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
Many international observers believe the attack was an act of "revenge" by Iran after the White House imposed crippling economic sanctions after Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal.
Just last month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced his country would stop observing restrictions on its stocks of enriched uranium and heavy water agreed under the 2015 deal.
What is the Iran nuclear deal and what happens if it collapses?
The deal is an arrangement between the Islamic Republic and a group of world powers for Iran to abandon its nuclear programme.
Officially it is known as the The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA).
It saw the Middle Eastern nation agree to reduce its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium by 98 per cent.
Enriched uranium is essential for developing nuclear weapons and power stations.
As part of the agreement Iran also agreed to only enrich their uranium up to 3.67 per cent over the next 15 years.
In addition they were barred from building any more heavy-water faculties – a type of nuclear reactor which uses heavy water (deuterium oxide) as a coolant to maintain temperatures in the reactor.
Also under the agreement the International Atomic Energy Agency was granted regular access to all Iranian nuclear facilities to ensure Iran maintains the deal.
The deal said that if Iran abides by it the nation would receive relief from the US, European Union, and the United Nations Security Council on all nuclear-related economic sanctions.
The agreement was reached on July 14 2015 and the world powers signed it in Vienna.
Iran, China, France, Russia, UK, USA, Germany and the EU all signed up to the deal.
If the deal collapses it initially probably means reimposing oil-related sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the terms of the agreement.
He said the move was in retaliation for the unilateral US withdrawal from the accord, which led to Trump's administration imposing the tough sanctions on Tehran.
Under the agreement, Iran pledged to reduce its nuclear capacities and allow inspectors inside the country to monitor its activities in return for relief from international sanctions.
The deal set a limit on the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges, and restricted its right to enrich uranium to no higher than 3.67 per cent -well below weapons-grade levels of around 90 per cent.
It also called on Iran to export enriched uranium and heavy water to ensure that the country's reserves would stay within the production ceiling set by the agreement.
On Sunday Mike Pompeo revealed America is now "considering a full range of options" including using its mighty military amid the rising tensions.
The US Secretary of State spoke out after he accused the hardline state of launching the tanker attacks.
An aerial picture showing the huge blaze raging on the oil tanker after the attackCredit: AP:Associated Press
"The United States is considering a full range of options. We have briefed the President a couple of times, we'll continue to keep him updated," he said.
"We are confident that we can take a set of actions that can restore deterrence which is our mission set," Pompeo said in an interview on CBS's Face The Nation.
When questioned if a military response was one of the options, Pompeo responded: "Of course."
times, we'll continue to keep him updated," he said.
"We are confident that we can take a set of actions that can restore deterrence which is our mission set," Pompeo said in an interview on CBS's 'Face the Nation'.
He then added: "The President will consider everything we need to do to make sure, right? But what's the President said? We don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
US and Iran – a troubled history
Before the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iran was one of America's biggest allies in the Middle East and was led by the US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
However, since the seismic revolt, Iran has been led by murderous Islamic fundamentalists and tensions with Washington have remained ever since.
On November 4, 1979, the Iranian regime took 52 US diplomats hostage in response to President Carter's administration allowing Iran's deposed former leader into America.
The hostage crisis lasted for 444 days and also included a failed rescue mission which cost the lives of eight US soldiers.
In April 1980, the US ended diplomatic relations with Iran – a break which lasted for more than 30 years.
In April 1983, Washington blamed the Iranian-funded terror group Hezbollah for carrying out a bombing attack on the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
The assault, carried out amid a brutal civil war in Lebanon, killed 17 Americans.
In November of that year, two truck bombs in Beruit killed 241 US peace keepers. The US again blamed Hezbollah for the incident.
The Clinton White House, in 1995, placed a total embargo on Iran meaning US companies could not trade with the country.
And in 2002, George W Bush included the Islamic Republic in his famous "Axis of evil" speech along with North Korea and Iraq.
"President Trump has said very clearly, he doesn't want to go to war."
And when asked if the administration had the legal authorisation to strike Iran without approval from Congress, Pompeo said: "We always have the authorisation to defend American interests."
Pompeo's comments came after the two tankers were attacked near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.
Both the Front Altair and the Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous – which was "bombed"– burst into flames and were forced to evacuate the troubled region.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9311290/iran-uranium-limits-nuclear-pact/
US releases photos to bolster claim Iran attacked tankers
By LOLITA C. BALDOR53 minutes ago
Click to copyhttps://apnews.com/e479acedfd38465ab17e15e579f243ad
This image released by the U.S. Department of Defense on Monday, June 17, 2019, and taken from a U.S. Navy helicopter, shows what the Navy says are members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy removing an unexploded limpet mine from the M/T Kokuka Courageous. (U.S. Department of Defense via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — In an effort to bolster its public case against Iran, the Pentagon on Monday released new photos that officials said show that members of Tehran's Revolutionary Guard were responsible for attacks last week on two oil tankers near the Persian Gulf.
The images, many taken from a Navy helicopter, show what the Pentagon said were Iranian forces removing an unexploded mine from the side of the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman.
Officials last week said the move appeared to be an attempt to remove forensic evidence from the scene of the attack. But it's not clear if examination of the mine would have made it definitively clear that the device was planted by the IRGC.
Other photos show a large hole on the side of the Courageous, above the water line, that officials say appears to have been caused by another similar mine.
The release of the photos came as the U.S. works this week to convince members of Congress and allies that the accusations against Tehran are true. Iran has denied involvement in the tanker attacks and has accused America of promoting an "Iranophobic" campaign. Tehran, however, has repeatedly threatened to close the vital Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil flows.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he made a number of calls Sunday and Monday to international leaders, trying to convince them that keeping the Strait of Hormuz safe and open is a problem they all must deal with.
Relations between the U.S. and Iran have deteriorated in recent months, as the Trump administration restored crippling sanctions and designated the Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization.
That increased pressure preceded a string of attacks that the U.S. has blamed on Iran. In late May, four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates were attacked with what appeared to be mines, and there was a rocket attack in Baghdad. Last week, similar attacks were launched against the Courageous and the Norwegian-owned MT Front Altair in the Gulf of Oman.
The U.S. military has also accused Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops of trying but failing to shoot down a U.S. drone to disrupt surveillance of the tankers during the attacks.
https://apnews.com/e479acedfd38465ab17e15e579f243ad
The Pronk Pops Show 1268, June 3, 2019, Story 1: President Trump and First Lady Melanie Meet Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace ; Pomp and Circumstance at Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey — Commemoration of 75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings — State Banquet — Videos — Story 2: Bombshell Fake News Story Out of Context Nasty — Junk Journalism — Videos — Story 3: Comey, McCabe and Strzok, Just A Few of Clinton Obama Democrat Criminal Conspirators That Are Being Investigated and Will Be indicted and Prosecuted For Leaking Classified Information and Criminal Conspiracy — Who is Next? Many Former Obama Administration Office Holders — Videos
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Story 1: President Trump and First Lady Melanie Meet Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace ; Pomp and Circumstance at Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey — Commemoration of 75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings — Videos —
Donald and Melania Trump greeted by The Queen, Prince Charles and Camilla at Buckingham Palace
ARRIVAL CEREMONY: President Trump and Melania Trump Buckingham Palace Ceremony
President Trump and Prince Charles review guard of honor
Queen Elizabeth And Donald Trump Meet At Buckingham Palace For State Visit Amid Protests | PeopleTV
The Queen shows President Trump and Melania US artefacts from Royal Collection
Trump meets the Queen at Buckingham Palace – BBC News
TOTAL HONOR: President Trump Grave of the Unknown Warrior Ceremony Westminster Abbey
President Donald Trump and the First Lady visit Westminster Abbey in London | USA TODAY
President Trump meets Prince Charles for tea
'The Queen's been fantastic': Trump tweets his praise for the Royal Family as he heads to State Banquet at the Palace after lunch with Her Majesty, tea with Charles and a visit to Westminster Abbey
Trump, First Lady Melania, Ivanka and Jared Kushner all arrived in the UK on Sunday night
The president went to the US Ambassador's residence before going to Buckingham Palace on Monday
He and the first lady had lunch with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and Prince Harry, Ivanka and Jared
Meghan Markle, who Trump called 'nasty' earlier this week, did not attend the lunch
Afterwards, they were given a tour of the Royal collection by Queen Elizabeth II
She showed him the Declaration of Independence and photos of the royal family golfing
Trump and Melania then retired to Clarence House, where Prince Charles lives, for afternoon tea
Hours before his arrival, the president tweeted that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is a 'stone cold loser'
Trump will attend a state dinner on Monday night which will also be held at Buckingham Palace
The president will spend Tuesday hosting business talks with Theresa May and will fly to Ireland on Wednesday to visit his resort
By JENNIFER SMITH and MARTIN ROBINSON and FRANCESCA CHAMBERS and EMILY GOODIN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 10:45 EDT, 3 June 2019 | UPDATED: 15:56 EDT, 3 June 2019
President Trump tweeted his praise for Queen Elizabeth II and the British royal family as he said his trip to London was going 'really well' on Monday night before venturing to a state dinner at Buckingham Palace.
In a string of tweets before the event, the president said: 'London part of trip is going really well. The Queen and the entire Royal family have been fantastic. The relationship with the United Kingdom is very strong. Tremendous crowds of well wishers and people that love our Country. Haven't seen any protests yet, but I'm sure the fake news will be working hard to find them.
'Great love all around. Also, big Trade Deal is possible once U.K. gets rid of the shackles. Already starting to talk!'
Shortly afterwards, he appeared next to Queen Elizabeth in full white tie. Melania opted for a white gown with matching gloves.
Earlier in the day, he and the first lady had tea at Clarence House with Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and were shown around Buckingham Palace by the Queen. They also visited Westminster Abbey.
Monday night's state dinner caps off his engagements with the royals. Prince William and The Duchess of Cambridge are attending as is Prince Harry but Meghan Markle, who Trump called 'nasty' in an interview last week, is staying at home with her newborn baby.
During the day, Trump only committed one notable faux pas, admitting that he did not recognize a pewter horse that he and Melania gave the Queen during a visit to Windsor last year.
Asked if he recognized it, he said: 'No!' Melania, according to reporters who were there, jumped in and reminded him: 'I think we gave that to the Queen.'
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump join Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for a stare dinner on Monday night with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall
Outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May was accompanied inside y Prince William while the Duchess of Cambridge accompanied Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
The president and the Queen led the diners into the banquet hall. Melania Trump was escorted in by Prince Charles
Once inside, the president was sat between the Queen and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Ivanka Trump was seated next to Liam Fox, the British Secretary of State for International Trade
President Trump and Melania Trump returned to Buckingham Palace in Marine One on Monday night for a state banquet while dozens of protesters gathered outside the palace gates
On our way: The Duchess of Cambridge, who did not meet the president during the day, is shown on her way to the state dinner at Buckingham Palace on Monday night
Prince William is also attending the dinner. Neither he nor his wife were present for the day's engagements with Trump
During a tour of the Royal collection, the Queen showed the Trumps the Declaration of Independence.
The particular copy being shown is one of 200 which was printed by Francis Bailey in 1781.
The book is a first edition and was published by order of Congress, of the complete constitutions of the individual states of America, the Declaration of Independence.
They are comprised of the articles of confederation between the states and the alliance between the United States and France, signed in 1778.
It also included a coloured engraved portrait of George Washington, as well as a map of New York from 1775.
The Queen also dazzled him with photos of the royal family playing golf.
Trump was shown pictures of the queen's father, George VI, and her uncle Edward VIII playing golf in Scotland.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are pictured at Clarence House with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall where they had afternoon tea after lunch with the Queen on Monday
The two couples were in a jovial mood as they posed for photographs inside Clarence House at around 4pm GMT (11am EST)
Trump was greeted by Queen Elizabeth II outside Buckingham Palace in London on Monday on the first day of his three-day trip to the UK. The pair shared an awkward handshake before going inside for lunch
Trump engaged Queen Elizabeth II in polite conversation as she showed them around the collection
The Queen delighted the president with American items from the collection and also showed him photographs of the royal family golfing
The Queen leads President Trump through a tour of the collection on Monday
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump view American items in the Royal collection at Buckingham Palace
Ivanka Trump was escorted through the collection by Prince Harry whose wife, Meghan Markle, stayed at home
Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner were kept at a distance from her father's public arrival on the lawn at Buckingham Palace but they joined in afterwards
After lunch, the president and first lady were taken to Westminster Abbey where they were shown around by the Dean of Westminster, John Hall (right)
The president and first lady laid a wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior before leaving the Abbey
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was also present for the tour. She is among dozens of people brought along by the president and first lady
Trump signed the guest book: 'Thank you so much. This has been a great honor. Special place.' Melania also signed it
There was also a letter from George VI to his father George V, saying he had beaten his brother.
Trump, who owns two golf Scottish courses, asked questions and smiled as Elizabeth explained the provenance of items, appearing to take particular interest in the golfing items.
Among other historical artifacts, Elizabeth showed the Trumps a portrait of George Washington, the first president of the United States, and a draft copy of a telegram from George VI to U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower after the D-Day invasion of France.
After their visit, Ivanka tweeted excitedly that it was a 'great honor' to have met the Queen.
She and Jared did not go with her father to Clarence House but she is due to attend the state dinner on Monday night.
President Trump chats with Her Majesty ahead of their private lunch and tour of the palace on Monday
President Trump and the First Lady sing the American national anthem at the first event of his three-day tour of Britain at invitation of the Queen
Melania and Camilla grab their hats as a gust of wind hits them during today's welcome ceremony but the Queen was unmoved
Melania wore a white dress and hat with navy blue collar and ribbon with matching shoes while the Queen wore a jade coat, dress with matching jewelry
The Queen led Trump and his wife up to the stage for the national anthem as Charles and Camilla chatted with a smile
The Queen stands between President Trump and Melania Trump as the US national anthem was played during the ceremonial welcome
An excited Ivanka Trump – one of the US President's four children to join him on the trip – looks out on the crowds at Buckingham Palace today with her husband Jared, an adviser to the President
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (second left) and US Ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson (far right) are pictured on the balcony at Buckingham Palace this afternoon
OOPS! TRUMP FORGETS GIFT HE GAVE THE QUEEN
During his visit to Buckingham Palace on Monday, the president was shown the Pewter horse he gifted the Queen last year while visiting Windsor.
But when asked if he recognized the relic, the oblivious president replied: 'No!'
First Lady Melania Trump stepped in to remind him, according to a reporter who was there, nudging: 'I think we gave that to the Queen'.
Trump's visit to the UK is not without controversy.
Hours before he arrived, he called the Mayor of London a 'stone cold loser' and said he was 'nasty'. He also labeled Meghan Markle 'nasty' in an interview but has since denied it.
The remarks did nothing to dampen his spirit during Monday's Palace visit which Ivanka and Jared Kushner watched from a balcony.
Trump took his time as he inspected the Guard of Honour, formed by Nijmegen Company Grenadier Guards.
He walked ahead of Charles and strolled alongside Captain of the Guard Hamish Hardy.
The president stopped to chat to a number of the soldiers – who were dresses in red tunics and bearskin hats – at length.
When the royal party and their guests stepped from the palace the American national anthem was played and Trump was invited to inspect the guard of honor.
Charles accompanied the president as he strode onto the lawns to inspect the waiting troops formed up in two lines with the guardsmen wearing their famous scarlet tunics and bearskins.
Among the soldiers, who when not performing ceremonial duties are fighting servicemen, was Guardsman Joshua Young-Hastings from Wandsworth, south London.
He was the tallest soldier in the guard of honor and played American Football for the London Warriors before joining the Army.
Full details of Trump's state visit to Britain have now been revealed, including all the royals he will meet over the three days
Ivanka tweeted excitedly about the visit on Monday afternoon
The guardsman was scouted for a professional career with America's National Football League and was awarded a half scholarship with a Texas university but chose the Grenadier Guards over a sporting career.
Jeremy Hunt, the UK's Foreign Secretary, was waiting for the President at Stansted and revealed Trump talked to him about Sadiq Khan as he got off the plane.
He said: 'Let's just say he [Mr Khan] won't be getting an invite to the White House any time soon'.
Trump arrived on Air Force One at Stansted Airport, waving as he walked down the steps from the front of the jet, accompanied by the First Lady who wore a blue pencil skirt and blazer, dark sunglasses and heels.
An array of US military helicopters arrived around an hour ahead of the President's white and blue plane, which bears the US flag on the tail fin and the words United States of America.
Above the crowds a team of police spotters and snipers stand on the roof of Buckingham Palace, which Trump will visit twice today
The helicopter carrying President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump lands in the garden of Buckingham Palace for lunch
US President Donald Trump inspects an honour guard by the Grenadier Guards during a welcome ceremony at Buckingham Palace
Trump speaks to the soldiers who sweltered in bearskins worn by Britain's Grenadier Guards at all times of the year
Prince Charles walked Trump across the grass followed by Melania who was accompanied by Camilla,the Duchess of Cornwall
Melania smiles as she speaks to Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, who walked her to meet the Queen
Trump and Melania walk on to the immaculate Buckingham Palace lawn on a fine summer's day in London today
Trump walked ahead of Charles and strolled alongside Captain of the Guard Hamish Hardy
A playful Prince Charles adjusts the uniform of one of the soldiers as an officer introduces Trump to his men and women
President Donald Trump is greeted by Prince Charles on arrival at Buckingham Palace this afternoon
Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall wait next to Marine One as U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive
Marine One sits in the pristine grounds of Buckingham Palace as Trump prepares to disembark
Trump's large entourage including his security team watch as the President speaks to British royalty in London today
Huge crowds watched as Marine One jetted across the gates of Green Park into the grounds of Buckingham Palace
The aircraft carrying the President from the US Ambassador's residence landed on the east side of the palace as police on the ground and on the roof watched
Prince Charles was the first royal to welcome Trump, waiting on the palace balcony as he came into land in the Queen's giant garden
Part of the President's motorcade armed with sophisticated telecommunications equipment and frequency jammers drives to Buckingham Palace
Crowds wait on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace ahead of Trump's lunch with the Queen and other royals
There was a visible armed police presence around the airport and police vehicles parked alongside the runway.
