# Shtypi dhe politika > Problemet ndërkombëtare >  Trump deep state dhe media CNN NY Times

## HFTengineer

Mbas shume shume mashtrimesh dhe propagndes te  cifutve te partise se qendres se majte te Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.  i NYTimes CNN Jeff Zucker,  washington times , Mark Hoffman  i CNBC





Clearly disappointed to have been left out of the headline heroics from Friday night (courtesy of The Washington Post and The New York Times), CNN has decided that anon-sourced perspectives on officials' feelings now warrants reportage.

The latest in the sad sage of mainstream media's downward spiral, as The Hill reports, is that former FBI Director James Comey is expected to testify that he believes President Trump was deliberately trying to meddle in the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the presidential election, according to a report late Friday.

Despite swearing under oath that he "had never" been influenced during an investigation, and further that if he had he would have reported it immediately...



CNN now reports that, according to a source, Comey has come to believe the president intended to influence him...

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## HFTengineer

Tim Weiner, Pulitzer-prize winning author of “Legacy of Ashes” and a longtime chronicler of US intelligence agencies, sat down for an interview with Bloomberg’s Tobin Harshaw to discuss how the FBI has handled previous investigations involving the White House.

The feud between President Donald Trump and former FBI Director James Comey is hardly unprecedented in modern US history. As Weiner explains, there have been four instances during the past 45 years – excluding the present day - where the FBI has confronted a sitting president. And up until now, the bureau has prevailed every time.



Here’s Weiner:

“Five times in the last 45 years the bureau has gone up against the White House. With all due respect to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, it was the FBI that brought down Richard Nixon. Twelve years later it was the FBI that served search warrants and subpoenas on members of Ronald Reagan's National Security Council after the Iran-Contra imbroglio. Agents recovered 5,000 documents from their computers - a forensic feat unprecedented in technological virtuosity. That led to the indictments of a dozen of Reagan's national security aids.

A decade later, it was the FBI, in the form of a subpoena to the White House physician who drew blood from the arm of President Bill Clinton for DNA evidence to match the famous blue dress of Monica Lewinsky, that proved he committed perjury and led to his impeachment in the House.

In 2004, then-director Robert Mueller, along with Comey, who was acting attorney general, directly confronted the George W. Bush administration over the unconstitutional and illegal effects of the eavesdropping program Stellar Wind. Bush later wrote in his memoirs that the two men threatened to resign, and that visions of the Saturday Night Massacre  flashed before his eyes. The president backed down.”
The role of the FBI, and its director, has changed dramatically since the bureau was created by President Teddy Roosevelt and then-Attorney General Charles Bonaparte (a great-nephew of the French emperor) in 1908. Then known as the Bureau of Investigations, its primary duty was rooting out organized criminals and other “malefactors of great wealth," though it was also tasked with investigating corruption in Congress.

But the bureau's focus shifted away from this original intent after J Edgar Hoover became director in 1924, Weiner said. Hoover, remembered for his crackdowns on political radicals and civil rights activists, ran the agency for decades, until his death in 1972. Afterward, Congress tried to impose statutory limits on his former post to make it expressly apolitical, eventually imposing a term limit of 10 years.



But Congress was unsuccessful. If the tensions between Comey and his old boss, the Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have taught us anything, it's that it's impossible for the FBI director to be 100% free from political considerations, Harshaw said.

Weiner agreed.

“Statutorily, the FBI is part of DOJ. But there is a reason its DC headquarters is located equidistant between the White House and the Capitol. The director has to answer to both the executive and legislative branches,” Weiner said.
Moving on from the Trump investigation, Harshaw asked Weiner about the so-called “Comey effect” – the idea that Comey cost Hillary Clinton the election by deciding to reopen the FBI’s investigation into her mishandling of classified information a week before the vote.

Weiner said this explanation for why Clinton lost is a “false assumption," and far down the list of reasons why Clinton lost.

“It’s a false assumption. I know Hillary disagrees, but I think the Comey effect, knowing what we now know about Russian meddling in the election, is farther down the Top 10 list of why she lost.”
Weiner closed the interview by drawing one more comparison between Nixon and Trump – an apparent reference to the fact that Congressional investigators have subpoenaed any tapes Trump might have of his conversations with Comey.

