Tag Archives: fbi

Zinke blames ‘environmental terrorists’ for wildfires. What the hell does that mean?

by LynOlszewski Posted on August 20, 2018

From California to British Columbia, the West is burning up. While fire experts are clear that climate change is a major factor in making wildfires more frequent and more intense, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke can’t seem to make up his mind about its role. Instead, he has blamed an unusual boogeyman for the fires: environmental terrorists.

“We have been held hostage by these environmental terrorist groups that have not allowed public access — that refuse to allow [the] harvest of timber,” he told Breitbart earlier this month. The underlying cause of catastrophic blazes, he said, is the “fuel load” of dead and dying timber in our forests. Whoa there, Zinke!

Fire experts do say that there’s more fuel in Western forests than there used to be, thanks to decades of aggressive fire suppression — and, well, because the warmer weather has been drying everything up.

Understanding Zinke’s bizarre claim about environmental terrorists requires a short history lesson. The concept came from one of the environmental movement’s biggest foes: libertarian activist Ron Arnold, who once told the New York Times that he wanted to “destroy environmentalists.”

Arnold coined the term “ecoterrorism” in 1983 article and later published the book Eco-terror: The Violent Agenda to Save Nature, which attempted to link the environmental movement with the Unabomber. Arnold used “ecoterrorism” to refer to groups like Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front, and Earth First! that sometimes engaged in property crimes, like vandalism and tree spiking, to combat environmental degradation and animal rights abuses.

Experts who have studied the phenomenon say “ecoterrorism” is not an appropriate term.

“In my research, I found that 90 to 95 percent of all direct actions, or crimes if you will, perpetrated by these groups do not fall anywhere close to the term ‘terrorism,’” says Donald Liddick, author of Eco-Terrorism: Radical Environmental and Animal Liberation Movements.

A 2013 study that surveyed the acceptance of “ecoterrorism” found that “there is no documented evidence of harm coming to humans as a result of actions by radical environmentalists.” The authors suggest that terms like “obstruction,” “vandalism,” and “sabotage” more accurately described actions labeled as “ecoterrorism.”

Tree spiking, the widely feared practice of boobytrapping trees with metal rods, resulted in only one serious injury. Tree-spiking groups gave ample warning of their actions — they didn’t want the trees to be cut down, after all.

Liddick points out that Arnold had political motivations when he coined the phrase. Arnold is a policy advisor to the climate-denying think tank The Heartland Institute and the executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from ExxonMobil and the ultra-conservative Mercer Family Foundation.

The term “ecoterrorism” picked up steam through the ’80s and ’90s, and began to appear in the prosecution of environmental and animal activists. Things took a turn for the weird in 2004: The FBI’s top official in charge of domestic terrorism, John Lewis, named ecoterrorism and the animal rights movement “the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat,” over far-right extremism, the KKK, and anti-abortion groups. (Arnold, it turns out, had asked the FBI to take a closer look at “ecoterrorists” in 2002.) At the time of the FBI’s declaration, no one had been killed in any attacks by these groups, according to CNN.

“To call something terrorism when it doesn’t actually entail a loss of human life is problematic, to say the least,” says Nicole Seymour, assistant professor of English at California State University, Fullerton.

While accusations of “ecoterrorism” have fallen in recent years, the label has been used against activists at Standing Rock, the valve turners, and other pipeline opponents. Zinke’s use of the term didn’t surprise Seymour.

“It’s kind of those boogeymen that the Trump administration and similar folks have been trying to implant in our imagination — these concepts made up to create public panic,” Seymour says.

Seymour sees Zinke’s use of “environmental terrorism” as a sound bite that casts blame off of climate change and onto environmentalists.

Liddick has a different perspective. “Knowing politics as I know politics, I think it’s about lumbering the Sierra,” he says. “Some of the corporate interests want to get the Sierra Nevada softwood and hardwood.”

On Thursday, the day after I spoke with Liddick, the Trump administration announced plans to fight wildfires with more logging and controlled burns on federal land. The timber industry has long used fire prevention as an excuse to clear forests.