Trump used his time at Winfield House before meeting the Queen to watch television and tweet about two familiar targets – 'fake news' CNN and China.
He wrote: "China is subsidizing its product in order that it can continue to be sold in the USA.
Not here to make friends: At around the same time as he arrived, Trump tweeted to call the Mayor of London a 'stone cold loser'
'Many firms are leaving China for other countries, including the United States, in order to avoid paying the Tariffs.
'No visible increase in costs or inflation, but U.S. is taking Billions!"
And 30 minutes later, he wrote: 'Just arrived in the United Kingdom.
'The only problem is that @CNN is the primary source of news available from the U.S.
'After watching it for a short while, I turned it off.
'All negative & so much Fake News, very bad for U.S. Big ratings drop. Why doesn't owner @ATT do something?'
Sadiq Khan hit back and said that Trump's comments were 'beneath' a world leader.
His spokesmam said: 'This is much more serious than childish insults which should be beneath the President of the United States.'Sadiq is representing the progressive values of London and our country, warning that Donald Trump is the most egregious example of a growing far-right threat around the globe, which is putting at risk the basic values that have defined our liberal democracies for more than 70 years.'
As he took off he mocked the height of Sadiq Khan as he took off for London from Washington last night after the city's mayor called him 'a 20th century fascist'.
'I don't think much of him. He's the twin of de Blasio except shorter,' he told DailyMail.com on the South Lawn of the White House, in response to a question about whether he would be willing to meet with Khan during his UK State Visit.
Donald Trump stands alongside his wife on the steps of Air Force One and waves as he landed in the UK today
Trump rests his hand on his wife's back as an American serviceman – one of a huge number of US soldiers and staff in Britain for the visit – salutes
Donald Trump and Melania hold hands before boarding Marine One
Marine One is followed by a sister craft above the glorious British countryside heading for a meeting with the US Ambassador Woody Johnson
A huge team of British police and American officers and secret service agents watch from the roof of Winfield House, where the US President will stay for three days
Scotland Yard has shut down the roads surrounding Buckingham Palace, Parliament Square and St James Park so Trump can travel between venues
Air Force One carrying US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania touches down in Britain for the three-day visit
PIERS MORGAN BLASTS TRUMP PROTESTERS
Piers Morgan blasted the hundreds of thousands of 'disrespectful and pathetic' activists pledging to paralyze London with mass demonstrations as Donald Trump visits Britain.
More than 20,000 police officers will be deployed at 20 sites planned across the country in a security operation expected to cost about £18million ($22million) to the British taxpayer.
A ring of steel surrounds central London, where agitators plan to fly an offensive 20ft blimp depicting the President as an angry baby and a 16ft talking robot of Trump sitting on a gold toilet.
The main protest is being planned for close to Buckingham Palace at 5.30pm GMT (12.30pm EST)- where the Queen will be hosting a state banquet in his President's honor this evening.
Piers Morgan today blasted hundreds of thousands of 'disrespectful and pathetic' activists on ITV's Good Morning Britain alongside his co-presenter Susanna Reid
Protesters have pledged to cripple the UK capital because they oppose the decision to welcome Mr Trump for a state visit – only the third offered to a US president.
But despite Russian President Vladimir Putin, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia all having the same level of pageantry – they did not face the same level of protest.
Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan, who is also the DailyMail.com US Editor-at-Large, said that Mr Trump's welcome from protesters is 'disrespectful and pathetic' – especially as he is here to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
He said: 'There's something a bit warped about our values – is Trump really worse than Putin and King Salman? The Americans fought and died alongside us on D Day.'
The protesters are planning to fly an offensive 20ft blimp depicting the President as an angry baby.
Like Khan, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a hate-hate relationship with the president. De Blasio, a towering hulk of a newly minted presidential candidate, stands at 6'5′. Khan is reportedly 5'6′ tall.
Trump strode to Marine One for his departure on Sunday night, ignoring a follow-up question about whether he would be willing to meet with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Members of the The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery made their way past the front of Buckingham Palace and into Green Park ahead of firing Royal Salutes later. A military band is playing music on the palace forecourt, including the theme to the film Rocky.
Neil Clark, 39, from Woolwich in south London, joined a growing crowd outside Buckingham Palace awaiting the arrival of the president and described Trump as 'amazing'.
He said he was a 'massive fan', adding: 'Just his character, the energy he has, the passion he has. He's an amazing guy.'
Mr Clark described the prospect of protests against Trump as 'quite disrespectful' and 'quite shameful'. He described Trump's tweets about Sadiq Khan as 'justified'.
Trump's arrival will coincide with mass protests in central London against the visit on Tuesday, with the 'Trump baby' blimp made for his visit last year due to put in an appearance.
Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan said that Trump's welcome from protesters is 'disrespectful and pathetic' – especially as he is here to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
A 16ft talking robot of Trump sitting on a gold toilet is also expected to make an appearance.
It depicts the American leader with his trousers round his ankles while tweeting.
Trump has praised Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, talked up the prospect of a Brexit trade deal and denied making 'bad' comments about the Duchess of Sussex as he set off for Britain.
The president said he expected his three-day state visit to be 'very important' and 'very interesting' as he left the White House on Sunday evening.
Speaking to reporters over the din of his waiting Marine One helicopter, Trump was asked if he planned to meet Mr Johnson during the trip.
Donald Trump's giant motorcade arrives at Winfield House – but the President chose to travel into the British capital by helicopter
Royal fan Joseph Afrana celebrates the special relationship holds the countries' flags outside Her Majesty's London residence
An American agent retrieves a hat from the runway at Stansted Airport in Essex and hands it back to a RAF serviceman in the guard of honour
One of Donald Trump's security team sprints across the Tarmac as the Air Force One comes into land at Stansted this morning
Some of the 20,000 Met police officers in the UK walk up The Mall towards Buckingham Palace this morning as streets across central London are closed down
An arrested man is taken head-first into a police van on Trafalgar Square as police stepped up security for the State Visit
On the ground Britain's elite anti-terror units were stalking Stansted as part of Britain's £18million security operation
Snipers and specialist police spotters stand on the roof of the airport preparing to protect Trump on his three-day state visit
'Well, I think I may meet with him. He's been a friend of mine. He's been very nice. I have a very good relationship with him,' the president said of the Tory leadership hopeful.
He went on: 'I have a very good relationship with Nigel Farage, with many people over there (in the UK) and we'll see what happens. I may meet with him. They want to meet. We'll see what happens.'
Trump had created a considerable degree of political turbulence with comments on the British Conservative Party's leadership race, Brexit and the Duchess of Sussex.
Ahead of the visit, he called on Britain to leave the European Union without a deal if Brussels refuses to meet its demands and urged the Government to send Mr Farage into the negotiations.
The controversy was further exacerbated on Sunday when the US ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, suggested the NHS would be on the table in post-Brexit trade talks.
Addressing the prospect of a transatlantic trade deal, Trump said: '(We're) going to the UK. I think it'll be very important. It certainly will be very interesting. There's a lot going on in the UK. And I'm sure it's going to work out very well for them.
'As you know, they want to do trade with the United States, and I think there's an opportunity for a very big trade deal at some point in the near future. And we'll see how that works out.'
Even The Beast needs to fill up with gas: The President's huge 12-vehicle entourage including his $1.5m armored limousine is spotted shutting down a BP station
The US President Donald Trump managed to cause a commotion before even arriving in London this week as his $1.5million 'Beast' vehicle was spotted over the weekend at a BP gas station in London, which resulted in the road being blocked off by police in order for the vehicle to fill up ahead of the three day trip.
Passers-by spotted the President's entourage and took to Twitter to post photos of the vehicle, which was surrounded by police on motorbikes and the rest of the motorcade.
After having touched down in the UK earlier this morning, arriving by Air Force One into Stansted Airport before being ferried away on the Marine One helicopter, Trump is set to get from A-B while he is in the UK via 'Beast' car.
The Beast was spotted this morning on its way to the US Ambassador's residence in London's Regent's Park, however the President is not thought to be in the car as he was flown to Winfield House by Marine One.
The bomb-proof vehicle is a seven-seat black limousine which is designed to give the President and his family the ultimate protection.
The car, which will be surrounded by a 20-strong team of vehicles, watching the President's every move, is equipped with a night-vision camera and reinforced steel plating said to be able to resist bullets, chemical attacks and bombs.
The Cadillac has Kevlar-reinforced tires and steel rims that can keep the vehicle moving even if the tires have been destroyed. It is believed to be equipped with a Duramax diesel engine. The reason it runs on diesel is because the fuel has a low volatility, which reduces the likelihood of it exploding.
Bottles of the president's blood type are carried on board in case of a medical emergency, and a satellite phone enables communication to be maintained from anywhere in the world.
The Beast was spotted at a BP garage in London, filling up for the President's state visit. The presence of the car and its motorcade led to the area being closed
The President motorcade was seen blocking off the road while pedestrians looked on at all the vehicles which had taken up the road in order to The Beast to re-fuel
The car itself is burdened with carrying a whopping 20,000lb of Beast. The engine however is far from a rocket and the car's top speed it said to only be able to max out a typical highway speed in the US, which is around 55mph.
Working from the front to the back of the car, the chassis has steel plate bomb protection while the tyres are Kevlar-reinforced and are resistant to shredding and punctures. They are also driveable on steel rims if they happen to be destroyed.
The car is driven by a chauffeur, an elite member of the President's staff, who is trained to cope with demanding conditions, the drivers compartment has a state of the art communications centre, as well as GPS tracking.
In order to keep the passengers safe, the windows have been made up of five layers of glass and polycarbonate and can handle armor piercing bullets.
Defence accessories within the car include tear gas cannons as well as pump-action shot guns. As well as this, bags of the President's blood type are carried on board in the event of an emergency.
Keeping the President safe and secure, the doors of the vehicle are armor-plated, are 8 inches thick in order to protect him from a chemical attack.
This is while the bodywork of the care is five inch thick military grade armor. It is made up of a combination of steel, titanium, aluminium and ceramic, in order to break up any projectiles.
The motorcade (pictured above) took up the majority of the road this morning, halting buses and other traffic on its way to regents park
The graphic above shows the complexity of the President's motorcade which will accompany him around London during his state visit
The rest of the President's entourage: The Air Force One plane and the Marine One helicopter
The President of the United States is known for travelling in style, and that is just what he will do during his state visit to London.
As well as the Beast, the President also frequently uses Air Force One, which is the plane he arrived in this morning at Stansted Airport.
Since the 20th century it has been standard practice to refer to the plane as the one that transports the Commander-in-Chief.
The plane today is one of two highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft, which carry the tail codes 28000 and 29000. The Air Force designation for the aircraft is VC-25A.
It can refuel at mid-air and has electronics which are able to deal with electromagnetic pulse as well as being equipped with advanced secure communications equipment, this allows it to function as a mobile command centre.
It has quarters for those accompanying the President and is maintained by the Presidential Airlift Group.
This is while Marine One is flown by Marine Helicopter Squadron HMX-1,VA as well as the newer and smaller VH-60N White Hawks.
The modified military helicopters are called 'White Tops' after their white upper accents that denote their Presidential airlift mission, also known as Marine One.
It can also be the preferred mode of transport to motorcades which can be pricey and logistically difficult to manage, blocking off roads.
The fuel tank is also armor plated so that in the event of an incident, the car will still be able to drive away and fuel will not leak from the vehicle.
In the back of the car, the rear compartment can seat the President and up to four passengers with a glass partition which only the President has the buttons to open.
The rear seats are also equipped with a satellite phone, which has a direct line to the Vice President, as well as the Pentagon, this is while the boot has a fire fighting system , tear gas and smoke screens.
Away from the vehicle itself and surrounding it for protection will be a decoy and a spare car for VIPs as well as a 'watchtower' which has lasers.
There are also support vehicles in which cabinet members, bodyguards and the President's doctor will travel in, just three cars away from the President himself.
A 'halfback' surburban car sits behind The Beast, which is complete with rear facing seats in order for it to keep watch for oncoming threats to the President.
Behind this will be a control vehicle, in which senior military aides will travel, while the care behind them will be full of secret service elite.
Behind the secret service there will be an ID car which will liase with police and behind that sits a truck, which is in place to detect for nuclear threats and biological weapons.
Then there is the roadrunner, this makes sure the President has access to communications, in the event he wants to launch nuclear weapons.
At the back of the motorcade there is a cameraman filming the presidents car as well as an ambulance
At the very front of the entourage sits police cars which act as sweepers, guiding other road users and pedestrians.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7099553/Trump-Melania-meet-Queen-Buckingham-Palace.html
United States presidential visits to the United Kingdom and Ireland
An orthographic projection mapfeaturing the United Kingdomand Ireland(highlighted in dark green)
Twelve United States presidents have made presidential visits to the United Kingdom and Ireland. The first visit by an incumbent president to the United Kingdom was made in December 1918 by Woodrow Wilson, and was an offshoot of American diplomatic interactions with the Principal Allied Powers at the conclusion of World War I prior to the Paris Peace Conference. The first visit by an incumbent president to Ireland was made in June 1963 by John F. Kennedy. To date, 35 visits have been made to the United Kingdom and nine to Ireland.
The United States is bound together with both Ireland and the United Kingdom by shared history, an overlap in religion and a common language and legal system, plus kinship ties that reach back hundreds of years, including kindred, ancestral lines among Cornish Americans, English Americans, Manx Americans, Irish Americans, Scotch-Irish Americans, Scottish Americans, Welsh Americans, and American Britons respectively.
1Table of visits
2Gallery
3See also
4References
Table of visits[edit]
Woodrow Wilson December 26–28, 1918 United Kingdom London,
Manchester Met with Prime Minister David Lloyd George and King George V.[1]
Harry S. Truman August 2, 1945 Plymouth Informal meeting with King George VI.[2]
Dwight D. Eisenhower August 27 – September 2, 1959 London,
Balmoral,
Chequers Informal visit. Met with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Queen Elizabeth II.[3]
September 4–7, 1959 Culzean Castle Rested before returning to the United States.[3]
John F. Kennedy June 4–5, 1961 London Private visit. Met with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Queen Elizabeth II.[4]
June 26–29, 1963 Ireland Dublin,
Wexford,
Cork,
Galway,
Limerick Addressed Oireachtas. Visited ancestral home.[5]
June 29–30, 1963 United Kingdom Birch Grove Informal visit with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at his home.[4]
Richard Nixon February 24–26, 1969 London Informal visit. Delivered several public addresses.[6]
August 3, 1969 RAF Mildenhall Informal meeting with Prime Minister Harold Wilson.[6]
October 3, 1970 Chequers Met informally with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Edward Heath.[6]
October 3–5, 1970 Ireland Limerick,
Timahoe,
Dublin State visit. Met with Prime Minister Jack Lynch.[6]
Jimmy Carter May 5–11, 1977 United Kingdom London,
Sunderland Attended the 3rd G7 summit. Also met with the Prime Ministers of Greece, Belgium, Turkey, Norway, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and with the President of Portugal. Addressed the NATO Ministers meeting.[7]
Ronald Reagan June 7–9, 1982 London,
Windsor Castle Met with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Addressed Parliament.[8][9]
June 1–4, 1984 Ireland Shannon, Galway, Ballyporeen, Dublin Met with President Patrick Hillery and Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald. Visited ancestral home. Addressed Parliament.[8]
June 4–10, 1984 United Kingdom London Met with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Attended the 10th G7 summit.[8]
June 2–3, 1988 Met with Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita.[8]
George H. W. Bush May 31–June 2, 1989 Met with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.[10]
July 5–6, 1990 Attended NATO Summit Meeting.[10]
July 14–18, 1991 Attended the 17th G7 summit. Also met with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.[10]
Bill Clinton June 4–5, 1994 Cambridge,
Portsmouth Visited U.S. Military Cemetery. Met with Prime Minister John Major. Attended state dinner with Queen Elizabeth II and heads of state and government of Canada, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Belgium. Attended D-Day commemorative ceremonies.[11]
June 8, 1994 Oxford Received honorary degree from Oxford University.[11]
December 1, 1995 London,
Belfast,
Derry Met with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister John Major. Addressed Parliament. Delivered several public addresses in Northern Ireland.[11]
December 1–2, 1995 Ireland Dublin Met with President Mary Robinson and Prime Minister John Bruton.[11]
May 28–29, 1997 United Kingdom London Met with Prime Minister Tony Blair and attended a Cabinet meeting.[11]
May 14–18, 1998 Birmingham,
Weston-under-Lizard,
London Attended the 24th G8 summit and the U.S.-EU Summit Meeting.[11]
September 3, 1998 Belfast,
Armagh,
Omagh Met with Prime Minister Tony Blair and Northern Irish political leaders. Addressed the Northern Ireland Assembly.[11]
September 3–5, 1998 Ireland Dublin,
Adare,
Ballybunion Met with Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. Delivered several public addresses and played golf.[11]
December 12, 2000 Dublin,
Dundalk Met with Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. Delivered several public addresses.[11]
December 12–14, 2000 United Kingdom Belfast,
Coventry Met with Prime Minister Tony Blair and Northern Irish political leaders in Belfast. Met with Queen Elizabeth II; made a speech at the University of Warwick.[11]
George W. Bush July 18–20, 2001 London,
Chequers,
Halton,
Brize Norton Met with Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II.[12]
April 7–8, 2003 Belfast,
Hillsborough Met with Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the reconstruction of Iraq. Also met with the Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Northern Irish political leaders.[12]
November 18–21, 2003 London,
Sedgefield State visit. Met with Queen Elizabeth II, gave an address at Banqueting House, and accompanied Prime Minister Blair on a tour of the latter's constituency in Sedgefield.[12]
June 25–26, 2004 Ireland Shannon,
Dromoland Castle Attended the U.S.-EU summit meeting. Met with Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.[12]
July 6–8, 2005 United Kingdom Gleneagles Attended the 31st G8 summit.[12]
February 28, 2006 Ireland Shannon Met with U.S. Marines who were en route to Iraq.[12]
June 15–16, 2008 United Kingdom London,
Belfast Met with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Quartet Representative Tony Blair. In Belfast, met with the Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.[12]
Barack Obama March 31–April 3, 2009 London Met with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Attended the G-20 summit meeting.[13][14]
May 23, 2011 Ireland Dublin,
Moneygall Met with President Mary McAleese and Prime Minister Enda Kenny. Visited ancestral home.