“Let's not forget what the smoking gun tape of Nixon was: an attempt to get the FBI to stop the Watergate investigation dead in its tracks. Once it was revealed by order of the Supreme Court, Nixon was finished. He resigned two days later.”
We can't help but believe that by the end of President Trump's term (whenever that is), The FBI will be leading 5-0 in this epic Deep State vs Democracy battle

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## HFTengineer



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## HFTengineer

You count yourself among the die-hard, disaffected Hillary supporters still holding out hope that President Trump will be impeached for conspiring with Russian spies to stage a coup in the United States, then you may want to sit down because earlier today one of your biggest cheerleaders just threw in the towel on that whole narrative.  Yes, MSNBC's very own Chris Matthews, the same man who confessed he "got a thrill up his leg" from simply watching Obama speak, admitted today that Comey's testimony pretty much confirmed that "there's no 'there' there" when it comes to Trump colluding with the Russians.






"The assumption of the critics of the President, of his pursuers, you might say, is that somewhere along the line in the last year is the President had something to do with colluding with the Russians … to affect the election in some way.  Some conversation he had with Michael Flynn or Pual Manafort or somewhere."

"And yet what came apart this morning was that theory in two regards...the President said, according to the written testimony of Mr. Comey, go ahead and get any satellites of my operation and nail them.  I'm with you on that..."

"And then also, Comey said that basically Flynn wasn't central to the Russian investigation."

"And I've always assumed that what Trump was afraid of was that he had said something to Flynn and Flynn could be flipped on that and Flynn would testify against the President that he'd had some conversation with Flynn in terms of dealing with the Russians affirmatively."

"And if that's not the case, where's the there-there?"




And when Chris Matthews throws in the towel on a liberal narrative, you know the gig is up. Oh, and by the way, this probably doesn't help your case either...

Burr: "Director Comey, did the President at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections?"

Comey:  "Not to my understanding, no."

Burr:  "Did any individual working for this administration, including the Justice Department, ask you to stop the Russian investigation?"

Comey:  "No."

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## HFTengineer

In perhaps the most stunning section of former FBI Director Comey's testimony today, he detailed his interaction with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch about his specific language about the Clinton Email "investigation."



For the first time, former FBI Director James Comey, who is testifying today before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that President Obama's Attorney General Loretta Lynch asked him to downplay the Hillary Clinton's email scandal...

As DailyCaller notes, Comey said Lynch instructed Comey not to call the criminal investigation into the Clinton server a criminal investigation. Instead, Lynch told Comey to call it a “matter,” Comey said, “which confused me.” Comey cited that pressure from Lynch to downplay the investigation as one of the reasons he held a press conference to recommend the Department of Justice not seek to indict Clinton.



LANKFORD: Then you made a comment earlier a the attorney general, the previous attorney general asking you about the investigation on the Clinton e-mails saying you were asked to not call it an investigation anymore. But call it a matter. You said that confused you. You can give us additional details on that?

COMEY: Well, it concerned me because we were at the point where we refused to confirm the existence as we typically do of an investigation for months. And was getting to a place where that looked silly because the campaigns we're talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work. The Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms, security matters, things like that for what was going on.

We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both going to testify and talk publicly about it I wanted to know was she going to authorize us to confirm we have an investigation. She said yes, don't call it that, call it a matter. I said why would I do that? She said, just call it a matter. You look back in hindsight, if I looked back and said this isn't a hill worth dying on so I just said the press is going to completely ignore it. That's what happened when I said we opened a matter.

They all reported the FBI has an investigation open. So that concerned me because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI's work and that's concerning.

LANKFORD: You gave impression that the campaign was somehow using the language as the FBI because you were handed the campaign language?

COMEY: I don't know whether it was intentional or not but it gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way it was describing that. It was inaccurate. We had an investigation open for the federal bureau of investigation, we had an investigation open at the time. That gave me a queasy feeling.
So who was obstructing or trying to interfere there?

Comey said that this troubled him greatly and convinced him, “I have to step away from the department if we’re too close this case credibly.”
Still, we note that despite his admission that the conversation "gave me a queasy feeling," Comey went ahead and followed her orders because "that was not a hill i wanted to die on..."