So Zinke’s comments didn’t come out of nowhere. But how is all this connected to ecoterrorists? It all goes back to our old libertarian pal Ron Arnold. In addition to coining “ecoterrorism,” he was also the leading force behind the “Wise Use” movement — an anti-environmentalist approach to managing federal lands that emphasizes extraction. Its agenda, spelled out by Arnold in 1988, includes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening all public lands to mining and oil exploration, and clear-cutting old growth in national forests — partly for wildfire prevention, of course. In other words, this tenuous link between ecoterrorism and logging is 20 years old.

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Zinke blames ‘environmental terrorists’ for wildfires. What the hell does that mean?

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An erupting Indonesian volcano may alter global climate.

by MitziSloane7424 Posted on November 27, 2017

After Puerto Rico canceled its controversial contract with the small Montana company last month, Whitefish had agreed to continue repairs on the island’s devastated grid until Nov. 30. But on Monday, the company paused work 10 days early. According to Whitefish, PREPA, Puerto Rico’s government-owned utility, owed it $83 million.

“It may have not been the best business decision coming to work for a bankrupt island,” Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski told CNN. PREPA was $9 billion in debt before Hurricane Maria.

Whitefish claims that some of its contractors and subcontractors are going unpaid due to PREPA’s delayed payments. Meanwhile, PREPA says it paused payment to Whitefish on Nov. 16 at the request of a subcontractor claiming Whitefish owed it money. Sounds like a chicken-and-egg situation?

Congress and the FBI are currently investigating the $300 million Whitefish contract, which drew scrutiny for its anti-auditing measure and unusually high fees, among other things. A congressional hearing last week found that PREPA ignored lawyers’ advice in signing the deal in the first place. Soon after the hearing, PREPA’s CEO resigned.

Puerto Rico could use an end to the Whitefish drama — and the power outages. Two months after Hurricane Maria, less than half of the power has been restored and entire communities are still living without electricity.

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An erupting Indonesian volcano may alter global climate.

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Hacks, Leaks, and Tweets: Everything We Now Know About the Attack on the 2016 Election

by LillaSchimmel Posted on May 30, 2017

Mother Jones

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The drumbeat of revelations over the past several weeks has been overwhelming. So we’ve created this timeline—from the hacking of the Democratic National Committee through the aftermath of Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey—to help you follow this scandal threatening the presidency.

April 2016: The Democratic National Committee contacts the FBI about suspicious computer activity and hires cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which ties the hacking to Russian intelligence.

June 15: Guccifer 2.0, a persona later connected to the Russians, takes credit for the DNC hack and begins posting documents.

Mary Altaffer/AP

July 5: FBI Director James Comey announces the bureau found no evidence to support criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state. But he adds that Clinton and her staff were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information. Donald Trump tweets, “No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem.”

July 22: Three days before the Democratic convention, WikiLeaks publishes nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails. Some indicate that party officials favored Clinton over Bernie Sanders, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who resigns as party chair. Spread in part by Twitter bots, the emails further pit Clinton and Sanders supporters against each other.

July 24: Trump’s future CIA director, Rep. Mike Pompeo, tweets, “Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by WikiLeaks.” (Pompeo later deletes the tweet.)

July 27: Trump calls for Russia to hack Clinton’s email: “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Late July: The FBI begins to investigate contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

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Aug 8: Longtime Trump confidant and political dirty trickster Roger Stone boasts to a GOP group in Florida about WikiLeaks’ founder: “I actually have communicated with Julian Assange…There’s no telling what the October surprise may be.”

Aug 21: Stone tweets about Clinton campaign CEO John Podesta: “Trust me, it will soon be the Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary.”

#CrookedHillary #WikiLeaks #LockHerUp Seth Wenig/AP

Aug 27: After being briefed on classified information, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid sends a letter to Comey urging an investigation: “The prospect of individuals tied to Trump, WikiLeaks and the Russian government coordinating to influence our election raises concerns of the utmost gravity.”

Sept 9: Guccifer 2.0 communicates online with Stone about voter turnout and Democratic strategy.

Sept 15: Guccifer 2.0 posts stolen Democratic Party documents strategizing about battleground states.

Sept 26: In the first presidential debate, Trump suggests the DNC hack could be the work of China or “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”

Oct 1: Stone tweets, “Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.”

Oct 3: Stone tweets, “I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp.”