May 23–26, 2011 United Kingdom London State visit. Met with Queen Elizabeth II. Laid a wreath at the Tomb of The Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. Addressed a joint session of the British Parliament. Met with Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.[13]
June 17–18, 2013 Belfast,
Lough Erne Attended the 39th G8 summit.[13]
September 4–5, 2014 Newport Attended the NATO Summit Meeting.[13]
April 21–24, 2016 London,
Windsor,
Watford Met with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Met with Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Donald Trump July 12–15, 2018 London,
Blenheim Palace,
Girvan Met with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Met with Prime Minister Theresa May. Played golf at Trump Turnberry golf resort.
June 3–5, 2019 London,
Portsmouth State visit. Met with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Theresa May.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_visits_to_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland
List of empires
For list of empires by size, see list of largest empires.
This is an alphabetical list of empires. The table may be resorted by other columns if your browser supports this function.
Empires and dynasties
Abbasid Caliphate Iraq Baghdad, Raqqa, Kufa, Samarra, Anbar 750 1258 508 Successor of the Ummayad Caliphate.
Achaemenid Empire Persia Various, including Pasargadae, Ecbatana, Persepolis, Susa, Babylon 550 BC 330 BC 220 The first Persian Empire, and the largest one in Classical Antiquity, founded by Cyrus the Great.
Afsharid Dynasty Persia Mashhad 1736 1796 60
Ahom Dynasty North East India Charaideo, Garhgaon, Rangpur (Ahom capital), Jorhat 1228 1838 610 It is well known for maintaining its sovereignty for nearly 600 years and successfully resisting Mughal expansion in Northeast India.
Akkadian Empire Sumer Akkad 2300 BC 2200 BC 100
Aksumite Empire Ethiopia Axum 150 940 790 Succeeded by the Ethiopian Empire.
Akwamu West Africa Akwamufie, Nyanoase 1505 1867 362
Almohad Dynasty Morocco Marrakech, Seville 1121 1269 148
Almoravid Dynasty Morocco Aghmat (1040–1062), Marrakech(1062–1147) 1040 1147 107
Angevin Empire England, France No official capital. Court was generally held at Angers and Chinon 1154 1242 88
Armenian Empire Armenia Tigranakert 190 BC 428 618 Tigranes the Great took the title king of kings.
Assyria Mesopotamia Assur, later Nineveh 2025 BC 609 BC 1119
Ashanti Empire West Africa Kumasi 1670 1902 232
Austrian Empire Austria Vienna 1804 1867 63 Preceded by the Holy Roman Empire.
Austria-Hungary Austria, Hungary Vienna, Budapest 1867 1918 51 Often referred to as the "Austro-Hungarian Empire". Formed out of the Austrian Empire as a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Officially a real union of the rump Austrian Empire (Cisleithania) and the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen/Transleithania. Ruler was therefore referred to as Kaiser und König("Emperor-King", literally "Emperor and King")
Ayyubid Dynasty Middle East Cairo, Damascus, Hama 1171 1341 170 Founded by Saladin, See also List of Muslim empires and dynasties.
Aztec Empire Mesoamerica Tenochtitlan 1428 1521 93 The capital of Mexico, Mexico City, is built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan.
Babylonian Empire Mesopotamia Babylon 1900 BC 1600 BC 300 See also Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Balhae North Korea, Manchuria Sanggyeong 698 926 228 Successor of Goguryeo.
Bamana Empire West Africa Ségou 1712 1861 149 Also known as the Bambara Empire or Ségou Empire
Belgian Colonial Empire Belgium Brussels 1901 1962 61 Overseas possessions were referred to as "the colonies" rather than an empire.
Benin Empire Nigeria Benin City 1440 1897 457
Bornu Empire Nigeria Ngazargamu 1387 1893 506 The continuation of the Kanem Empire.
Empire of Brazil Brazil Rio de Janeiro 1822 1889 67 Established after Pedro I of Brazil declared the independence of Brazil from Portugal.
Britannic Empire Britain Londinium 286 296 10 Was a break-away state of the Roman Empire. See also Carausian Revolt.
British Empire United Kingdom London 1603 Present 416 as of 2019 The largest Empire in world history. Precursor to the modern Commonwealth of Nations. Empire still continues in the form of British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II remains as sovereign.
British Raj Indian Subcontinent Calcutta (1858–1912), New Delhi(1912–1947) 1858 1947 89 Governed by the Crown and part of the British Empire. Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1876.
Bruneian Empire Borneo Not specified, possibly Kota Batu 1368 1888 520 Lasted until it became a British protectorate in 1888.
First Bulgarian Empire Balkans Pliska (680–893), Preslav (893–972), Skopie (972–992), Ohrid (992–1018) 680 1018 338 Founded by KhanAsparukh. Under TsarSimeon I became the first powerful Slavic Empire. Falls to the Byzantine Empire under EmperorBasil II.
Second Bulgarian Empire Balkans Tarnovo 1185 1422 237 Successor of the First Bulgarian Empire. Under the Tsars Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II became the most powerful state in the Balkans.
Buyid Dynasty Persia Shiraz 934 1055 121
Byzantine Empire Eastern Roman Empire (Greece,Anatolia, Africa,Palestine, Syria,Italy) Constantinople 395 1453 1058 The eastern half of the Roman Empire. Term conventionally used since the 19th century to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.
Caliphate of Córdoba Iberian Peninsula Córdoba 756 1031 275 See also Islamic Empire.
Carthaginian Empire North Africa Carthage 814 BC 146 BC 504
Cebu Rajahnate Philippines Cebu City 1279 1565 286 An Indianized state founded by a minor Chola prince.
Chagatai Khanate Transoxania Almaliq, Qarshi 1225 1687 462 Division of the Mongol Empire.
Chalukya Dynasty India Badami 543 753 210
Chenla Cambodia Isanapura 550 802 252 Succeeded by the Khmer Empire.
Chera Dynasty South India Vanchi Muthur, Karur,Kodungallur, Kollam. 400 BC 1729 2129 A Tamil (Later, Malayalam) dynasty which includes Early Cheras, Medieval Cheras, Kodungallur Cheras and Venadu Cheras.
Chola Dynasty South India Uraiyur, Pazhaiyaarai, Thanjavur, Gangaikonda Cholapuram 400 BC 1540 1940 A Tamil dynasty which includes Early Cholas, Medieval Cholas and Later Cholas till the reign of Virasekhara Chola (Opponent of Nagama Nayak).
Dacian Kingdom Romania Sarmizegetusa Regia 168 BC 106 274 Reached its territorial expansion under King Burebista (82BC-44BC).
Danish Colonial Empire Denmark (as Denmark-Norway 1536 – 1814) Copenhagen 1350 1953 603 See also List of former Danish colonies.
Delhi Sultanate India Delhi 1206 1527 321
Durrani Empire Afghanistan Kandahar, Kabul 1747 1823 75
Dutch Empire Netherlands Amsterdam 1568 1975 407 See also Dutch East India Company and Dutch West India Company.
Egyptian Empire Egypt Various, including Thebes, Akhetaten, Pi-Ramesses, Memphis 1550 BC 1077 BC 473 See also 18th Dynasty, 19th Dynasty & 20th Dynasty.
Ethiopian Empire Ethiopia Addis Ababa 1137 1974 837
Fatimid Caliphate Egypt Mahdia (909–969), Cairo (969–1171) 909 1171 262 See also Islamic Empire.
First French Empire France Paris 1804 1814/1815 10
Second French Empire France Paris 1852 1870 18
French colonial empires France Paris 1534 Present 485 as of 2019 Some consider the Empire ending with the end of French presence in Vanuatu (see New Hebrides) Empire continues in the form of Overseas France.
Frankish Empire Western Europe Various, including Soissons, Paris, Reims, Orléans, Metz & Aachen 250 950 700
Funan Cambodia Vyadhapura 50 550 500 Succeeded by the Chenla.
Gallic Empire Rhineland-Palatinate Colonia Agrippina 260 274 14 Broke off from the Roman Empire during the Crisis of the Third Century.
Gaza Empire Southern Africa Not specified 1824 1895 71
Georgian Empire Georgia Kutaisi, Tbilisi 1008 1490 482 Established in 1008 as an unified kingdom. Georgian kings took title "King of Kings" and ruled over large territory consisting of Georgian, Armenian and Muslim areas, as well as numerous client states. Officially dissolved at 1490.
German Empire Germany Berlin 1871 1918 47 See also German Colonial Empire.
Ghana Empire Mauritania, and Western Mali Koumbi Saleh 790 1240 450 The Empire became known in Europe and Arabia as the "Ghana Empire" by the title of its ruler (meaning "Warrior King"). Also known as Wagadou
Ghaznavid Dynasty Afghanistan Ghazni later Lahore 963 1187 224
Ghurid Dynasty Afghanistan Firuzkuh 1148 1215 67
Goguryeo Korea[1] Jolbon, Gungnae City, Pyongyang 37 BC 668 705 Predecessor of Balhae and Goryeo.
Goryeo Korea Gaegyeong, Ganghwa 918 1392 474 Successor of Goguryeo. Unification of the Korean Peninsula. State maintained as an empire between 918 and 1274.
Gorkha Empire Greater Nepal 1600 1850 250 Unification of Greater Nepal. State maintained as an empire between 1600 and 1840.
Göktürk Khaganate Inner Asia Ötüken 552 747 195 552–603 First empire, 603–658 Double empire, 658–681 Dark age, 681–747 Second empire.
Golden Horde Central Asia Sarai Batu 1240 1502 260 Break-away state of the Mongol Empire.
Empire of Great Fulo Senegal Tekrur 1514 1776 262
Great Moravian Empire Central Europe Mikulčice-Valy 833 900 67 The word "Moravia" did not refer only to present-day Moravia.
Great Seljuq Empire Aral Sea, Asia Minor, Persia Nishapur and later on Rey 1037 1194 157 Turkish empire, Predecessor of the Sultanate of Rum.
Gurjara-Pratihara India Kannauj 600 1136 660 Founded by great king of Gujjars
Gupta Empire India Pataliputra 320 550 230 Founded by Sri Gupta
Han Dynasty China Chang'an, Luoyang, Xuchang 206 BC 220 426 Founded by Liu Bang the High Ancestor
Empire of Harsha Northern India Kannauj 606 647 41 Founded by Harshavardhana; collapsed after his death.
Hephthalite Empire Afghanistan Kabul 420 567 147
Hittite Empire Anatolia Hattusa 1460 BC 1180 BC 280 See also Neo-Hittite.
Holy Roman Empire Central Europe no capital city 962 1806 844 Referred to simply as the Roman Empire (not to be confused with the actual Roman Empire) before 1157, when it became the Holy Empire. Holy Roman Empireis attested from 1254. Was officially known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, although this designation had fallen out of use again by the 18th century. See Holy Roman Empire § Name
Hotaki Dynasty Persia Isfahan 1709 1738 29
Hoysala Empire India Belur, Halebidu 1026 1343 317
Hunnic Empire Eurasia Not specified 370 469 99
Idrisid dynasty Morocco Fes 788 974 186 Founders of the first Moroccan state.
Ilkhanate Persia Maragheh, Tabriz, Soltaniyeh 1256 1335 79 Division of the Mongol Empire.
Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy) Israel Jerusalem 1050 BC 586 BC 486 Considers the Start of Saul's reign, through the dual kingdoms of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and Kingdom of Judah, until the Babylonian conquest of Judah.
Inca Empire(Tawantinsuyo) Andes (Peru,Bolivia, Ecuador, parts of Chile,Argentina andColombia) Cusco 1438 1533 95 The largest empire in pre-Columbian America.
Italian Colonial Empire Italy Rome 1885 1943 58 See also Imperial Italy (fascist).
Empire of Japan Japan Tokyo 1868 1947 79 Emperor's government took control of the country in 1868. Regional hegemony in East Asia ended in 1945. The new constitution of 1947 formally abolished the empire.[2]
Jin dynasty (265–420) China Luoyang (265–311), Chang'an(312–316), Jiankang (317–420) 265 420 155 Subdivided into two dynasties. Western Jìn Dynasty, (265–316) Eastern Jìn Dynasty (317–420).
Jin dynasty (1115–1234) Northern China, Manchuria Huining, Zhongdu, Kaifeng 1115 1234 119 Also known as the Jurchens, were the ancestors of the Manchus who established the Qing Dynasty.
Jolof Empire West Africa Linguère 1350 1549 199 Also known as the Wollof Empire. Succeeded by the Kingdom of Jolof (1549–1875).
Kaabu Empire West Africa Kansala 1537 1867 330 Also written Gabu, Ngabou, and N'Gabu'.
Kanem Empire Chad Njimi 700 1387 687
Kanva Dynasty India Pataliputra, Vidisha 75 BC 30 BC 45 Replaced the Shunga Empire.
Kara-Khanid Khanate Turkistan Kashgar 840 1212 372 First Turkic dynasty to embrace Islam.
Khazar Khaganate Pontic steppe, North Caucasus Balanjar, later Atil 700 1000 300 Founded by Western Turks, the members of the royal family embraced Judaism.
Khmer Empire Cambodia Hariharalaya (802–889), Angkor (889–1431) 802 1431 629 Succeeded from the kingdom of Chenla.
Khilji Dynasty Afghanistan Kabul, Delhi 1290 1320 30
Khwarazmian dynasty Persia Urgench 1077 1221 144
Konbaung Dynasty Myanmar Mandalay 1752 1885 133
Kong Empire West Africa Kong 1710 1898 298 Also known as the Wattara Empire or Ouattara Empire.
Korean Empire Korean Peninsula Hanseong 1897 1910 13 Was the last ruling Korean dynasties.
Kushan Empire Afghanistan Various, including Mathura, Peshawar, Begram, Taxila 30 345 315
Kushite Empire Egypt, Nubia Not specified 760 BC 656 BC 104
Latin Empire Thrace, Asia Minor Constantinople 1204 1261 57 See also Latinokratia.
Later Lê dynasty Vietnam Đông Kinh 1428 1789 361
Liao Dynasty China Shangjing 915 1125 210
Lodi Sultanate Afghanistan Delhi 1451 1526 75
Macedonian Empire Macedonian Kingdom Pella 334 BC 323 BC 11 Founded by Alexander the Great.
Madurai Nayak Dynasty South India Madurai,Tiruchirappalli 1529 1736 207 Branched out from the Vijayanagara Empire by Viswanatha Nayak.
Majapahit Empire Indonesian Archipelago Majapahit, Wilwatikta 1293 1527 234 Founded by Raden Wijaya.
Mali Empire West Africa Niani, later Ka-ba 1235 1610 375 A Mandinka empire founded by Sundiata Keita.
Mamluk Sultanate Egypt, Syria Cairo 1250 1517 267 See also Islamic Empire.
Manchukuo Manchuria Hsinking 1932 1945 13 Created as a Puppet state of the Japanese Empire, with Emperor Puyi (the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty) installed as nominal regent and emperor.
Maratha Empire India Raigad, later Satara 1674 1818 144 Founded by Shivaji Maharaj, also known as the Maratha Confederacy.
Marinid dynasty Morocco Fes 1244 1465 221
Massina Empire West Africa Hamdullahi 1820 1862 42
Mauryan Empire Ancient India Pataliputra 321 BC 185 BC 136 Founded by Chandragupta Maurya. The Mauryan Empire became the largest ever Indian empire under Ashoka .
Median Empire Persia Ecbatana 625 BC 549 BC 76 First Iranian Empire, Founded by Deioces.
First Mexican Empire Mexico Mexico City 1821 1823 2 Preceded the Second Mexican Empire which was short lived (1864–1867). See also Mexican Imperial Orders.
Second Mexican Empire Mexico Mexico City 1864 1867 3 Succeeded the First Mexican Empire which was short lived (1821–1823). See also Mexican Imperial Orders.
Ming Dynasty China Nanjing (1368–1421), Beijing(1421–1644) 1368 1644 276 Founded by Zhu Yuanzhang the Great Marshal.
Mitanni Empire Syria Washukanni 1500 BC 1300 BC 200
Mongol Empire Mongolia Karakorum 1206 1368 162 Split into four empires (Yuan Dynasty, Ilkhanate, Chagatai Khanate and Golden Horde). Largest contiguous land empire.
Mughal Empire India Agra, Delhi 1526 1758 232 Founded by Babur. "Mughal" is a Persian word for the Mongols.
Nanda Empire India Pataliputra 450 BC 350 BC 100
Neo-Babylonian Empire Mesopotamia Babylon 626 BC 539 BC 87 See also Babylonian Empire.
Nguyễn Dynasty Vietnam Phú Xuân 1802 1945 143 Was the last ruling Vietnamese Dynasty.
North Sea Empire Denmark Ribe 1016 1035 19 As one historian put it: "When the 11th century began its fourth decade, Canute was, with the single exception of the Emperor, the most imposing ruler in Latin Christendom. … [H]e was lord of four important realms and the overlord of other kingdoms. Though technically Canute was counted among the kings, his position among his fellow-monarchs was truly imperial. Apparently he held in his hands the destinies of two great regions: the British Isles and the Scandinavian peninsulas. His fleet all but controlled two important seas, the North and the Baltic. He had built an Empire."[3]
Empire of Nicaea Bithynia Nicaea 1204 1261 57 Successor state of the Byzantine Empire.