Under questioning by panel chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Comey said that he was uncomfortable with the unexpected meeting Lynch had with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac last year. Comey said that meeting convinced him that the independence of the investigation was tainted with regard to the Justice Department and led him to go public with the bureau's findings on Clinton.

Then Comey added in later testimony that "Loretta Lynch had appearance of conflict of interest."

As a reminder, Circa notes that when Comey testified on May 3 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was asked about the Lynch meeting.  He told lawmakers "a number of things had gone on which I can’t talk about yet, that made me worry that the department leadership could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American people’s confidence in the justice system.” Bill Clinton met with Lynch in June 2016 at an airport in Phoenix, Arizona. Lynch said at the time that "our conversation was a great deal about grandchildren, it was primarily social about our travels and he mentioned golf he played in Phoenix.”  On March 15, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, sued the Justice Department for all relevant material related to the Lynch and Clinton Phoenix meeting.

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## HFTengineer

Me perpara me neconservativet si john macain me dosjeri i rreme dhe  roli i Chris Steele :



While we learned earlier that John McCain was responsible for handing over the 35-page "dossier" of compromising, if arguably fake, revelations about Trump's connections to Russia over to the FBI, the identity of the actual creator, who was said to be an ex-British intelligence service, remained a mystery.



The real Chris Steele is profiled below, courtesy of LinkedIn. 



Steele, 52 years old, is one of two directors of Orbis, along with Christopher Burrows, 58.

Burrows, reached at his home outside London on Wednesday, said he wouldn’t “confirm or deny” that Orbis had produced the report. A neighbor of Mr. Steele’s said Mr. Steele said he would be away for a few days. In previous weeks Mr. Steele has declined repeated requests for interviews through an intermediary, who said the subject was “too hot.”



According to Steele's LinkedIn profile, at least before he scrubbed it, he was a counselor in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with foreign postings in Brussels and New Delhi in the 2000s. The Foreign Office declined to comment to the WSJ. Furthermore, the LinkedIn profile for Mr. Steele doesn’t give specifics about his career, however notes that intelligence officers often use diplomatic postings as cover for their espionage activities. That, or they are dumb enough to actually reveal where they are stationed.

Some more details courtesy of the WSJ:

Orbis Business Intelligence was formed in 2009 by former British intelligence professionals, it says on its website. U.K. corporate records say Orbis is owned by another company that in turn is jointly owned by Messrs. Steele and Burrows. It occupies offices in an ornate building overlooking Grosvenor Gardens in London’s high-end Belgravia neighborhood.

The firm relies on a “global network” of experts and business leaders, provides clients with strategic advice, mounts “intelligence-gathering operations” and conducts “complex, often cross-border investigations,” its website says.

The dossier consists of a series of unsigned memos that appear to have been written between June and December 2016. Beyond creating the document, Mr. Steele also came up with a plan to get the information to law-enforcement officials in the U.S. and Europe, including the F.B.I., according to a person familiar with the matter.
The WSJ adds that "the author of the report had a good reputation in the intelligence world and was stationed in Russia for years, said John Sipher, who retired in 2014 after 28 years in the CIA’s clandestine service, where he specialized in Russia and counterintelligence."

Private-intelligence firms like Orbis have a growing presence. Major corporations use them to conduct due diligence on potential business partners in risky areas, but quality control can be loose when it comes to high-level political intrigue, according to executives of private intelligence companies. It appears they are also used to create smear campaigns (for lots of money one assumes) targeting potential presidential candidates, not to mention president-elects.

As for the fundamental question, are the memos in the Trump dossier real, here is the answer:

Andrew Wordsworth, co-founder of London-based investigations firm Raedas, who often works on Russian issues, said the memos in the Trump dossier were “not convincing at all.”“It’s just way too good,” he said. “If the head of the CIA were to declare he got information of this quality, you wouldn’t believe it.”Mr. Wordsworth said it wouldn’t make sense for Russian intelligence officials to expose state secrets to an ex- former MI-6 officer. “Russians believe once you are an agent, you’re an agent forever,” he said.
Yes, a rational person wouldn't believe it, but BuzzFeed and other fake news outlets certainly would.