Oct 7: US intelligence agencies announce they are “confident” the Russian government aimed to interfere in the election and collaborated in the DNC leaks. Later in the day, a 2005 Access Hollywood video emerges in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women. Within an hour, WikiLeaks begins releasing several thousand emails stolen from Podesta.

Oct 10: “I love WikiLeaks!” Trump declares at a campaign rally.

Oct 11: The Obama White House announces it is considering retaliation against Russia for cyberattacks.

Oct 12: The Wall Street Journal reports the FBI suspects Russian intelligence hacked Podesta’s emails. Stone tells a Miami TV station that he has “back-channel communications” with Assange.

Oct 19: During the final debate, Clinton says Trump would be Putin’s “puppet” if elected and rebukes his call to hack her email. “You encouraged espionage against our people.”

Oct 28: Comey notifies Congress that the FBI is reopening the Clinton matter, after a criminal probe into disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner reveals his laptop contains emails between his wife, Huma Abedin, and Clinton, her boss.

Oct 31: At a campaign rally, Trump says, “It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made…where they’re trying to protect her from criminal prosecution…What he did was the right thing.”

Nov 8: Trump is elected president.

Nov 15: National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers remarks about Russia and WikiLeaks, “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”

Jan 4: Trump tweets, “Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’—why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”

Jan 6: The CIA, the FBI, and the NSA concur Russia tried to help Trump win via hacking operations involving Guccifer 2.0, DC Leaks, and WikiLeaks.

Jan 10: At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Comey declines to say whether the FBI is investigating Trump campaign ties to Russia. He notes that Russian hackers also attacked the Republican National Committee but that none of that material was released.

Jan 11: Trump acknowledges the Russians hacked the DNC: “I think it was Russia.”

Jan 14: Rep. John Lewis tells NBC’s Chuck Todd that he does not consider Trump to be “a legitimate president,” and he says he won’t attend Trump’s inauguration: “I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”

Jan 15: Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus says Trump has confidence in the FBI director: “We have had a great relationship with him over the last several weeks. He’s extremely competent.”

Jan 20: Trump is sworn in as president.

Jan 22: At a White House event, Trump greets Comey: “Oh, there’s Jim. He’s become more famous than me.”

Andrew Harrer/CNP/ZUMA

Jan 24: The FBI interviews national security adviser Michael Flynn about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Jan 26: Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warns the Trump White House that Flynn lied about his conversations with Kislyak and is vulnerable to blackmail by the Kremlin.

Jan 27: Trump and Comey have a one-on-one dinner at the White House, where, it is later reported, Trump asks Comey to swear his political loyalty. Comey declines.

Jan 30: Trump fires Yates after she refuses on constitutional grounds to defend his travel ban targeting seven majority-Muslim countries.

Feb 13: After the Washington Post reveals Flynn lied about his conversations with Kislyak, Flynn resigns.

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Feb 19: Following a meeting with Comey, the Senate Intelligence Committee sends letters to more than a dozen agencies, groups, and individuals asking them to preserve all communications related to Russia’s 2016 election interference.

March 2: In the wake of revelations that Attorney General Jeff Sessions failed during his confirmation hearings to disclose two conversations with Kislyak, Sessions announces, “I have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States.”

March 4: Based on no evidence, Trump tweets, “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”

March 7: In the wake of intense media coverage of Trump’s wiretapping claim, WikiLeaks releases more than 8,000 CIA files, code-named “Vault 7.”

March 8: Former NSA Director Michael Hayden says, “I’m now pretty close to the position that WikiLeaks is acting as…an agent of the Russian Federation.”

March 20: During a public hearing held by the House Intelligence Committee, Comey confirms the FBI is investigating possible “coordination” between the Trump campaign and Russia. He debunks Trump’s claims of surveillance by Obama: “I have no information that supports those tweets.”

March 27: “Trump Russia story is a hoax,” Trump tweets.

April 12: Asked if it’s “too late” for him to request Comey’s resignation, Trump tells Fox Business, “No, it’s not too late, but you know, I have confidence in him. We’ll see what happens. You know, it’s going to be interesting.”

April 30: Trump again casts doubts on the election attack, telling CBS News’ John Dickerson, “Could’ve been China. Could’ve been a lot of different groups.”

May 2: Trump tweets Comey is “the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton” and the “Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election.”