Northern Yuan Dynasty Mongolia Shangdu, Yingchang, Karakorum 1368 1635 267 Created after the expulsion of the Yuan Dynasty from China in 1368.
Omani Empire Oman Muscat 1698 1856 260 See Oman.
Ottoman Empire Anatolia Söğüt, Bursa, Edirne, İstanbul 1299 1922 623 Predecessor of the Republic of Turkey.
Oyo Empire Southwestern Nigeria Oyo-Ile 1400 1905 505
Pagan Empire Myanmar Bagan 849 1297 448
Pahlavi Dynasty Persia Tehran 1925 1979 53 The last Imperial dynasty of the Persian Empire.
Pala Empire India Pataliputra 750 1174 424
Palmyrene Empire Syria Palmyra 260 273 13 Broke off from the Roman Empire during the Crisis of the Third Century.
Pandiya Dynasty South India Madurai, Korkai, Tenkasi, Tirunelveli 400 BC 1753[4] 2153 A Tamil dynasty which includes Early Pandyas, First Empire, Second Empire and Later Pandyas of Tenkasi and Tirunelveli.
Parthian Empire Persia Various, including Asaak, Hecatompylos, Ecbatana, Ctesiphon, Nisa 247 BC 224 471 Third Iranian Empire, Founded by Arsaces I.
Pontic Empire Pontus Amaseia, Sinope 120 BC 47 BC 73 Mithridates VI had the title: King of Kings.
Portuguese Empire Portugal Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro (1815–1821) 1415 1999 584 Was the first global empire and the earliest and longest lived of the colonialWestern European empires. See also United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.
Ptolemaic Empire Egypt Alexandria 305 BC 30 BC 275 See also Diadochi.
Qajar Dynasty[citation needed] Persia Tehran 1794 1925 131
Qin Dynasty China Xianyang 221 BC 206 BC 15 First dynasty of the Imperial Period.
Qing Dynasty China Shenyang, Beijing 1644 1912 268 Last dynasty of the Imperial Period.
Ramnad Sethupathis India Ramanathapuram 1590 1979 389
Rashidun Caliphate Saudi Arabia Medina, Kufa 632 661 29 Predecessor of the Umayyad Caliphate, See also Islamic Empire.
Rashtrakuta Dynasty India Manyakheta 753 982 229
Roman Empire Italy Rome, Constantinople 27 BC 1453 1480 Together with The Roman Kingdom, The Roman Republic and the Byzantine Empire, direct Roman states lasted from 753 BC until 1453 AD, 2206 years.
Rouran Khaganate Inner China Not specified 330 555 225
Rozwi Empire Southern Africa Danangombe 1660 1866 206
Russian Empire(Romanov) Russia Saint Petersburg 1721 1917 196 Successor state of the Tsardom of Russia.
Saadi dynasty Morocco Marrakech 1554 1659 105 Destroyed the Songhai Empire.
Safavid Dynasty Persia Tabriz, Qazvin, Esfahan 1501 1736 235
Saffarid Dynasty Persia Zaranj 867 1002 135
Sassanid Dynasty Persia Ctesiphon 224 651 427 Fourth Iranian Empire.
Satavahana Dynasty India Amaravathi village, Guntur districtDharanikota 230 BC 220 450 An Andhra Dynasty which preceded the Vengi Dynasty of Andhra.
Samanid Dynasty Persia Balkh, Bukhara 819 999 180
Seleucid Empire Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria Seleucia, Antioch 312 BC 63 BC 249 See also Diadochi.
Serbian Empire Balkans (Serbia,Montenegro,Macedonia, Epirus,Thessaly, Albania) Skopje, Prizren 1346 1371 25 Founded by Stephen Uroš IV (Dušan the Mighty), fell into feudal disarray after his death.
Shu Han China Chengdu 221 263 42 See also Three Kingdoms.
Siam Empire Thailand Bangkok 1782 1932 150
Sikh Empire Punjab region, India Amritsar 1733 1849 116 Preceded the British Empire in the Indian subcontinent.
Sokoto Caliphate West Africa Sokoto (1804-1850), (1851-1902), Gudu (1804), Birnin Konni (1850, 1903) 1804 1903 99
Song Dynasty China Bianjing (960–1127), Lin'an(1127–1279) 960 1279 319 Founded by Zhao Kuangyi the Great Ancestor.
Songhai Empire West Africa Gao 1340 1591 251 Former vassal of the Mali Empire which became one of the largest African empires in history.
Spanish Empire Iberian Peninsula Madrid 1402 1975 573 Was founded with the conquest of the Canary Islands. It was one of the first global empires.
Srivijaya Empire Indonesian Archipelago Palembang, Mataram 683 1293 610 was a powerful ancient thalassocratic Malay empire based on the island of Sumatra,Indonesia, then based on Mataram (Medang Kingdom) under Sailendra's Dynasty
Sui Dynasty China Chang'an 581 618 37
Shunga Empire India Pataliputra, Vidisa 185 BC 73 BC 112 Magadha dynasty that controlled North-central and Eastern India.
Swedish Empire Sweden Stockholm 1611 1718 107 See also Swedish overseas colonies.
Tahirid Dynasty Persia Nishapur 821 873 52
Tang Dynasty China Chang'an (618–904), Luoyang(904–907) 618 907 289 Founded By Li Yuan (aka. Emperor Gaozu of Tang).
Thanjavur Nayak Dynasty South India Thanjavur 1532 1673 141 Founded by Sevappa Nayak.
Tay Son Dynasty Vietnam Phú Xuân 1778 1802 24
Empire of Thessalonica Epirus, Kingdom of Thessalonica Thessaloniki 1224 1246 42 Evolved from the Despotate of Epirus.
Third Reich Germany Berlin, Hamburg(1933–1945), Flensburg (1945) 1933 1945 12 Nazi Germany signed a treaty (Tripartite Pact) with the Japanese and Italian Empires.
Tibetan Empire Tibet Lhasa 755 870 115
Tondo Dynasty Philippines Tondo 900 1587 687
Timurid Empire Uzbekistan, Persia and Central Asia Samarkand, Herat 1370 1526 156 Persianized form of the Mongolian word kürügän, Turko-Mongol Empire.
Tlemcen Algeria Tlemcen 1235 1556 321 Zayyanid dynasty
Empire of Trebizond Pontus Trebizond 1204 1461 257 Successor state of the Byzantine Empire and client state of Kingdom of Georgia
Toltec Empire Mesoamerica Tollan-Xicocotitlan 496 1122 626
Toungoo Dynasty Toungoo Myanmar 1510 1752 242
Toucouleur Empire West Africa Ségou 1848 1893 45
Tu'i Tonga Empire Tonga, Pacific Ocean Mu'a 950 1865 915 See History of Tonga.
Turgesh Khaganate Turkistan Balasagun 699 766 67 Founded as a successor of West Turkish empire.
Umayyad Caliphate Syria Damascus, Córdoba (Capital-in-exile) 661 750 89 Successor of the Rashidun Caliphate, See also Islamic Empire.
Uyunid dynasty Arabian Al-Hasa, Qatif 1076 1253 163 The Uyunids, were a SunniArab dynasty that ruled Bahrain for 163 years, from the 11th to the 13th centuries.
Uyghur Khaganate Central Asia Ordubaliq 742 848 106 742–848 Founded as a successor of Göktürk Khaganate, 848–1036 Gansu state, 856–1209 Turfan state.
Vijayanagara Empire South India Vijayanagara 1336 1646 310 The founding of the original kingdom was based on the principality of Anegondi.
Wari Empire Peru, Bolivia Huari/Tiwanaku 500 1100 600 It is a matter of conflict as to whether it was a real organized state that could be called an empire. If so, it would be considered the first empire in the Americas.
Wassoulou Empire West Africa Bissandugu 1878 1895 45 Also known as the Mandinka Empire.
Wei Empire China Luoyang 220 265 45 See also Three Kingdoms.
Western Chalukya Empire South India Manyakheta, Basavakalyan 973 1189 216
Western Roman Empire Italy Mediolanum, Ravenna 395 476 81 The western half of the Roman Empire.
Eastern Wu China Wuchang, Jianye 229 280 51 See also Three Kingdoms.
Western Xia Dynasty China Xingqing 1038 1227 189 Also called the Tangut Dynasty.
Xin Dynasty China Chang'an 9 23 14 The Xin Dynasty had only one ruling Emperor.
Yuan Dynasty China, Mongolia Dadu 1271 1368 97 Division of the Mongol Empire. The Yuan emperors had nominal supremacy over western khanates.
Zand Dynasty Persia Shiraz 1750 1794 44
Zhou Dynasty China Fenghao, Wangcheng, Chengzhou 1046 BC 256 BC 794 Zenith of bronze age in China
Zulu Empire South Africa KwaBulawayo, Ulundi 1818 1897 79
Possible and informal empires
These governments, confederations and other entities have sometimes been informally referred to as "empires". Some did not fit the modern definition of empire (e.g. the Delian League), some were self-proclaimed by their first and often last ruler, others were short-lived attempts to turn an existing government into an empire, and there are also instances of the word "empire" being used to refer to unofficial spheres of influence which do not consider themselves empires.
American Empire United States Washington, D.C. 1776 Present 242 The concept of an American Empire was first popularized during the presidency of James K. Polk who led the United States into the Mexican–American War of 1846. In recent times the concept has been revived to refer to the sphere of influence of the United States by critics of the United States.
Athenian Empire (Delian League) Ancient Greece Delos island 478 BC 404 BC 74 Also known as Delian League. It was an association of Greek city-states.
Second Athenian League Ancient Greece Athens 378 BC 355 BC 23 Second Athenian League, headed by Athens primarily for self-defense against the growth of Sparta and the Persian Empire.
Central African Empire Central African Republic Bangui 1976 1979 3 President Jean-Bédel Bokassa declared himself Emperor Bokassa I.
Empire of China China Beijing 1915 1916 1 Was a short-lived attempt by Yuan Shikai to reinstate the Imperial Monarchy.
First Empire of Haiti North America Port-au-Prince 1804 1806 2 First Haitian Empire, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared himself Emperor Jacques I.
Second Empire of Haiti North America Port-au-Prince 1849 1859 10 Second Haitian Empire, Faustin Soulouque is proclaimed Emperor Faustin I.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania Lithuania Vilnius 1200 1569 369 It was the largest state in Europe in the 15th century.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Poland, Lithuania Kraków 1569 1795 226 It was formed by the Union of Lublin in 1569, between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was one of the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th and 17th-century Europe, with some 390,000 square miles (1,000,000 km2) and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century.[5][6][7][8][9][10]
Roman Republic Italy Rome 509 BC 27 BC 482 Predecessor of the Roman Empire. Technically a Republic, had imperial holdings throughout its existence.
Kingdom of Romania Romania Bucharest 1920 1944 24 Following the post-World War I treaties that ratified its borders (the last one being the 1920 Treaty of Trianon), the newly-enlarged Romanian monarchy was rated by the Comintern as a multi-national imperial state that subjugated ethnic minorities.[11][12] Indeed, according to the 1930 Romanian census, just over 28% of Romania's inhabitants were not ethnic Romanians. Non-Romanians formed the majority in 14 out of Romania's 71 counties. In 11 Romanian counties, Romanians formed less than 40% of the population: Caliacra (22.6% Romanians), Cernăuți(21.8% Romanians), Cetatea Albă (18.5% Romanians), Ciuc (14.4% Romanians), Durostor (19% Romanians), Hotin (35% Romanians), Ismail(31.9% Romanians), Odorhei (4.9% Romanians), Storojineț (33.9% Romanians), Timiș-Torontal (37.6% Romanians) and Trei Scaune (16% Romanians).The issue of "Romanian imperialism" (as Romanian leading politician Iuliu Maniu put it) was further exacerbated by the 1941 creation of the Romanian Transnistria Governorate from parts of the Ukrainian SSR, under the rule of "Conducător" Ion Antonescu.[13] These new borders lasted until 1944. According to the 1941 Romanian census, 21 out of the now 73 Romanian counties were inhabited by a non-Romanian ethnic majority, including all of the 13 Transnistrian counties (the entire Transnistrian region was over 75% Ukrainian). Two of the 21 counties did have Romanian plurality (meaning that the Romanians were the largest ethnic group, but still less than half of the county population).
Soviet Union Russia Moscow 1922 1991 69 A political term for the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union used by its critics.
List of extinct states
Fictional empires
List of kingdoms
List of historical countries and empires spanning more than one continent
Historical powers
List of largest empires
Middle Eastern Empires
^ https://www.britannica.com/place/Koguryo
^ "Chronological table 5 1 December 1946 – 23 June 1947". National Diet Library. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
^ Larson, Laurence M (1912). Canute the Great, 995(circ)-1035, and the rise of Danish imperialism during the Viking age. Putnam.
^ Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. (1972). The Pandyan Kingdom; from the earliest times to the sixteenth century. Madras: Swathi Publications.
^ Davies, Norman (1996). Europe: a history. Oxford: Oxford University 5555Press. p. 554. ISBN9780198201717. Poland-Lithuania was another country which experienced its 'Golden Age' during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The realm of the last Jagiellons was absolutely the largest state in Europe.
^ Wandycz, Piotr Stefan (2001). The price of freedom: a history of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the present (2nd ed.). London [u.a.]: Routledge. p. 66. ISBN978-0-415-25491-5. The multinational character of the Habsburg monarchy was comparable to that of the Commonwealth […]
^ McKenna, Amy, ed. (2014). Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Britannica guide to countries of the European Union. Chicago: Britannica Educational Publishing. p. 203. ISBN9781615309917. Lithuania was also a powerful empire and dominated much of eastern Europe in the 14th–16th centuries in close alignment with Poland; then, from 1569, it was part of a confederation with Poland […]
^ Lozny, Ludomir (2005). "Poland". In Skutsch, Carl (ed.). Encyclopedia of the world's minorities. 3. New York [u.a.]: Routledge. p. 963. ISBN9781135193881. It was indeed an Eastern European empire, a multiethnic and multicultural state with great economic strength and strong military power, controlling most of central and eastern European politics.
^ Kupisz, Dariusz (2012). "The Polish-Lithuanian army in the reign of King Stefan Bathory (1576–1586)". In Davies, Brian L. (ed.). Warfare in Eastern Europe, 1500-1800. History of warfare. 72. Boston: Brill. p. 63. ISBN9789004221963. In terms of territorial expanse in Europe the Polish-Lithuanian state was surpassed only by Russia and the Ottoman Empire and in respect to population was behind only France, Spain, and the German Empire.
^ Davies, Brian L. (2011). Empire and military revolution in Eastern Europe: Russia's Turkish wars in the eighteenth century. Continuum studies in military history. London [u.a.]: Continuum. p. 29. ISBN9781441170040. Poland-Lithuania had entered the seventeenth century as one of the great powers in Eastern Europe.
^ Liesbeth van de Grift, Lexington Books, 2012, Securing the Communist State: The Reconstruction of Coercive Institutions in the Soviet Zone of Germany and Romania, 1944-1948, p. 21
^ Andrew Arato, Transaction Publishers, 1991, Crisis and Reform in Eastern Europe, p. 162
^ D. Deletant, Springer, 2006, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and his Regime, Romania 1940-1944, pp. 85 and 267
Pella, John & Erik Ringmar, History of International Relations Open Textbook Project, Cambridge: Open Book, forthcoming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires
Story 2: Bombshell Fake News Story Out of Context Nasty — Junk Journalism — Videos —
What Meghan Markle thinks of Donald Trump – archive video
President Trump reacted to Meghan Markle's criticism of him during his 2016 campaign
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry welcome first child
Trump calls Duchess of Sussex 'nasty' ahead of UK trip
MADE HER MARK
Donald Trump shocked Meghan Markle was 'nasty' about him but says it's great to have an American princess
By Tom Newton Dunn in the Oval Office
1st June 2019, 10:32 am
Updated: 1st June 2019, 10:33 am
PRESIDENT Trump has revealed his shock at Meghan Markle's "nasty" comments about him — but believes she will make a great American princess.
The US leader can expect a lavish welcome from the Queen, Charles and Harry at Buckingham Palace on Monday.
Donald Trump has revealed his shock at Meghan Markle's "nasty" comments about himCredit: Paul Edwards
Speaking to The Sun in the Oval Office, Mr Trump told of his great honour at meeting the 93-year-old monarch again, and how he's ready to lock horns with the Prince of Wales on climate change.
Relations with Meghan are believed to be much frostier — yet Trump was generous in his praise for the new mum.
Officially she will miss next week's functions while on maternity with three-week-old son Archie.
But it is thought she and Trump are being kept apart to avoid an embarrassing confrontation.
LA—born Meghan, 37, accused him of being "misogynistic" and "divisive" during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The ex-Suits actress also pledged to vote for his rival Hillary Clinton.
I didn't know that. What can I say? I didn't know that she was nasty
Told of Meghan's barbs by The Sun, Mr Trump insisted it was the first time he'd heard them.
He said: "I didn't know that. What can I say? I didn't know that she was nasty."
When told Meghan had threatened to leave for Canada if he won in 2016, he countered: "A lot of people are moving here (to the US)."
He also revealed that he had no idea that he wouldn't be meeting Meghan on his three-day state visit to the UK.
He said: "I didn't know that. I hope she is OK."
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with their baby son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-WindsorCredit: Getty – Contributor
Rather than hit back at Meghan in his customary fashion, the President seemed willing to mend fences — while saying she can flourish in her new role.
He predicted she will make "a very good" American princess.
On her joining the Royal Family, he added: "It is nice, and I am sure she will do excellently.
"She will be very good. I hope she does (succeed)."
'TRUMP IS DIVISIVE'
Meghan detailed why she didn't like Trump in a 2016 interview on US talk show, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.
She said: "It's really the moment I go. We film Suits in Toronto and I might just stay in Canada.
"Yes, of course, Trump is divisive, think about female voters alone, right?
"I think it was in 2012 the Republican Party lost the female vote by 12 points.
"That is a huge number and with as misogynistic as Trump is, and so vocal about it, that is a huge chunk of it."
She added: "You're not just voting for a woman if it's Hillary (Clinton). Yes you're voting because she's a woman, but certainly because Trump has made it easy to see that you don't really want that kind of world that he's painting."
Trump, who will be joined on his trip by First Lady Melania, 49, is also ready to talk environmental issues with Charles over tea next week.
The Prince is expected to tackle the President on his controversial decision to pull America out of the Paris climate change agreement last year.
I can say we have among the cleanest climate in the world right now
Mr Trump told The Sun of the encounter: "I have met Charles before. I like Charles. I think that's very good.
"We will be talking. I can say we have among the cleanest climate in the world right now.
"Our air and water are doing very well. We hope other countries can do so well. You know, it is a big atmosphere and frankly if one country is going to be bad and other countries going to be good, the country that is good gets penalised. Which is unfair."
It will be great seeing the Queen for the second time
In a sign at how deeply Mr Trump values the honour of his state visit and being hosted by the Queen, he is bringing all four of his grown-up children and their spouses to share the experience.
And he wants Ivanka, Tiffany, Eric and Donald Jnr to hold a "next generation" meeting with Princes William and Harry. The President said: "I think my children will be meeting them. It would be nice."
Paris hotting up
THE feud between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron has been reignited with the US President blaming the Gilet Jaunes riots on the climate change agreement.
He suggested France's leader would not have faced months of the bitter street violence if he, too, had withdrawn from the landmark international deal.
Mr Trump controversially pulled the US out of the three-year-old global plan to halt temperature rises last year, insisting it unfairly crippled the American economy.
He said: "Well, I think Paris has turned out to be something that I made absolutely the right decision.
"Look at what's going on in Paris. We are a higher standard than what we would be under the agreement.
"In the meantime, we have lowered taxes and we have the best economy that we have had in a long time. Probably ever."
Mr Trump's combustive comments will infuriate embattled Mr Macron just five days before the French President hosts the White House chief in Normandy.
Jeremy Corbyn will make anti-Trump speech during D-Day anniversary week
He explained: "I am bringing some of the family. They are going to be there and we will be greatly honoured by the trip.
"It will be great seeing the Queen for the second time.
"We had a very good talk the first one. We had a lot of interesting things to say. It really was a great visit. My mother also loved the Queen."
President Trump told Tom Newton Dunn that he is looking forward to meeting the Queen for the second time during his state visitCredit: Paul Edwards
Meghan Markle appeared on The Nightly Show in 2016 Credit: Comedy Central
Donald Trump in dig at Macron as he insists he was right about Paris Agreement on climate change
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9196110/donald-trump-meghan-markle-nasty-comment-uk-visit/
On eve of UK visit, Trump denies his taped remark about 'nasty' Meghan Markle
AFP• June 2, 2019
US President Donald Trump denied on Sunday that he had called Meghan Markle "nasty" just days before heading to Britain to be hosted, and lavishly feted, by other members of the royal family.
And yet the remark about the American-born Dutchess of Sussex is heard clearly on a tape of a Trump interview with the British tabloid The Sun.
Trump's tweet Sunday came a day before his three-day state visit is to begin with a pomp-filled ceremony at Buckingham Palace followed by lunch with 93-year-old Queen Elizabeth II.
He tweeted: "I never called Meghan Markle 'nasty.' Made up by the Fake News Media, and they got caught cold! Will @CNN, @nytimes and others apologize? Doubt it!"
On the tape, the interviewer points out that Markle, who married the queen's grandson Prince Harry in 2018, had been critical of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, saying "she'd move to Canada if you got elected; turned out she moved here."
"Well, a lot of people are moving here, so what can I say," Trump replied. "No, I didn't know that she was nasty."
And yet he went on to say he thought that as princess "she'll do excellently, she'll be very good, she'll be very good. I hope she does."
– 'Listen for yourself!' –
An official Trump campaign Twitter account had rather bizarrely called attention to the "nasty" comment on Saturday by linking to a video of the interview and suggesting the president had not used the word; it urged people to "Listen for yourself!"
Markle will not be meeting with Trump, though the official reason given is that she remains on maternity leave with her three-week-old son Archie.
Trump further roiled the waters ahead of his visit by weighing in on Britain's unending Brexit woes, throwing his weight behind former foreign secretary Boris Johnson to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May and suggesting Britain should leave the European Union without a departure deal if better terms can't be reached.
The Sun called Trump's remarks a "bombshell intervention" and a "major breach of protocol" by a foreign leader.
The president said he was not giving an outright endorsement to any candidate to lead Britain's ruling Conservative Party, but also said that he liked Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
Hunt on Sunday played down any awkwardness over Trump's visit.
"I don't think it's going to disrupt the welcome at all," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation," because the British had learned "from the president that you know regularly we have to agree to disagree…
"It doesn't affect the fact that we have the most important partnership that there is in the world for freedom, democracy, the rule of law."
In addition to Markle's remark about moving to Canada, she had also called Trump "misogynistic" and "divisive" during the 2016 campaign, feelings that a good number of Britons appear to share.
Large anti-Trump protests are expected during his visit, and a huge blimp of Trump as a baby in diapers is being readied to fly over the city if police allow it.
Markle's absence may be conspicuous in one way: Trump is bringing all four of his adult children and their spouses to London and, according to The Sun, said he wants them to hold a "next generation" meeting with Princes William and Harry.
"I think my children will be meeting them," Trump said. "It would be nice."
https://news.yahoo.com/eve-uk-visit-trump-denies-taped-remark-nasty-162350215.html
Story 3: Comey, McCabe and Strzok, Just A Few of Clinton Obama Democrat Criminal Conspirators That Are Being Investigated and Will Be indicted and Prosecuted For Leaking Classified Information and Criminal Conspiracy — Who is Next? Many Former Obama Administration Office Holders — Videos
Doug Collins: Mueller just wanted to raise more questions
Steve Hilton: Mueller showed himself for what he is; a partisan
William Barr Hints at Future Indictments of Former Officials Comey, Strzok and McCabe
Mark Levin: Mueller is a complete fraud and Pelosi is out of her mind
Joe diGenova: Mueller should be disbarred
Tom Fitton: Robert Mueller needs to be investigated
History Will Look Back With Disbelief: Treachery and Attempted Tyranny of the #MuellerInvestigation
Declassification May Help Reveal Deep Obama-Era Corruption—Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Mueller Upends Rule of Law, In Final Appearance—Sidney Powell
Congressman FURIOUS with People IGNORING CRIMES of Obama Administration, Hillary Clinton, DOJ, FBI
'No Way Obama Was Not Told' – Former Intel Officer Tony Shaffer on Spying on Trump Campaign
Shocking Use of FISA by Obama's FBI to Spy on Trump Campaign – Exclusive with Tony Shaffer
Former US attorney: FBI officials will likely face charges
DiGenova: Comey, Clapper and Brennan will have to pay the 'Barr bill'
Brennan may have set his own perjury trap: Napolitano
Hillary Clinton's Russia collusion IOU: The answers she owes America
BY JOHN SOLOMON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/03/19 07:00 PM EDT 4,948
During the combined two decades she served as a U.S. senator and secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's patrons regularly donated to her family charity when they had official business pending before America's most powerful political woman.
The pattern of political IOUs paid to the Clinton Foundation was so pernicious that the State Department even tried to execute a special agreement with the charity to avoid the overt appearance of "pay-to-play" policy.
Still, the money continued to flow by the millions of dollars, from foreigners and Americans alike who were perceived to be indebted to the Clinton machine or in need of its help.
It's time for the American public to call in their own IOU on political transparency.
The reason? Never before — until 2016 — had the apparatus of a U.S. presidential candidate managed to sic the weight of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community on a rival nominee during an election, and by using a foreign-fed, uncorroborated political opposition research document.
But Clinton's campaign, in concert with the Democratic Party and through their shared law firm, funded Christopher Steele's unverified dossierwhich, it turns out, falsely portrayed Republican Donald Trump as a treasonous asset colluding with Russian President Vladimir Putin to hijack the U.S. election.
Steele went to the FBI to get an investigation started and then leaked the existence of the investigation, with the hope of sinking Trump's presidential aspirations.
On its face, it is arguably the most devious political dirty trick in American history and one of the most overt intrusions of a foreigner into a U.S. election.
It appears the Clinton machine knew that what it was doing was controversial. That's why it did backflips to disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in its Federal Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.
Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) used the law firm of Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson's research firm, Fusion GPS, which then hired Steele — several layers that obfuscated transparency, kept the operation off the campaign's public FEC reports and gave the Clintons plausible deniability.
But Steele's first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI's imagination. So the Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr — whose wife, Nellie, also worked for Fusion — to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI.
Nellie Ohr likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele's dossier to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump dirt at the FBI, too.
Then Steele and, separately, longtime Clinton protégé Cody Shearer went to the State Department to get the story out, increasing pressure on the FBI.
In short, the Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure — and bad intel — until an investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time, James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
To finish the mission, Simpson and Steele leaked the existence of the FBI investigation to the news media to ensure it would hurt Trump politically. Simpson even called the leaks a "hail Mary" that failed.
Trump won, however. And now, thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller, we know the Russia-collusion allegations relentlessly peddled by Team Clinton were bogus. But not before the FBI used the Clinton-funded, foreign-created research to get a total of four warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, transition and presidency from October 2016 through the following autumn.
The Clinton team's dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out its political hit job on Trump.
After two years of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it's time for the house to call in its IOU.
Hillary Clinton owes us answers — lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing many high-profile media interviews.
I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said Friday night on Fox News that it's time for Clinton to answer what she knew and when she knew it.
Here are 10 essential questions:
In January 2018, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a formal investigative request for documents and written answers from your campaign. Do you plan to comply?
Please identify each person in your campaign who was involved with, or aware of, hiring Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele.
Please identify each person in your campaign, including Perkins Coie lawyers, who were aware that Steele provided information to the FBI or State Department, and when they learned it.
Describe any information you and your campaign staff received, or were briefed on, before Election Day that was derived from the work of Simpson, Steele, Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr or Perkins Coie and that tried to connect Trump, his campaign or his business empire with Russia.
Please describe all contacts your campaign had before Election Day with or about the following individuals: Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, former foreign policy scholar Stefan Halper and Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud.
Did you or any senior members of your campaign, including lawyers such as Michael Sussmann, have any contact with the CIA, its former Director John Brennan, current Director Gina Haspel, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe?
Describe all contacts your campaign had with Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal concerning Trump, Russia and Ukraine.
Describe all contacts you and your campaign had with DNC contractorAlexander Chalupa, the Ukraine government, the Ukraine Embassy in the United States or the U.S. Embassy in Kiev concerning Trump, Russia or former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Why did your campaign and the Democratic Party make a concerted effort to portray Trump as a Russian asset?
Given that investigations by a House committee, a Senate committee and a special prosecutor all have concluded there isn't evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, do you regret the actions by your campaign and by Steele, Simpson and Sussmann to inject these unfounded allegations into the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and the news media?
Hillary Clinton owes us answers to each of these questions. She should skip the lawyer-speak and answer them with the candor worthy of an elder American stateswoman.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/446736-hillary-clintons-russia-collusion-iou-the-answers-she-owes-america
Opinion: How a senior DOJ official helped Dem researchers on Trump-Russia case
By John Solomon
Opinion Contributor
Hundreds of pages of previously unreported emails and memos provide the clearest evidence yet that a research firm, hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to find dirt on and defeat Donald Trump, worked early and often with the FBI, a Department of Justice (DOJ) official and the intelligence community during the 2016 presidential election and the early days of Trump's presidency.
Fusion GPS's work and its involvement with several FBI officials have been well reported.
But a close review of these new documents shows just how closely Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who reported to Obama-era Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, maintained contact with Fusion — and, in particular, its primary source, former British spy Christopher Steele — before, during and after the election.
Yates was fired by President Trump over an unrelated political dispute. Ohr was demoted recently.
Ohr's own notes, emails and text messages show he communicated extensively with Steele and with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. Those documents have been turned over in recent weeks to investigative bodies in Congress and the DOJ, but not reviewed outside the investigative ranks until now.
They show Ohr had contact with Steele in the days just before the FBI opened its Trump-Russia probe in summer 2016, and then engaged Steele as a "confidential human source" assisting in that probe.
They also confirm that Ohr later became a critical conduit of continuing information from Steele after the FBI ended the Brit's role as an informant.
"B, doubtless a sad and crazy day for you re- SY," Steele texted Ohr on Jan. 31, 2017, referencing President Trump's firing of Sally Yates for insubordination.
Steele's FBI relationship had been terminated about three months earlier. The bureau concluded on Nov. 1, 2016, that he leaked information to the news media and was "not suitable for use" as a confidential source, memos show.
The FBI specifically instructed Steele that he could no longer "operate to obtain any intelligence whatsoever on behalf of the FBI," those memos show.
Yet, Steele asked Ohr in the Jan. 31 text exchange if he could continue to help feed information to the FBI: "Just want to check you are OK, still in the situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues."
"I'm still here and able to help as discussed," Ohr texted back. "I'll let you know if that changes."
Steele replied, "If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can't allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous." Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to.
FBI officials now admit they continued to receive information from Steele through Ohr, identifying more than a half-dozen times its agents interviewed Ohr in late 2016 and 2017, to learn what Steele was saying.
That continued reliance on Steele after his termination is certain to raise interest in Congress about whether the FBI broke its own rules.
But the memos also raise questions about Ohr's and the Justice Department's roles in the origins of building a counterintelligence case against the Republican presidential nominee, based heavily on opposition research funded by his rival's campaign, the DNC and the DNC's main law firm, Perkins Coie.
Some of the more tantalizing Ohr contacts occurred in the days when Steele made his first contacts with the FBI in summer 2016 about the Russia matter.
"There is something separate I wanted to discuss with you informally and separately. It concerns our favourite business tycoon!" Steele wrote Ohr on July 1, 2016, in an apparent reference to Trump.
That overture came just four days before Steele walked into the FBI office in Rome with still-unproven allegations that Trump had an improper relationship with Russia, including possible efforts to hijack the presidential election.
Ohr scheduled a call with Steele over Skype a few days later. But then the two men met in Washington on July 30, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel.
Ohr brought his wife, Nellie, who was working at Fusion GPS on the Trump-Russia research project.
"Great to see you and Nellie this morning Bruce," Steele wrote shortly after their breakfast meeting. "Let's keep in touch on the substantive issues/s (sic). Glenn is happy to speak to you on this if it would help."
That meeting occurred exactly one day before FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok formally opened an investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, into whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Moscow to steal the election.
At the time, the case was based mostly on an Australian diplomat's tip that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos appeared to know in advance that the Russians possessed information involving Hillary Clinton before hacked documents were released on WikiLeaks.
Soon, the case expanded to include allegations that another Trump adviser, Carter Page, might have ties to Russia — an uncorroborated allegation from Fusion GPS's research now known as the "Steele dossier."
Calendar notations and handwritten notes indicate Ohr followed up on Steele's offer and met with Simpson on Aug. 22, 2016. Ohr's notes indicate Simpson identified several "possible intermediaries" between the Trump campaign and Russia.
One was identified as a "longtime associate of Trump" who "put together several real estate deals for Russian investigators to purchase Trump properties." Another was a Russian apparently tied to Carter Page, Ohr's note of his Simpson contact indicated.
Steele offered Ohr many other theories over their contacts, including a now widely discredited one that the Russian Alfa Bank had a computer server "as a link" to the Trump campaign, Ohr's notes show.
Though much of Steele's information remained uncorroborated, the FBI nonetheless took the extraordinary step in October 2016 of seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to monitor Carter Page during the final days of the election, based mostly on Steele's dossier. The warrant was renewed at least three times, but Carter Page was never charged.
Ohr's connections to Steele are significant because at least one of the FISA warrants was approved by Ohr's boss, Yates.
By early November 2016, Steele was terminated for unauthorized media contacts — and the FBI was turning to Ohr as a back channel to Steele.
Ohr's notes suggest he met Nov. 21, 2016, with FBI officials that included Strzok, then-FBI attorney Lisa Page and another agent. Strzok and Lisa Page have become the poster children for Republicans who believe the FBI abused its authority by investigating Trump on flimsy evidence. FBI records confirm an interview with Ohr around that time.
Ohr's notes from that meeting indicate that FBI officials told him they "may go back to Chris" — an apparent reference to Steele — just 20 days after dismissing him.
In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence probes in recent American history.
Most importantly, the new memos make clear that Ohr, a man whose name was barely uttered during the first 18 months of the scandal, may have played a critical role in stitching together a Democratic opposition research project and the top echelons of the FBI and DOJ.
Representatives for the Justice Department and FBI did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment. A message left on the cell phone for Bruce and Nellie Ohr, seeking comment, was not returned.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill's executive vice president for video.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/400810-opinion-how-a-senior-justice-official-helped-dems-on-trump-russia-case
Comey And McCabe Should Be Charged With A Conspiracy To Defraud Americans
Comey, Strzok, and McCabe almost certainly conspired to use a compilation of salacious and unverified allegations as evidence to begin a federal probe.
By H.A. Goodman
Not long ago, CNN and MSNBC, along with everyone from The New York Times and Washington Post to Bloomberg and Brookings, cited 18 U.S. Code 371 as a legal statute President Trump had possibly violated. This conspiracy statute is broad and deals with two or more individuals who conspire "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
After two years of a Mueller probe started by leaked memos from James Comey, and investigations fostered by a debunked dossier purchased by Hillary Clinton and Democrats, 18 U.S. Code 371 can ironically be used against those who investigated President Trump, without evidence he or anyone around him committed crimes associated with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack.