May 3: Comey tells the Senate Judiciary Committee, “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we may have had some impact on the election,” but says he reopened the Clinton probe because Abedin had forwarded “hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information.”

First week of May: Comey seeks more resources for the Trump-Russia investigation.

May 8: Trump tweets, “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper tells Congress that by sowing doubts, Trump “helps the Russians” damage the US political system.

May 9: The FBI corrects Comey’s testimony: Only “a small number” of Abedin emails were forwarded, few contained classified information, and none were new. The same day, Trump fires Comey via a letter delivered to FBI headquarters. Comey, in Los Angeles, learns of the news via a TV screen and initially thinks it’s a prank. Trump’s letter says he was prompted by Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote a three-page memo critical of Comey’s handling of the Clinton probe. Trump’s letter also claims Comey personally absolved him on three separate occasions.

May 10: Trump unleashes a tweetstorm, including, “Comey lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike. When things calm down, they will be thanking me!”

Alexander Shcherbak/TASS/ZUMA

Meanwhile, at Putin’s request, Trump greets Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office, where a Russian state-sponsored photographer is the only media allowed in. Trump tells them Comey was “a real nut job” and that firing him took “great pressure” off Trump with regard to Russia.

May 11: Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testifies that, contra White House statements, the Russia probe is “highly significant” and “Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.” Trump tells NBC’s Lester Holt a new version of why he fired Comey: “I decided to just do it. I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.'”

May 12: Trump tweets, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

May 15: The Post reports that Trump disclosed highly classified intelligence on ISIS to Lavrov and Kislyak during their Oval Office meeting. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker says the White House is “in a downward spiral” and “has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order.”

May 16: The Times reports that Comey kept detailed memos on his interactions with Trump—including when Trump pressured him at an Oval Office meeting in February to shut down the FBI investigation into Flynn. “I hope you can let this go,” Trump told Comey.

May 17: Amid rising turmoil on Capitol Hill, including talk of possible impeachment of Trump for obstruction of justice, the Senate Intelligence Committee seeks Comey’s memos and invites him to testify. Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as a special counsel overseeing the continuing FBI investigation.

See our entire updated Trump-Russia timeline dating back to the 1980s.

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Hacks, Leaks, and Tweets: Everything We Now Know About the Attack on the 2016 Election

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The Washington Post Just Published an Explosive Report About Jared Kushner and Russia

by IndiaDeloach Posted on May 26, 2017

Mother Jones

Shoes continue to drop in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible connections to Russia. Yesterday, speculation that the FBI was looking into the Trump family was confirmed by reports that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior advisor, is under scrutiny. More details are emerging about the investigation.

Enter the Washington Post:

Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

Ambassador Sergei Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, then President-elect Trump’s son-in-law and confidant, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.

The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

This story hasn’t been confirmed by other publications, so take it with the weight of a single report based on anonymous sources, but having said that: Yikes.

Go read the whole thing.

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The Washington Post Just Published an Explosive Report About Jared Kushner and Russia

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How the Trump White House Has Tried to Interfere With the Russia Investigations

by awfegcimo Posted on May 26, 2017

Mother Jones

The pattern is increasingly clear: As investigations into the Trump campaign’s ties to and possible collusion with Russia have intensified, so too have efforts by the president and his staff to quash those probes or put pressure on US officials to publicly deny the validity of the swirling allegations.

For his part, President Donald Trump has long insisted there is nothing to the investigations: “The entire thing has been a witch hunt,” he said during a recent press conference at the White House. “There’s no collusion between, certainly, myself and my campaign—but I can only speak for myself—and the Russians. Zero.”

But behind the scenes, Trump and his team appear to have worked assiduously to get FBI investigators to either stop their digging, or to lean on congressional and intelligence officials to get them to back Trump by saying there is nothing there. Here are the US officials who have reportedly been the subject of White House pressure:

Daniel Coats and Admiral Michael Rogers: The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump asked each of these two top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against the FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Russia. Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency, refused to comply with the requests, which they believed were inappropriate, according to the Post. In congressional testimony Tuesday, Coats declined to discuss whether the president leaned on him.

James Comey: As the New York Times reported in mid-May, Trump asked the FBI director during an Oval Office meeting in February to shut down the federal investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. “I hope you can let this go,” the president told Comey, according to a contemporaneous memo Comey wrote. Trump fired Comey on May 9, giving conflicting reasons for his action. Trump has since denied that he asked Comey to stop his investigation of Flynn, responding to a question at a news conference by cutting off the reporter and saying only, “No, no—next question.”