As for the alleged hacking, The Daily Beast's Kevin Paulson wrote "Both the DNC and the security firm Crowdstrike, hired to respond to the breach, have said repeatedly over the years that they gave the FBI a copy of all the DNC images back in 2016." Since the U.S. government never analyzed DNC servers in order to confirm the accuracy of Crowdstrike's copies, and the DNC hired Crowdstrike, there's an obvious conflict of interest in trusting a firm outsourced by Democrats. Like the Steele dossier, Americans were forced to take the "word" of people linked to Democratic Party funding that Russia had something on Trump, and that only endless investigations would put the allegations to rest.
With the Mueller probe done and no further indictments on the horizon, along with the fact no evidence was found of Trump colluding with Russia (hence, no further indictments), President Obama's FBI officials now face a litany of criminal referrals from Rep. Devin Nunes and other Republicans. In addition to leaking classified memos and lying to Congress, conspiracy charges will be one aspect of the referrals Nunes sends to Attorney General William Barr.
The Trump administration will now embark on a journey to discover how and why these McCarthy-era probes were started in the first place. Most importantly, what evidence was used to form the basis of investigations targeting Trump?
How Did the Trump Investigation Take Hold?
The answer to this question is a dossier purchased by Trump's political rivals that Obama's Justice Department warned the FBI about, long before the Mueller probe. This warning is highlighted in an article by John Solomon titled "DOJ official warned Steele dossier was connected to Clinton, might be biased":
Ohr's testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred. …the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee's campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump's election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don't take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
'We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting,' Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. 'You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths.'
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court.
Lying to a FISA court is a crime, as is deliberately misleading FISA judges. Former FBI director James Comey, former deputy director Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok, a former counterintelligence agent, initiated investigations into the Trump campaign without the existence of a crime linked to Trump, using gossip and hearsay in the form of a dossier to obtain a FISA warrant.
There was also a conversation between George Papadopoulos and an Australian ambassador linked to the Clinton Foundation, as well as a Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian attorney Loretta Lynch allowed into the country with a special visa. Yet neither of these events resulted in any indictments of Trump or Trump Jr.
Suspicion Alone Sparked This Huge Witch Hunt
How is it that FBI officials justified an investigation based purely on suspicion?
While Democratic Sen. Mark Warner calls the notion that Obama spied on Trump a "long-debunked spying conspiracy theory," it's doubtful he and other Democrats would have accepted Bush or Trump obtaining a salacious dossier and then using it to investigate President Obama or Hillary Clinton. There was no reason to use a dossier purchased by Trump's political rivals, nor was there any reason to use the hearsay from a London Barr (Alexander Downer's account of the Papadopoulos conversation) without any evidence of a link between Trump and the alleged DNC hack.
Comey, Strzok, and McCabe almost certainly conspired to utilize a compilation of salacious and unverified allegations as evidence to begin a probe, especially since the Department of Justice had already warned the FBI about endless issues pertaining to the dossier.
We already know Strzok wanted to stop Trump from becoming president, as reported in a New York Times piece by Michael S. Schmidt titled "Top Agent Said F.B.I. Would Stop Trump From Becoming President":
New texts released Thursday by the Justice Department's inspector general show that the F.B.I. agent overseeing the investigation into President Trump's campaign pledged to stop Mr. Trump from becoming president.
'[Trump's] not ever going to become president, right?' asked a top F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page, in one text. 'Right?!'
Peter Strzok, the agent overseeing the F.B.I.'s investigation into links between Mr. Trump's campaign and Russia, answered, 'No. No he won't. We'll stop it.'
The exchange, in August 2016, came shortly after the investigation into Russian tampering with the election began.
Could you imagine the media outrage if Clinton were indicted in 2016 and Strzok had texted "We'll stop" Clinton? Strzok's text messages are sufficient evidence to prove intent of a conspiracy, along with the constant media leaks that resulted in McCabe and FBI counsel James Baker coming under criminal investigation.
Finally, in addition to the incriminating texts between Strzok and Lisa Page, as well as the fact Bruce Ohr notified the FBI about why the agency shouldn't use the Steele dossier to obtain a FISA warrant, Comey committed a crime by leaking classified memos to initiate the Mueller probe. According to a press release, at least one memo Comey leaked was classified:
After a review of the seven memoranda created by former Director Comey, it is now clear that four are marked classified at various levels of sensitivity. Former Director Comey reportedly provided copies of four memos to Columbia Law School Professor Daniel Richman. If true, that would mean at least one disclosed memo contained information now-marked classified.
FBI officials leaking information for political purposes while using a dossier purchased by Clinton should never have been the hallmarks of a two-year investigation into a duly elected president. Now that endless probes have resulted in zero evidence Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to hack the DNC or purchase Facebook ads, Americans need the truth about the origins of the Mueller probe.
Without Trump declassifying further documents, the public record alone is enough to charge Comey, Strzok, and McCabe under existing conspiracy statutes for conducting sprawling investigations and utilizing government agencies purely for political outcomes.
H. A. Goodman is an author, columnist, and journalist published in The Hill, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, The Jerusalem Post, and other publications.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/12/comey-mccabe-charged-conspiracy-defraud-americans/
18 U.S. Code § 371.Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agencythereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 701; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
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Story 1: President Trump Accuses Great Britain of Spying On Him — Videos —
Royal Az – Donald Trump accuses UK of spying on him the day after confirming state visit
Donald Trump and his UK state visit – BBC Newsnight
GCHQ denies wiretapping President Donald Trump
GCHQ blasts Trump's 'utterly ridiculous' accusation that it helped Barack Obama spy on his campaign in 2016 – just a day after the President accepted invitation for UK state visit
Mr Trump highlighted claim by former CIA analyst that GCHQ spied on him
The tweet said: 'Wow it is now just a question of time before the truth comes out'
GCHQ responded by dismissing the claim it was asked to conduct wiretapping
The row has exploded just a day after it was announced Trump would visit UK
By JOE MIDDLETON FOR MAILONLINE and EMILY GOODIN, U.S. POLITCAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 12:50 EDT, 24 April 2019 | UPDATED: 14:01 EDT, 24 April 2019
GCHQ – Britain's electronic espionage agency – has blasted Donald Trump's 'utterly ridiculous' accusation that it helped Barack Obama spy on his campaign in 2016 – just a day after the president announced his UK state visit.
The US president highlighted a claim by former CIA analyst Larry Johnson that British intelligence assisted the administration of Barack Obama by spying on his 2016 run for the White House.
In a trademark tweet, Mr Trump added: 'WOW! It is now just a question of time before the truth comes out, and when it does, it will be a beauty!'
However GCHQ responded by referring to a statement it issued when similar allegations surfaced in 2017 dismissing the claim it was asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president elect as 'nonsense'.
'They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,' the statement said.
The row erupted just a day after it was announced that Mr Trump would be making his long-awaited state visit to the UK in June.
President Donald Trump repeated a claim that United Kingdom's intelligence service helped former President Barack Obama spy on his 2016 campaign
Johnson worked at the CIA from 1985 to 1989 but is best known for spreading the hoax in 2008 that Michelle Obama had been videotaped using a slur against Caucasians
Downing Street denied that the row risked casting a pall over the visit. Asked if Theresa May feared Mr Trump's tweet would 'sour' his trip to Britain, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'No. The US and UK are long-standing partners. We do more together than any two countries in the world.
'We share intelligence that we do not share with other allies. That unparalleled sharing of intelligence between our countries has undoubtedly saved British lives.
'A state visit is an opportunity to strengthen our ties.'
The spokesman declined to make any comment on the contents of Mr Trump's tweet, on the grounds that he never discussed security issues in public. Asked whether GCHQ was speaking on behalf of the Government, he replied: 'GCHQ is indeed part of the Government.'
In his tweet, Mr Trump referenced a report by the One America News Network which referred to the claims made by Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst.
Mr Johnson is a controversial figure in the US where he has been accused of making a series of false allegations – including one that Michelle Obama had been recorded using a slur against white people.
The allegation that GCHQ spied on the Trump campaign at the behest of the Obama administration was first made in 2017 by Andrew Napolitano, a former judge and commentator for Fox News.
He claimed he had been told by intelligence sources that the Obama team had wanted to use the British agency so there would be 'no American fingerprints on this'.
His comments were then picked up by the then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer to back up Mr Trump's claim that the Obama administration had bugged his phones.
That prompted a rare public denial from GCHQ.
It said in a statement: 'Recent allegations made by media commentator judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president-elect are nonsense.'
Mr Trump's intervention threatened to lead to new strains in the relationship with the US, just as the two countries are preparing for the president's state visit in June.
It comes amid signs that ministers are prepared to grant Chinese tech giant Huawei a role in building the UK's 5G network – something the US strongly opposes.
Ministers denied a decision had been taken to allow it to provide 'noncore' equipment at a meeting on Tuesday of the National Security Council chaired by Theresa May, saying a final decision was expected later in the spring.
However, speaking at a cyber security conference in Glasgow, the head of GCHQ Jeremy Fleming said the 'flag of origin' was only a 'secondary factor' when considering whether to allow particular technology to be used in the UK network.
Senior security figures have previously warned that allowing a Chinese firm access to the UK's critical telecommunications network could jeopardise national security.
The US has banned Huawei from taking part in its government networks and has been pressing other partners in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – to follow suit.
It reflects fears that the Chinese government could require it to install 'back door' technology that would allow it to spy on them or disrupt their communications.
Asked if Prime Minister Theresa May feared Trump's tweet would 'sour' his trip to Britain, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'No. The U.S. and UK are long-standing partners. We do more together than any two countries in the world.
The White House has touted Johnson's claim before and infuriated the British over it.
In March 2017 Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano charged the U.K. with spying on Trump – an accusation the White House seized upon and repeated.
Napolitano claimed GCHQ, whose full name is the Government Communications Headquarters, wiretapped Trump's campaign on behalf of Obama.
Then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeated the charge from the podium during one of his briefings, drawing outrage from the British.
A spokesperson for the British intelligence agency called the claims 'utterly ridiculous.'
'They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,' the spokesperson said in a rare statement on intelligence activities.
The president was asked about it during a March 17, 2017 press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
'We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television, I didn't make an opinion on it. You shouldn't be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox,' he said at the time.
Shortly after Trump's statement, Fox News disavowed Napolitano's claim on the air.
'Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano's commentary,' anchor Shepard Smith said. 'Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, any way. Full stop.'
Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson has long claimed the British helped Obama's administration help spy on Trump – a charge the United Kingdom has denied
In March 2017 Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano charged the U.K. with spying on Trump – claim he made using Johnson as a source
2017: 'Something in common' Trump makes wiretap joke to Merkel
The American and British governments have an agreement not to spy on each other as members of the 'Five Eyes.'
The U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada are all members of the group. The five countries share intelligence information and agree not to spy against one another.
Johnson admitted he was one of Napolitano's sources on the matter.
He told Politico at the time that his source on the spying claim was someone 'with a history of having access to national security information.'
Johnson worked at the CIA from 1985 to 1989 but is best known for spreading the hoax in 2008 that Michelle Obama had been videotaped using a slur against Caucasians.
He claimed she 'railing against whitey' at a church.
Johnson said he had not seen the tape himself but heard from sources Republicans had the tape 'to drop at the appropriate time.'
No such tape was ever released.
Then White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeated the charge from the podium, infuriating the British
President Trump was asked about the matter in his March 2017 press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel
He's also a defender of Russia and frequently appears on Russian state TV.
'I'm not a nut,' he told Politico. 'I call things as I see it. I don't pander to any one particular political position.'
Trump, meanwhile, has been ramping claims his campaign was spied up since word came special counsel Robert Mueller was wrapping up his investigation and about to deliver his report.
The president seized upon a claim made by Attorney General William Barr – in an early April hearing before Mueller's report came out – that there was U.S. spying against Trump's campaign and he was assembling a team to review investigative conduct during the elections.
'I think spying did occur,' Barr said at a Senate hearing.
'I think what he said was absolutely true. There was absolutely spying into my campaign,' Trump said after Barr's testimony. 'I'll go a step further. It was my opinion it was illegal spying, unprecedented spying, and something that should never be allowed to happen in our country again.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6956015/GCHQ-spy-agency-brands-Trumps-claims-spied-president-utterly-ridiculous.html
TRUMP BLAST
Donald Trump accuses Britain of SPYING on him as he ramps up tensions ahead of showdown UK visit
US President made the sensational claim in a tweet quoting a conspiracy website
By Corey Charlton
24th April 2019, 3:45 pm
Updated: 24th April 2019, 6:13 pm
DONALD Trump has accused the UK of helping the Obama administration SPY on him during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The US President made the sensational claim in a tweet today, quoting the right-wing conspiracy-peddling website One America News Network.
Donald Trump has rehashed discredited allegations he was spied on by Britain
He made the allegation in this tweet today, citing the partisan right-wing website One America News
It cited a former CIA analyst who accused UK agencies of helping the Obama Administration spy on Trump election campaign.
The president added: "WOW! It is now just a question of time before the truth comes out, and when it does, it will be a beauty!"
The bizarre accusation comes just days after it was revealed Trump would be undertaking a state visit this summer.
It may be he is hoping to ramp up tensions ahead of the visit in a bid to improve his leverage in any political discussions which may take place.
However, the accusation actually dates back to at least 2017 and has been denied by both the Obama administration and MI6.
A British security official was quoted by Reuters as saying the accusation was "totally untrue and quite frankly, absurd."
Meanwhile, Donald and Melania will not stay at Buckingham Palace during their state visit this summer because the Queen has got the builders in, it's been claimed.
Royal sources reportedly said the Monarch can't let the US President stop over as his staff can't stay in the East Wing as it will be closed during a £365m renovation programme.
Buckingham Palace revealed that the Trumps will visit the UK for three days from June 3rd to the 5th which is timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
It comes more than two years after Theresa May first offered the visit when they met in January 2017 at the White House.
However, any hopes of the Republican leader staying over at the Palace have been scuppered.
Sources said the Trumps would have been expected to stay in the palace's historic Belgian Suite which is still open.
However, it's reported none of their entourage of aides or staff could be accommodated due to the closure of the East Wing.
The Daily Mail reports there is no suggestion the couple will be offered other royal accommodation which means they will most likely take up residence at Winfield House.
The manor house – which is the palatial London home of the US Ambassador – is where they stayed last summer.
However, royal aides insisted there was no snub intended to the President and First Lady pointing out even the Queen may be forced to leave her official London home during the renovation.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8929990/donald-trump-accuses-britain-of-spying-on-him-as-he-ramps-up-tensions-ahead-of-showdown-uk-visit/
Story 2: President Trump Goes On Offense With Washington Establishment — Hit Me With Your Best Shot — They Did — Trump Won — It's Over — Go Pound Sand — Videos —
Trump says subpoenas issued by Democrats a tactic to win 2020
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White House plans to fight House subpoena of former counsel Donald McGahn for testimony on Mueller report
Josh Dawsey, Robert Costa, Rosalind Helderman
The White House plans to fight a subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee for former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify, according to people familiar with the matter, setting up another showdown in the aftermath of the special counsel report.
The Trump administration also plans to oppose other requests from House committees for the testimony of current and former aides about actions in the White House described in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report, according to two people familiar with internal thinking who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke of the plans on the condition of anonymity.
White House lawyers plan to tell attorneys for administration witnesses called by the House that they will be asserting executive privilege over their testimony, officials said.
Such a move will intensify a power struggle between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats, potentially setting up a protracted court battle.
McGahn was mentioned more than 150 times in Mueller's report and told investigators about how the president pressured him to oust the special counsel and then pushed him to publicly deny the episode.
McGahn's lawyer, William Burck, began discussions with the Judiciary Committee about his potential testimony after the panel issued a subpoena Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Securing McGahn's testimony would be a boon for the committee, which hopes to focus on potential obstruction of justice by Trump in a series of public hearings this spring while exploring other "abuses of power," Democratic aides said.
Public testimony from McGahn could create a spectacle that would parallel the June 1973 testimony of President Richard Nixon's former White House counsel, John Dean, whose live televised appearance before a Senate committee painted a vivid portrait for the country of the White House coverup of the Watergate burglary.
People close to McGahn, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said McGahn is "following the process" and working with the White House on his next steps, despite Trump's public and private anger about his former counsel's prominence in the Mueller report.
"He's not eager to testify. He's not reluctant. He got a subpoena. It compels him to testify. But there are some countervailing legal reasons that might prevent that," said one person close to McGahn, who described private discussions on the condition of anonymity. "He doesn't want to be in contempt of Congress; nor does he want to be in contempt of his ethical obligations and legal obligations as a former White House official."
Trump has told advisers that McGahn was disloyal to him, and he criticized the lawyer for taking extensive notes of meetings that were cited in Mueller's report. While initially portraying the report as an exoneration, Trump has grown frustrated with its depiction of his White House.
The two men had an adversarial relationship, with McGahn contemplating quitting several times during his tenure. But he was also key to some of the president's main accomplishments, like the confirmation of two Supreme Court judges and a record number of federal judiciary appointments.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/white-house-plans-to-fight-house-subpoena-of-former-counsel-donald-mcgahn-for-testimony-on-mueller-report/ar-BBWdPXY
Democrats Ask and Trump Says No, Signaling a Bitter Fight Ahead
President Trump's administration foreshadowed weeks, if not months, of trench warfare with Congress on Tuesday as it defied demands for documents and testimony on multiple fronts in an effort to thwart expanding investigations mounted by House Democrats.
While Democrats debated the merits of pursuing impeachment against Mr. Trump, his advisers signaled that the administration would resist efforts to obtain the president's tax returns and force his former aides to testify. The refusals could lead to constitutional clashes in court as Mr. Trump seeks to stave off further inquiries into his personal and political matters.
White House lawyers indicated that they planned to tell Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel, and other former officials not to comply with subpoenas for their testimony, according to a person familiar with the legal strategy. The White House also blocked a former official from answering questions about security clearances to officials including Jared Kushner. And the Treasury Department refused to turn over Mr. Trump's tax returns before a deadline set by House Democrats.
"I agree with the strategy of now fighting everything, the way Clinton did initially," said Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump's personal lawyer, referring to President Bill Clinton's approach to investigations in the 1990s. "We already gave every document we have, every witness we have. I don't think the White House should sit by and have them do it all over again."
Mr. Giuliani said that Democratic committee chairmen like Representatives Jerrold Nadler of New York and Adam B. Schiff of California had proved to be partisan warriors who had compromised themselves. "They can't pretend to be objective observers," he said. "Not Nadler, not Schiff. They've expressed too many opinions, and too much of a prejudgment."
The latest flurry of action came a day after Mr. Trump and his businesses sued the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in an effort to quash a congressional subpoena for financial records. Mr. Trump also sought a court order blocking his accounting company from handing over information to the committee.
"It appears that the president believes that the Constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials at will to violate their legal obligations, and that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight," the chairman, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, said on Tuesday after the security officer failed to appear as ordered.
The crossfire on Tuesday reinforced that the investigative battles that have dominated Mr. Trump's presidency were hardly ended by the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, released last week.
Although Mr. Mueller effectively lifted the greatest threat by saying that he did not establish any criminal conspiracy between Mr. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russian agents seeking to help elect him, the report included enough other damning material that Democratic lawmakers are intent on pursuing their inquiries.
Mr. Trump's White House and campaign ultimately handed nearly 1.5 million pages of documents to Mr. Mueller and did not assert executive privilege to block aides from testifying, although the president himself refused to be interviewed in person and answered questions only in writing. But Mr. Trump has decided to take a more confrontational approach with Congress on the grounds that its investigations are merely political exercises.
"There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it's very partisan — obviously very partisan," Mr. Trump told The Washington Post in an interview on Tuesday, saying that he opposed current or former White House aides providing testimony to congressional panels.
Although Mr. Trump said no "final, final decision" had been made, the White House planned to tell Mr. McGahn and any other former aides called by lawmakers that it would most likely assert executive privilege, according to the person familiar with the White House strategy, confirming a report in The Post. Mr. Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said such an action would "represent one more act of obstruction by an administration desperate to prevent the public from talking about the president's behavior."
Mr. McGahn was at the center of repeated acts by Mr. Trump that seemed aimed at impeding investigators, including an episode in June 2017 when the lawyer said the president ordered him to have Mr. Mueller fired. Mr. McGahn almost resigned rather than comply before the situation was defused.
As Mr. Trump made clear his intention to fight, Democrats debated how far to go in pursuing him. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, who has cautioned her party against rushing to impeachment, said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump had "engaged in behavior that was unethical, unscrupulous and beneath the dignity of the office that he holds."
At a forum hosted by Time magazine, she warned that impeachment was "one of the most divisive paths we could go down in our country, but if the path of fact-finding takes us there, we have no choice."
"We're not there yet," she added.
The battlefields on which Mr. Trump and Democrats are fighting are numerous. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told House lawmakers late Tuesday that he would not turn over Mr. Trump's tax returns by their deadline for the second time but instead needed until May 6 to consult with the Justice Department.
In a letter to Richard E. Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Mnuchin said that the Treasury Department "cannot act upon your request unless and until it is determined to be consistent with law."
Mr. Neal requested six years' worth of the president's personal and business tax returns. Mr. Mnuchin expressed concern that the request was being made for political purposes and was a violation of taxpayer privacy that could lead to the Internal Revenue Service being weaponized against both parties in the future.
In Tuesday's letter, Mr. Mnuchin appeared to lay the groundwork to deny the request, listing several "legal concerns," including "constitutional limits" on gaining access to tax returns and the "asserted purpose" for seeking the records.
Mr. Neal issued a terse statement but did not indicate his next move. "I plan to consult with counsel about my next steps," he said.
Mr. Neal has largely dismissed Mr. Mnuchin's arguments, saying that they lacked merit, and has said that failing to hand over the returns by Tuesday would be "interpreted as a denial of my request."
In his letter, Mr. Mnuchin said that the delay was not a failure to comply with the request and that portraying it as such would be "a misinterpretation."
"The committee's request has not been denied or granted at this time," he said.
The White House also directed its former head of personnel security, Carl Kline, to defy a subpoena ordering him to appear on Tuesday for a deposition by a House committee looking into security clearances. Mr. Cummings, that committee's chairman, said he would discuss scheduling a contempt vote against Mr. Kline for failing to appear.
Democrats want to talk to Mr. Kline about how Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, obtained his security clearance despite concerns raised by career security officials about possible foreign influence.
The White House instructed Mr. Kline not to comply on the grounds that the committee would not allow a White House representative to attend the deposition. Michael M. Purpura, a deputy White House counsel, said in a letter to Mr. Kline's lawyer, Robert N. Driscoll, that the White House wanted to ensure that questioning "was limited to the proper scope" and that Mr. Kline not be pressed into revealing information that could be covered by executive privilege.
The White House did not assert executive privilege in instructing Mr. Kline not to appear, but Mr. Cummings said the action amounted to stonewalling. "There are obvious reasons we need to conduct our investigations of agency malfeasance with representatives of the office under investigation," Mr. Cummings said.
In an email to Mr. Cummings on Monday, Mr. Driscoll said Mr. Kline, who now works for the Defense Department, had been trapped between two legal prerogatives.
"With two masters from two equal branches of government," Mr. Driscoll wrote, "we will follow the instructions of the one that employs him."
http://www.newsupdate4u.com/2019/04/democrats-ask-and-trump-says-no-signaling-a-bitter-fight-ahead/
Story 3: Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund Runs Out of Money Sooner Than You Think — Videos
Social Security will run out of money in 2035: Report
Social Security Shortfall?
Report Calculates When Social Security Will Run Dry… It's Not Looking Good
Mark Hinkle, Acting Press Officer
press.office@ssa.gov
News ReleaseSOCIAL SECURITY
Social Security Combined Trust Funds Gain One Year Says Board of Trustees
Disability Fund Shows Strong Improvement—Twenty Years
The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report on the long-term financial status of the Social Security Trust Funds. The combined asset reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds are projected to become depleted in 2035, one year later than projected last year, with 80 percent of benefits payable at that time.
The OASI Trust Fund is projected to become depleted in 2034, the same as last year's estimate, with 77 percent of benefits payable at that time. The DI Trust Fund is estimated to become depleted in 2052, extended 20 years from last year's estimate of 2032, with 91 percent of benefits still payable.
In the 2019 Annual Report to Congress, the Trustees announced:
The asset reserves of the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds increased by $3 billion in 2018 to a total of $2.895 trillion.
The total annual cost of the program is projected to exceed total annual income, for the first time since 1982, in 2020 and remain higher throughout the 75-year projection period. As a result, asset reserves are expected to decline during 2020. Social Security's cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010.
The year when the combined trust fund reserves are projected to become depleted, if Congress does not act before then, is 2035 – gaining one year from last year's projection. At that time, there would be sufficient income coming in to pay 80 percent of scheduled benefits.
"The Trustees recommend that lawmakers address the projected trust fund shortfalls in a timely way in order to phase in necessary changes gradually and give workers and beneficiaries time to adjust to them," said Nancy A. Berryhill, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. "The large change in the reserve depletion date for the DI Fund is mainly due to continuing favorable trends in the disability program. Disability applications have been declining since 2010, and the number of disabled-worker beneficiaries receiving payments has been falling since 2014."
Other highlights of the Trustees Report include:
Total income, including interest, to the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds amounted to just over $1 trillion in 2018. ($885 billion from net payroll tax contributions, $35 billion from taxation of benefits, and $83 billion in interest)
Total expenditures from the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds amounted to $1 trillion in 2018.
Social Security paid benefits of nearly $989 billion in calendar year 2018. There were about 63 million beneficiaries at the end of the calendar year.
The projected actuarial deficit over the 75-year long-range period is 2.78 percent of taxable payroll – lower than the 2.84 percent projected in last year's report.
During 2018, an estimated 176 million people had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes.
The cost of $6.7 billion to administer the Social Security program in 2018 was a very low 0.7 percent of total expenditures.
The combined Trust Fund asset reserves earned interest at an effective annual rate of 2.9 percent in 2018.
The Board of Trustees usually comprises six members. Four serve by virtue of their positions with the federal government: Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury and Managing Trustee; Nancy A. Berryhill, Acting Commissioner of Social Security; Alex M. Azar II, Secretary of Health and Human Services; and R. Alexander Acosta, Secretary of Labor. The two public trustee positions are currently vacant.
View the 2019 Trustees Report at www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/TR/2019/.
To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.
Summary: Actuarial Status of the Social Security Trust Funds
(released April 2019)
Download summary (0.2 MB)
The annual report of the Social Security Board of Trustees presents the actuarial status of the Old-Ageand Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds. The table below outlines key measures of the actuarial status of the trust funds under the intermediate assumptions in the 2019 report.
The outlook for the combined OASDI trust funds is slightly improved from the 2018 report. The projected actuarial deficit for the combined trust funds over the next 75 years is 2.78 percent of taxable payroll, 0.06 percentage point lower than last year. As a share of the economy as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), the actuarial deficit over the next 75 years is projected to be 1.0 percent.
Depletion of the DI Trust Fund asset reserves is now projected for 2052, 20 years later than in last year's report. Disabled-worker applications have continued to decline since 2010 and disability incidence rates have been well below expectations. Based on sustained lower incidence rates, the Trustees have reduced the long-range disability incidence rate assumption for this report.
The OASI Trust Fund alone can pay full benefits until 2034, the same as projected last year, and the combined OASDI funds until 2035, one year later than in last year's report.
Comparison: Key Measures of Actuarial Status in the Social Security Trustees Reports
75-year actuarial deficit
As a percentage of taxable payroll
As a percentage of GDP
Income and outgo in year prior to report year (in billions)
Social Security contributions a
Income taxes on benefits
Outgo
Benefit payments b
Net increase in assets
Trust fund reserves
Amount at beginning of report year (in billions)
Amount at beginning of report year (as a percentage of report year outgo)
288% 273%
Year of peak trust fund reserves c
Amount at end of peak year (in billions)
Year of trust fund depletion
OASDI
Share of OASDI outgo covered by scheduled revenue in—
End of 75-year reporting period
SOURCES: 2018 and 2019 Trustees Reports.
a. Includes a small amount of reimbursements from the General Fund of the Treasury due to the payroll contribution holiday.
b. Includes a small amount of payments to the Railroad Retirement Board.
c. Measured at end of year.
A 2018 annual surplus of $3.1 billion increased the asset reserves of the combined OASDI trust funds, bringing the total reserves to $2.89 trillion at the end of the year. This amount is equal to 273 percent of the estimated annual expenditures for 2019. The 2018 Trustees Report had projected a $1.7 billion decrease in combined trust fund reserves during 2018 under the intermediate assumptions. The $4.9 billion difference is mainly attributable to underestimating OASI program income (by $2.9 billion) and overestimating DI program cost (by $2.5 billion).
The Trustees now project that OASDI annual cost will exceed total income beginning in 2020—two years later than projected in last year's report—and continuing throughout the projection period. After the projected trust fund reserve depletion in 2035, continuing income would be sufficient to pay 80 percent of program cost, declining to 75 percent for 2093.
Beneficiaries and Benefit Payments
At the end of 2018, the Social Security program was providing monthly benefits to about 63 million people: 53 million from the OASI Trust Fund and 10 million from the DI Trust Fund. Total benefit payments for the year (excluding payments to the Railroad Retirement Board) were $989 billion: $845 billion from the OASI Trust Fund and $144 billion from the DI Trust Fund.
Sources of Trust Fund Income
During 2018, an estimated 176 million workers had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes. Employees pay a 6.2 percent contribution from earnings up to a maximum of $132,900 in 2019, which their employers match. Self-employed workers pay both shares of the contribution, or 12.4 percent. More than 40 percent of current beneficiaries pay income taxes on part of their benefits, and those taxes go to the OASDI trust funds and Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. The trust funds also earn interest ($83 billion in 2018 for the combined OASDI trust funds) on their accumulated reserves.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.html
The Pronk Pops Show 1237, April 12, 2019, Story 1: President Trump Goes On Offense — These Were Dirty Cops — An Attempted Coupe — This Was Treason — I'm Running The Department of Homeland Security — I Won: No Collusion and No Obstruction — Videos — Story 2: Attorney General Bill Barr Makes It Perfectly Clear FBI spied on the Trump Campaign — Round Up The Real Suspects — Clinton, Obama, Jarrett, Rice, Power, Clapper Lynch, Yates, Orh, Comey, McCabe, Priestrap, Strzok, Page, Brennan, Simpson, Steele, Halper, and Many others Including Big Lie Media (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, L.A.Times) — Videos — Story 3: Broken Record of U.S. Budget Deficits — Totally Out of Control Federal Government Spending — Videos
Posted on April 13, 2019. Filed under: 2016 Presidential Candidates, Addiction, American History, Applications, Barack H. Obama, Bill Clinton, Bribery, Bribes, Budgetary Policy, Cartoons, Central Intelligence Agency, Clinton Obama Democrat Criminal Conspiracy, Communications, Computers, Congress, Constitutional Law, Corruption, Countries, Crime, Culture, Deep State, Defense Spending, Disasters, Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Economics, Education, Elections, Empires, Employment, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Government, Fifth Amendment, First Amendment, Fiscal Policy, Government, Government Dependency, Hardware, High Crimes, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, History, House of Representatives, Human, Human Behavior, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Impeachment, Independence, James Comey, Labor Economics, Law, Legal Immigration, Life, Lying, Media, Monetary Policy, National Security Agency, News, Obama, People, Philosophy, Photos, Politics, President Trump, Progressives, Public Corruption, Public Relations, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Regulation, Robert S. Mueller III, Scandals, Senate, Servers, Social Networking, Software, Spying, Spying on American People, Subornation of perjury, Subversion, Success, Surveillance and Spying On American People, Surveillance/Spying, Tax Policy, Taxation, Taxes, Trade Policy, Treason, Trump Surveillance/Spying, Unemployment, United States of America, Videos, Wealth, Wisdom | Tags: 12 April 2019, America, An Attempted Coupe, Articles, Attorney General Bill Barr, Audio, Big Lie Media (ABC, Breaking News, Brennan, Broadcasting, Capitalism, Cartoons, CBS, Charity, Citizenship, Clapper Lynch, Clarity, Classical Liberalism, Clinton, CNN, Collectivism, Comey, Commentary, Commitment, Communicate, Communication, Concise, Convincing, Courage, Culture, Current Affairs, Current Events, Dirty Cops, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Economics, Education, Evil, Experience, Faith, Family, FBI spied on the Trump Campaign, First, Fiscal Policy, Free Enterprise, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Friends, Give It A Listen!, God, Good, Goodwill, Growth, Halper, Hope, I Won: No Collusion and No Obstruction, Individualism, Jarrett, Knowledge, L.A.Times), Liberty, Life, Love, Lovers of Liberty, McCabe, Monetary Policy, MPEG3, NBC, News, NYT, Obama, Opinions, Orh, Page, Peace, Photos, Podcasts, Political Philosophy, Politics, Power, President Donald J. Trump, President Trump Goes On Offense, Priestrap, Prosperity, Radio, Raymond Thomas Pronk, Representative Republic, Republic, Resources, Respect, Rice, Round Up The Real Suspects, Rule of Law, Rule of Men, Show Notes, Simpson, Special Counsel, Spying on American People, Steele, Strzok, Talk Radio, The Pronk Pops Show, The Pronk Pops Show 1237, Treason, Trump Goes On Offense, Truth, Tyranny, U.S. Constitution, United States of America, Videos, Virtue, WaPo, War, Wisdom, Yates |
Story 1: President Trump Goes On Offense — These Were Dirty Cops — An Attempted Coup — This Was Treason — I'm Running The Department of Homeland Security — I Won: No Collusion and No Obstruction — Videos —
Trump praises Netanyahu, rips Mueller in fiery press remarks
Story 2: Attorney General Bill Barr Makes It Perfectly Clear — FBI spied on the Trump Campaign — Bring Me The Real Suspects — Clinton, Obama, Jarrett, Rice, Power, Clapper Lynch, Yates, Orh, Comey, McCabe, Baker, Priestrap, Strzok, Page, Brennan, Simpson, Steele, Halper, and many others in Big Lie Media (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, L.A.Times) — Videos — Not A Conspiracy Theory — A Real Criminal Conspiracy — Worst Political Scandal in United States History — Videos
Word for Word: Attorney General discusses Spying on Trump Campaign (C-SPAN)
WATCH: Barr says 'I think spying did occur' on Trump campaign
Barr: 'I think spying did occur' on Trump campaign
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SPYING: William Barr Says Trump Campaign Was Spied On By Feds
What Does Attorney Gen. William Barr Mean By 'Unauthorized Surveillance?' | Andrea Mitchell | MSNBC
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[youruvw=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqFVLAKaEWs]
BARR: 'I THINK SPYING DID OCCUR' AGAINST TRUMP CAMPAIGN
11:00 AM 04/10/2019 | POLITICS
Chuck Ross | Reporter
Attorney General William Barr dropped a bombshell Wednesday, telling a group of senators that he believes spying against the Trump campaign did take place in 2016.
"I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal," Barr said during an exchange with Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Shaheen asked in a follow-up whether Barr believed the FBI spied on the Trump team.
"You're not suggesting, though, that spying occurred?" Shaheen asked.
"I think spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur. But the question is whether it was predicated, adequately predicated," Barr said.
"I'm not suggesting it wasn't adequately predicated, but I need to explore that."
Barr suggested later in the hearing that he had information leading him to question whether the FBI conducted unauthorized surveillance against the Trump campaign.