Sen. Richard Burr and Rep. Devin Nunes: In February, the Post reported that the White House asked senior members of Congress to contact news organizations to try to counter news stories about the growing Russia scandal, including Burr and Nunes—the two Republican chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees investigating Trump. A spokesman for Nunes confirmed that he spoke to reporters and delivered the requested message. In an interview, Burr acknowledged that he had conversations about Russia-related news reports with the White House and engaged with news organizations to dispute articles by the New York Times and CNN that alleged repeated contact between Trump campaign members and Russian intelligence operatives. Nunes later stepped down from the House investigation, after revelations about him working closely with the White House to instead focus attention on alleged surveillance activities by the Obama administration.

Andrew McCabe: Also in February, according to the Guardian, Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, asked the FBI to deny media reports that campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russians during the election. Priebus’ reported discussion with McCabe, the FBI’s deputy director—who took over as acting director after Comey was fired—prompted sharp criticism from Democrats, who said Priebus violated policies intended to insulate FBI investigations from politics.

These are the examples known so far, but other instances of White House pressure or meddling in the investigations may well come to light: As the Post also reported this week with its scoop on Coats and Rogers, Trump White House officials “sounded out” with other “top intelligence officials” the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop the investigation into Flynn.

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How the Trump White House Has Tried to Interfere With the Russia Investigations

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Brennan: CIA Was Original Source of Trump-Russia Investigation

by LawrencP32 Posted on May 23, 2017

Mother Jones

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How did the FBI’s investigation into the Trump-Russia connection get started, anyway? Former CIA director John Brennan says he was the one who got the ball rolling:

“I encountered . . . intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign,” Brennan said, adding that he did not see conclusive evidence of collusion but feared that Trump associates were wittingly or unwittingly being used to advance the interests of Moscow.

….Brennan testified that he was disturbed by intelligence that surfaced last year showing a pattern of contacts between Russian agents or representatives and people with links to the Trump campaign. “That raised concerns in my mind,” Brennan said….With that remark, Brennan appeared to identify the point of origin of the FBI investigation that began in July — the first time a U.S. official has provided insight into what prompted the bureau probe.

That’s from the Washington Post. Brennan was testifying before Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the New York Times adds this disheartening tidbit:

On Aug. 4, as evidence of that campaign mounted, Mr. Brennan warned Alexander Bortnikov, the director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the F.S.B., not to meddle in the election. Not only would interference damage relations between the two countries, he said, it was certain to backfire.

“I said that all Americans, regardless of political affiliation or whom they might support in the election, cherish their ability to elect their own leaders without outside interference or disruption,” Mr. Brennan said. “I said American voters would be outraged by any Russian attempt to interfere in election.”

Mr. Brennan’s warning proved futile. Though intelligence agencies are unanimous in their belief that Russia directly interfered with the election, it has become a divisive partisan issue, with Democrats far more likely than Republicans to accept the conclusion. President Trump has declared that “Russia is fake news” and tried to undermine the conclusions of his own intelligence services.

I don’t blame Brennan for thinking that Russian interference in the election would outrage everyone regardless of party. I suppose I might have thought the same thing. But it ain’t so anymore:

As always, click the link for the whole story.

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Brennan: CIA Was Original Source of Trump-Russia Investigation

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Ex-CIA Chief: There Was Intel About Trump Campaign-Russia Contacts That FBI Needed to Probe

by CathrynClubbe Posted on May 23, 2017

Mother Jones

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Former CIA director John Brennan testified on Monday that he grew alarmed last summer about efforts by the Russian government to “suborn”—perhaps unwittingly—members of the Trump campaign, and that his concerns formed the basis for the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between Trump officials and the Kremlin. His remarks came during a hearing of the House intelligence committee, which is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, including potential coordination with the president’s campaign.

When Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) pressed Brennan on whether he had seen any evidence of collusion, Brennan replied: “I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that.” He added, “I don’t know whether or not such collusion…existed…but I know that there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not US persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.”