"I believe there is a basis for my concern, but I'm not going to discuss it," Barr said. (CLICK HERE to find out about Daily Caller Patriots)
Barr was discussing his plans to investigate the FBI's decision to open a counterintelligence investigation against Trump campaign associates. The bureau used confidential informants and relied heavily on the Democrat-funded Steele dossier as part of the investigation, which was code-named Crossfire Hurricane.
President Donald Trump and other Republicans have dubbed the counterintelligence probe "Spygate," especially regarding the FBI's use of an informant named Stefan Halper. Halper, a former Cambridge professor, made contact with at least three Trump campaign advisers, Carter Page, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos. (RELATED: DOJ Watchdog Scrutinizing FBI Informant Who Made Contact With Trump Campaign)
Democrats have bristled at the term "spy" to describe the FBI's confidential human sources.
Barr said that he plans to form a team to gather information from the Justice Department and Capitol Hill related to the FBI's investigation, which was formally opened on July 31, 2016.
"I'm not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it's important to look at that."
"I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of the intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016," Barr said.
Barr said that he will not be investigating the entire FBI.
"This is not launching an investigation of the FBI," he added. "To the extent there were any issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem that's endemic to the FBI. I think there was probably a failure among a group of leaders there at the upper echelon, so I don't like to hear attacks of the FBI."
https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/10/william-barr-spying-trump-campaign/
Barr says he thinks spying occurred on 2016 Trump campaign
Wednesday, 10 April 2019 14:54 GMT
Attorney General William Barr said on Wednesday U.S. intelligence agencies engaged in spying directed at the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump and that he would look at whether the surveillance was undertaken legally.
"I think spying did occur," Barr told a Senate hearing. "But the question is whether it was adequately predicated and I am not suggesting that it wasn't adequately predicated. … I am not suggesting those rules were violated, but I think it is important to look at that. And I am not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly.
"I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal – it's a big deal." (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
http://news.trust.org/item/20190410144125-laelo
THE FBI'S USE OF INFORMANTS IS FULL OF PROBLEMS, BUT WHAT HAPPENED IN "SPYGATE" ISN'T ONE OF THEM
Trevor Aaronson
May 31 2018, 10:37 a.m.
THE #SPYGATE CONSPIRACY theory started, as so many things do these days, with a tweet from President Donald Trump:
✔@realDonaldTrump
"Apparently the DOJ put a Spy in the Trump Campaign. This has never been done before and by any means necessary, they are out to frame Donald Trump for crimes he didn't commit." David Asman @LouDobbs@GreggJarrett Really bad stuff!
5:24 AM – May 18, 2018
Initial reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post described the "spy" as a U.S. professor living in the United Kingdom who had met with Trump campaign aides on orders from the FBI in the summer of 2016.
The reports provided enough detail about the informant — or, to use the FBI's preferred term, "confidential human source" — that some quick Googling allowed journalists, including The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, to identify him as Stefan Halper, a retired University of Cambridge professor who was involved in an effort in 1980 to help Ronald Reagan spy on President Jimmy Carter's re-election campaign. Halper, who worked for three previous Republican administrations and reportedly provided information to the CIA, has raked in more than $1 million in U.S. Defense Department contracts in just the last five years.
As with many of Trump's conspiracy theories, #Spygate contains a kernel of truth. The FBI has an informant problem. With more than 15,000 informants today — 10 times as many as J. Edgar Hoover had during his era of intrusive surveillance operations — the FBI has loose regulations on how agents can recruit and run informants, who turn to the bureau to make a lot of money or avoid deportation, among other reasons. A decade ago, the FBI spied on Muslims throughout southern California with no reason for suspicion other than their religion. Informants regularly commit crimes, including while investigating accused terrorists. The bureau's roster of informants has included terrorists such as Al Qaeda operative Najibullah Zazi, murderous criminals such as mobster Whitey Bulger, and even traitors to their causes like Ernest Withers, who reported to the FBI as he was building a reputation as the photographer of record for the civil rights movement.
With #Spygate, Trump has wrapped his conspiracy theory — that the FBI inserted an informant into his presidential campaign — around a fundamental truth about the FBI's misuse of informants and then, further burnishing his reputation as a modern-day P.T. Barnum, sent it into the world with plenty of rhetorical flourish.
"The FBI could be the world's most successful PR agency. They excel at making themselves look good. You realize that early on as an agent," said Jeffrey A. Danik, a retired supervisory FBI agent. "The problem with the FBI today is that they've come up against one of the truly great marketing geniuses in Donald Trump. Their normal PR and spin is getting hammered by the PR spin master. He knows exactly which word will sell. 'Spy' is perfect."
The FBI's defense has been to disassociate itself from the term "spy," even though that is exactly what FBI informants do whether they are working criminal or national security investigations. Instead, the bureau's surrogates have been peddling the fiction that its informants have not been a constant source of scandal.
Former FBI Director James Comey commented this month that FBI informants are "tightly regulated," a demonstrably false statement. (Read the FBI's "Confidential Human Source Policy Guide" for yourself.)
Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent who wears a T-shirt bearing the red, white, and blue words #ComeyIsMyHomey when she's not defending her former employer on CNN, argued in a Washington Post op-ed that informants deployed in national security investigations are somehow different from the ones used in criminal inquiries. She described Halper as an "intelligence source," rather than an informant — a convenient but meaningless distinction, because FBI informants aren't siloed. An informant could be working a criminal investigation one day and a national security inquiry the next, or a criminal investigation could become a national security concern, and vice versa. That's a primary reason that Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as FBI director, argued against a post-9/11 proposal to split the bureau into two agencies, one for intelligence and another for criminal investigations.
BUT WHILE THE FBI's defenders seek to distance the bureau from the word "spy," giving #Spygate even more momentum, they're not talking about one clear sign that Trump's claim of politically motivated spying is indeed a conspiracy theory.
Halper, the FBI's informant, was a U.S. citizen living in London. Because he was overseas, he would have been considered, in the FBI's parlance, an "ET CHS" — extraterritorial confidential human source — which means that the FBI would have been required to follow significantly more onerous rules than if he were spying in the United States.
Under the FBI's informant guidelines, agents are permitted, through time-limited investigations known as "assessments," to use informants to spy on people in the U.S. without having reason to believe they are committing crimes or posing national security concerns. Assessments have so few safeguards that their use in politically motivated spying is not implausible, though there's no known case of this to date.
But assessments aren't available to the FBI when working outside the U.S. To deploy an overseas informant, the FBI's informant guidelines require agents to have a full investigation open. Such an investigation requires an "articulable factual basis" — in other words, evidence that a national security concern might exist or criminal activity may be occurring. An unsubstantiated tip, while enough to support the opening of an assessment, would not be enough to initiate a full investigation that could be used to task an informant working internationally.
Halper reportedly met with Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page in July 2016, prior to the FBI's opening of its Trump-Russia investigation, code-named Crossfire Hurricane. This by itself is not scandalous, since the FBI was at the time investigating Russia's alleged efforts to recruit Page as a spy of their own. In 2013, the bureau had obtained recordings of Russian agents discussing their approaches to Page. Those recordings, coupled with Page's meeting with Russian officials in Moscow in July 2016, likely would have been enough to open a full investigation, making Halper's activity in London perfectly justifiable under FBI rules.
Halper's later known activity — meeting with Trump campaign aides Sam Clovis in August 2016 and George Papadopoulos in September 2016 — happened after the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, which again would have required an "articulable factual basis," making baseless and politically motivated spying of the kind that Trump has alleged highly unlikely.
What's more, because the FBI ran Halper as an overseas informant, any spying would have been documented in Delta, the FBI's program for managing informants, creating a long paper trail about why the FBI chose to use Halper and what agents tasked him with doing. This is likely among the classified information Trump demanded that FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein provide to select senators and congressional representatives.
After reviewing the FBI's materials, Republican U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy this week dismissed #Spygate on Fox News as the conspiracy theory that it is:
✔@FoxNews
.@TGowdySC: "I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with @realDonaldTrump." #TheStory
6:11 PM – May 29, 2018
So let's clear this all up: The FBI's informants can run afoul of the law and internal regulations, and FBI informants are indeed spies. But there's no evidence yet to suggest Halper's actions were rooted in the political motivations of FBI agents.
The Russian collusion hoax meets unbelievable end
by Rep. Devin Nunes
| April 05, 2019 12:00 AM
As the Russia collusion hoax hurtles toward its demise, it's important to consider how this destructive information operation rampaged through vital American institutions for more than two years, and what can be done to stop such a damaging episode from recurring.
While the hoax was fueled by a wide array of false accusations, misleading leaks of ostensibly classified information, and bad-faith investigative actions by government officials, one vital element was indispensable to the overall operation: the Steele dossier.
Funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee, which hid their payments from disclosure by funneling them through the law firm Perkins Coie, the dossier was a collection of false and often absurd accusations of collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials. These allegations, which relied heavily on Russian sources cultivated by Christopher Steele, were spoon-fed to Trump opponents in the U.S. government, including officials in law enforcement and intelligence.
The efforts to feed the dossier's allegations into top levels of the U.S. government, particularly intelligence agencies, were championed by Steele, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, and various intermediaries. These allegations were given directly to the FBI and Justice Department, while similar allegations were fed into the State Department by long-time Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal.
Their efforts were remarkably effective. Officials within the FBI and DOJ, whether knowingly or unintentionally, provided essential support to the hoax conspirators, bypassing normal procedures and steering the information away from those who would view it critically. The dossier soon metastasized within the government, was cloaked in secrecy, and evaded serious scrutiny.
High-ranking officials such as then-FBI general counsel James Baker and then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr were among those whose actions advanced the hoax. Ohr, one of the most senior officials within the DOJ, took the unprecedented step of providing to Steele a back door into the FBI investigation. This enabled the former British spy to continue to feed information to investigators, even though he had been terminated by the FBI for leaking to the press and was no longer a valid source. Even worse, Ohr directly briefed Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad, two DOJ officials who were later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. In short, the investigation was marked by glaring irregularities that would normally be deemed intolerable.
According to Ohr's congressional testimony, he told top-level FBI officials as early as August or September 2016 that Steele was biased against Trump, that Steele's work was connected to the Clinton campaign, and that Steele's material was of questionable reliability. Steele himself confirmed that last point in a British court case in which he acknowledged his allegations included unverified information. Yet even after this revelation, intelligence leaders continued to cite the Steele dossier in applications to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
It is astonishing that intelligence leaders did not immediately recognize they were being manipulated in an information operation or understand the danger that the dossier could contain deliberate disinformation from Steele's Russian sources. In fact, it is impossible to believe in light of everything we now know about the FBI's conduct of this investigation, including the astounding level of anti-Trump animus shown by high-level FBI figures like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as well as the inspector general's discovery of a shocking number of leaks by FBI officials.
It's now clear that top intelligence officials were perfectly well aware of the dubiousness of the dossier, but they embraced it anyway because it justified actions they wanted to take — turning the full force of our intelligence agencies first against a political candidate and then against a sitting president.
The hoax itself was a gift to our nation's adversaries, most notably Russia. The abuse of intelligence for political purposes is insidious in any democracy. It undermines trust in democratic institutions, and it damages the reputation of the brave men and women who are working to keep us safe. This unethical conduct has had major repercussions on America's body politic, creating a yearslong political crisis whose full effects remain to be seen.
Having extensively investigated this abuse, House Intelligence Committee Republicans will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in these matters. These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future. The men and women of our intelligence community perform an essential service defending American national security, and their ability to carry out their mission cannot be compromised by biased actors who seek to transform the intelligence agencies into weapons of political warfare.
Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican, represents California's 22nd Congressional District. He is ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/rep-devin-nunes-the-russian-collusion-hoax-meets-unbelievable-end
Story 3: Broken Record of U.S. Budget Deficits — Totally Out of Control Federal Government Spending — Videos
Harvard's Feldstein Says Debt to Reach 100% of GDP by End of Decade
Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for FY 2019
US Deficit on the rise
Why the federal deficit is rising, despite economic growth
Hedge Fund Legend Ray Dalio On The Economy
US budget deficit running 15% higher than a year ago
he federal government reported a $146.9 billion deficit in March, causing annual debt to rise 15% for the first half of the budget year compared to the same period in 2018.
The Treasury Department said Wednesday in its monthly report that the fiscal year deficit has so far totaled $691 billion, up from nearly $600 billion in 2018. The Treasury Department expects that the deficit will exceed $1 trillion when the fiscal year ends in September.
Tax receipts are running slightly higher than a year ago as more Americans are working and paying taxes. But the tax cuts signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017 have meant that the $10 billion increase in receipts has failed to keep pace with a roughly $100 billion increase in government expenditures.
he Congressional Budget Office was slightly more optimistic about the deficit in its January outlook, estimating that it would stay just below $1 trillion until 2022 when it would consistently stay above that total.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article229076234.html
The Three Reasons the US Deficit Is Out of Control
© The Balance 2018
BY KIMBERLY AMADEO
The U.S. federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2020 is $1.103 trillion. FY 2020 covers October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020. The deficit occurs because the U.S. government spending of $4.746 trillion is higher than its revenue of $3.643 trillion.
The deficit is 1% greater than last year. The FY 2019 budget created a $1.09 trillion deficit. Spending of $4.529 was more than the estimated $3.r38 revenue, according to Table S-3 of the FY 2020 budget.
Three Reasons for the Current Budget Deficit
Many people blame the deficits on entitlement programs. But that's not supported by the budget. These enormous deficits are the result of three factors.
First, the attacks on 9/11 led to the War on Terror. It's added $2.4 trillion to the debt since 2001. It almost doubled annual military spending. It rose from $111.9 billion in 2003 to a peak of $150.8 billion in 2019. That includes the defense department budget and off-budget emergency spending, and increases for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Trump administration will set new records of defense spending. It is estimated to reach $989 billion. That adds spending for departments that support defense, such as Homeland Security, and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
U.S. military spending is greater than those of the next 10 largest government expenditures combined. It's four times greater than China's military budget, and 10 times bigger than Russia's defense spending. It's difficult to reduce the budget deficit without cutting U.S. defense spending.
Second is the impact of tax cuts. They immediately reduce revenue for each dollar cut. Proponents of supply-side economics argue that the government will recoup that loss over the long term by boosting economic growth and the tax base. But the National Bureau of Economic Research found that only 17% of the revenue from income tax cuts was regained. It also found that 50% of the revenue from corporate tax cuts was lost.
For example, the Bush tax cuts added $2.023 trillion to the debt between 2011 and 2020. The Congressional Research Service estimated that service cost on that debt would add another $450 billion.
Going forward, the Trump tax cut will reduce revenue. It's reducing the personal income tax rate, corporate taxes, and small business taxes. These cuts total $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. But the Joint Committee on Taxation said the cuts would stimulate growth by 0.7 percent annually. The increased growth will add revenue, offsetting some of the tax cuts. As a result, the deficit will increase $1 trillion over the next decade.
Lastly is unfunded elements of mandatory spending. Some people point to the $1 trillion cost of Social Security as a contributor to the deficit. But it's funded through payroll taxes and the Social Security Trust Fund until 2034.
Medicare will cost $702 billion in FY 2020. But only 49% adds to the deficit. Payroll taxes and premiums pay for the remainder.
The rest of the mandatory budget adds to the deficit. This includes Medicaid, which will be $426 billion in FY 2020. Medicaid provides health care to those with low incomes.
The mandatory budget also includes $611 billion in income support programs for those who can't provide for themselves. This includes welfare programs like TANF, EITC, and Housing Assistance. It also includes unemployment benefits for those who were laid off. Student loans help create a more highly skilled workforce. Other retirement and disability programs are for those who were former federal employees. These include civil servants, the Coast Guard, and the military.
Only an Act of Congress that amends a program's benefits can change mandatory spending. That would require a majority vote in both houses and is thus unlikely to happen.
After the 2001 recession, federal deficits declined. The late 2006 recession drove deficits higher, with a deficit in 2009 driven up by more than $700 billion in bank bailouts under the TARP program. After the 2008 market crash, the federal deficit remained above $1 trillion until 2013. Below is a yearly breakdown of the federal budget deficit from 2007 to 2018.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KZp1v/2/
Why the Government Always Overspends
The difference between the U.S. government and you is that the president and Congress overspend on purpose. Politicians realize that, the more the government spends, the more it stimulates the economy. That's because government spending is itself a component of gross domestic product. They are rewarded by voters for creating jobs and growing the economy. They lose elections for raising taxes and unemployment.
In the United States, corporations have gained the right to make donations for political advertising. They support the idea that tax cuts are the best way to create jobs. They convince people that trickle-down economics is a solution that works for everyone. As a result, politicians no longer seriously try to balance the budget.
Most governments that consistently increase deficits are punished by investors. At some point, buyers of sovereign debt worry they won't get paid back. To compensate for that risk, they demand higher interest rates. That slows economic growth, creating an incentive to keep debt levels reasonable.
The United States doesn't suffer from that problem. Other countries, such as China, are willing to buy Treasury notes. They receive hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in exchange for exports. They must invest those dollars somewhere, and U.S. Treasurys are safe. Their high demand for Treasurys keeps interest rates low. As a result, Congress isn't burdened by punitive interest on the debt payments.
You Should Be Concerned
A budget deficit is not an immediate crisis. In moderation, it increases economic growth. It puts money in the pockets of businesses and families. Their spending creates a stronger economy. That makes other countries happy to lend to the U.S. government. It has always paid the debt back.
The World Bank found that if the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds this tipping point for an extended period of time, it slows the economy. Every percentage point of debt above this level costs the country 1.7 percent in economic growth.
When the debt is excessive, owners of the debt become concerned. They worry that the United States won't pay them back. They had reason to be concerned in 2011 and 2013. That's when tea party Republican congressmen threatened to default on the U.S. debt.
You should also be concerned when the economy is doing well. The government should be reducing the deficit in an effort to lower the debt. Deficit spending in a healthy economy will make it overheat. An economy that's churning too fast creates a boom and bust cycle. It always leads to a recession.
Compare to Past Budgets
https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-budget-deficit-3305783
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