Later in the hearing, Gowdy continued to push Brennan about whether he had seen “evidence of collusion, coordination, conspiracy between Donald Trump and Russia state actors.” Brennan said he could answer that query more fully in a subsequent closed hearing, but noted that the intelligence regarding Russian contacts and the Trump campaign “raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians—either in a witting or unwitting fashion—and that served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion, cooperation occurred.”

Brennan, who stepped down when Trump took office and took the unusual step of criticizing an incoming president, explained it was not the CIA’s job to make a judgment about whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia but to supply the FBI with the evidence it had gathered to investigate the case.

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Ex-CIA Chief: There Was Intel About Trump Campaign-Russia Contacts That FBI Needed to Probe

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“You’ll Be Hanging From A Tree.”

by frantalocuridemunca Posted on May 20, 2017

Mother Jones

Before Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) began his town hall Saturday morning, he instructed his aides to play a tape. It was, he explained, a voicemail he had received earlier in the week, shortly after he had delivered a speech on the House floor to become the first member of Congress to call for President Donald Trump to be impeached.

“Hey, Al Green, I’ve got an impeachment for ya—it’s gonna be yours,” said a man’s voice. “Actually we’re gonna give you a short trial before we hang your nigger ass.”

A murmur went up in the audience of 80 or so Houston-area constituents who had packed into a church hall in the city’s southwest corner. Green played another voicemail, which warned, “try it, and we’ll rinse out you fucking niggers, you’ll be hanging from a tree.”

When it was over, Green got to his point. “Friends, I want to assure you that no amounts of threats or intimidation will stop what I have started, I promise you—we are going to continue with this,” he said. “We are gonna move forward, we will not turn around.”

Green, a seven-term congressman and member of the Congressional Black Caucus, made his call for impeachment after Trump tweeted warning former FBI director James Comey not to leak details of their conversations with the press. Green told the audience he believes that Trump’s actions amounted to an admission of obstruction of justice, and the tweet constituted intimidation. It is imperative, he said, that the House move to indict Trump; nothing less than the rule of law is at stake.

Those who asked questions largely agreed with Green’s argument, but constituents seemed uncertain about the future. One man wondered if it was worth going through the impeachment process if the result was President Mike Pence. Another asked about impeaching Pence, too. A woman in the back wanted to know if there was any possibility of the president’s cabinet declaring him unfit. Unsurprisingly, given the president’s low approval in the district (just 18 percent of voters in the district voted for Green’s Republican opponent last fall), only one questioner voiced any real opposition to what Green had done, asking why he had said nothing about “the lawlessness of the Obama administration.”

Green himself suggested the process might plod along from here. He hadn’t introduced an official impeachment resolution yet and was planning more town halls on the subject. “I haven’t asked leadership for a response,” he told me, insisting that impeachment needed to come “from the bottom up, not the top down.” By the same token, no one in in the leadership had told him to pipe down, he said, although he allowed that there were “surely members who were thinking it.”

When a nine-year-old girl asked “why does it take so long to impeach Trump?” Green said that it “may never happen”—but it was worth giving the system time to function as it should. He has done a flurry of interviews over the last few days (there were NBC News cameras in the back of the room while he spoke) but is treading lightly when it comes to his fellow colleagues. Green told me he was not planning to lobby fellow members to get behind an impeachment measure—”people have to be guided by their conscience.” (He did hope, though, that they would listen to public opinion—at the event he asked residents to go to ImpeachTrumpNow.com to register their support.)

For now the road to impeachment is lonely, and perhaps very long. “I am a voice in the wilderness,” he said, “but history will vindicate me.”

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“You’ll Be Hanging From A Tree.”

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Joe Lieberman’s Benghazi Connection

by FAKBrentlzll Posted on May 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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As President Donald Trump escaped Washington on Friday for his first overseas trip, the White House announced that he wasn’t yet ready to reveal his pick to replace James Comey, the FBI director he brazenly fired the previous week. But one name on his list appeared to be ahead of the others: former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the onetime Democrat who was Vice President Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential campaign.

Lieberman may not be an odd choice for Trump. He finished up his Senate career as an independent. Perhaps more important, since leaving the Senate in 2013, Lieberman has been a senior counsel at the Kasowitz Benson Torres law firm, which has defended Trump in numerous disputes over the years. But as a member of that law firm, Lieberman also had the unusual job of promoting and representing a Libyan businessman and politician who tried to court an alleged terrorist accused of leading the 2012 attack on the Benghazi compound that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

In Lieberman’s final days as a senator, a reporter asked him if he would become a lobbyist. “No, I’m not going to do that,” he replied. But in November 2013, as Politico reported at the time, his law firm signed up as a foreign agent for Basit Igtet, a Libyan businessman and activist who was considering running for prime minister in Libya. Igtet made his money through assorted ventures in Switzerland, where his family had sought exile. He married Sara Bronfman, the daughter of Edgar Bronfman, who had been the billionaire chairman of Seagram and the president of the World Jewish Congress. The foreign agent registration form filed at the Justice Department noted that Lieberman would be part of the team handling this $100,000 project that would provide “government relations services” to Igtet.

A Benghazi native, Igtet was a long-shot candidate for prime minister. As Forbes noted, “Igtet believes he’s got the technocratic prowess to transform his country of six million people from the brink of civil war into the crown jewel of northern Africa. But skeptics say his status as a longtime expatriate and his lack of national security experience leave him ill-prepared to grasp control of deteriorating relations among warring rebel factions, police and the army.” And having a Jewish wife was probably not an asset.

As part of his campaign, Igtet emphasized his connections to the United States, pointing out his wife was involved with the US-Libya Chamber of Commerce and boasting that he personally knew Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain. But Foreign Policy reported in early 2014 that as part of his campaign, he also sought out a terrorist suspect wanted by the United States for orchestrating the attack on the Benghazi facility:

Igtet not only has built ties with America’s friends, he’s also met with its enemies. He sat down last year with Ahmed Abu Khattala, the Benghazi militant charged by the Justice Department for his involvement in the 2012 attack on the American mission in Benghazi that killed US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The State Department declared Abu Khattala a specially designated global terrorist in January.

Igtet says he told Abu Khattala that he is opposed to Libyans “being kidnapped or transferred somewhere else”—a reference to the U.S. policy of rendition, which Libyans saw firsthand last year when US commandos snatched al Qaeda suspect Abu Anas al-Libi off a Tripoli street and eventually brought him to New York to stand trial. Abu Khattala fears this could be his own fate.

“We are Libyans, this is our country and if someone has done something wrong here, they have to be judged in this country,” said Igtet. “Abu Khattala told me he is sure of his innocence. He said he has no problem to go to the court in Benghazi and face these issues there.”

Khattala never made it to a Benghazi court. In June 2014, he was captured by US special forces in a villa south of Benghazi, interrogated on a Navy ship for 13 days, and brought to the United States. US prosecutors have accused him of being a ringleader of the Benghazi assault. He has denied the charge. His trial is scheduled to begin in September.

Contacted by Mother Jones, Lieberman’s office said he was not available for comment.

When Khattala was nabbed, he was one of the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists, and bureau agents participated in the mission that grabbed him. Yet months earlier, Lieberman was working for a Libyan who had reached out to Khattala. Now, Lieberman may be Trump’s choice for FBI chief. If Lieberman does end up in the job, it will certainly be a first: an FBI director who once was a foreign agent for an overseas politician who cozied up to an alleged terrorist accused of killing Americans.

Will Republicans and conservatives care about this Benghazi connection?

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Joe Lieberman’s Benghazi Connection

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Trump Told Russians That Comey Was a "Nut Job," as FBI Investigation Inches Closer to the White House

by DemetriParmley Posted on May 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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Two bombshell reports on Friday afternoon shed more light on President Donald Trump’s rationale for firing FBI Director James Comey and showed just how close the FBI’s Russia investigation is getting to Trump’s inner circle.

The day after he fired Comey, Trump met with top Russian diplomats in the Oval Office. There, the New York Times revealed Friday afternoon, he badmouthed Comey and seemed to imply that his firing was prompted by the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. “I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump said, according to the Times. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer did not dispute this account.

Moments later, the Washington Post reported that a current White House official in Trump’s inner circle is now under scrutiny in the Russia investigation:

The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter.

The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official.

The White House did not dispute this report either. Both reports came out shortly after Trump departed for his first overseas trip as president.

More here: 

Trump Told Russians That Comey Was a "Nut Job," as FBI Investigation Inches Closer to the White House

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