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## HFTengineer

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...rge-unverifie/

Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the infamous anti-Donald Trump dossier, acknowledges that a sensational charge his sources made about a tech company CEO and Democratic Party hacking is unverified.
In a court filing, Mr. Steele also says his accusations against the president and his aides about a supposed Russian hacking conspiracy were never supposed to be made public, much less posted in full on a website for the world to see on Jan. 10.
He defends himself by saying he was betrayed by his client and that he followed proper internal channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to alert the U.S. government.
Mr. Steele has not spoken publicly about his disputed opposition research project, but for the first time he is being forced to talk in a London court through his attorneys.
Barristers for Mr. Steele and his Orbis Business Intelligence firm filed their first defense against a defamation lawsuit brought by Aleksej Gubarev, chief executive of the network solutions firm XBT Holdings.
Mr. Steele acknowledges that the part of the 35-page dossier that identified Mr. Gubarev as a rogue hacker came from “unsolicited intelligence” and “raw intelligence” that “needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified.”
Democrats in Washington have embraced the unproven dossier as an argument for appointing a high-powered commission to investigate President Trump and his aides.
In his final December dossier memo — his 16th — Mr. Steele accused Mr. Gubarev and his web-hosting companies of hacking the Democratic Party computer networks with pornography and bugging devices. Mr. Gubarev calls the charge fiction and filed a lawsuit in February.
Mr. Steele’s court filing portrays him as a victim of Fusion GPS — the Washington firm that hired him with money from a Hillary Clinton backer.
Fusion specializes in opposition research for Democrats and circulated the Steele dossier among reporters in an effort to injure the Trump candidacy and presidency. Mr. Steele said he never authorized Fusion to do that.
“The defendants did not provide any of the pre-election memoranda to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so,” Mr. Steele said through his attorney. “Nor did they provide the confidential December memorandum to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so.”
“At all material times Fusion was subject to an obligation not to disclose to third parties confidential intelligence material provided” by Mr. Steele and his firm Orbis, the court filing reads.
Mr. Steele personally signed the seven-page filing. He is represented by two London barristers who specialize in defamation cases: Gavin Millar and Edward Craven.
Mr. Steele says the ultimate responsibility lies with BuzzFeed, the liberal news website whose editor, Ben Smith, decided to post the entire 35 pages — memos from June to December — on Jan. 10 even though Mr. Smith said he doubted the far-flung accusations were true.
That momentous web posting sent Mr. Steele into hiding. He re-emerged March 7 in London, made a brief statement to the press and went inside his Orbis office.
The Steele dossier’s major charge is that the Trump campaign entered into an elaborate conspiracy with Russian agents to hack Democratic Party computers.
The Trump White House denies the charge, as do at least four people whom Mr. Steele’s unidentified sources accused of breaking the law.
The final Steele memo in December targets Mr. Gubarev and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney.
That memo, after accusing Mr. Gubarev, then recounts from previous memos a supposed trip Mr. Cohen took to Prague in late August to meet with Russian agents and devise a plan to cover up the purported Trump team’s role in the hacking.
Mr. Cohen calls the dossier “fabricated.” He has shown that he was in California at the time and has never been to Prague. He told The Washington Times that he has instructed his attorneys to investigate a lawsuit against Mr. Steele.
The fact that Mr. Steele acknowledges that he put unverified “raw intelligence” into his December memo casts further doubt on his research techniques for the entire 35-page dossier.
Although Mr. Steele portrays himself as a victim of Fusion and BuzzFeed, he acknowledges in his court filing that he provided “off-the-record briefings to a small number of journalists about the pre-election memoranda in late summer/autumn 2016.”
The narration of the involvement of Mr. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, reads like a spy novel.
Andrew Wood is a former British ambassador to Moscow and is an associate at the Orbis firm. After the Nov. 8 presidential election, Mr. Wood met with Mr. McCain and David J. Kramer, a former assistant secretary of state who is director of human rights and democracy at The McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. By that time, Mr. Steele had written 15 memos for the dossier.
As a result, Mr. Wood arranged for Mr. Kramer to meet with Mr. Steele “in order to show him the pre-election memoranda on a confidential basis,” the court filing says. The meeting occurred on Nov. 28 in Surrey, England.
“Mr. Kramer told [Mr. Steele] the intelligence he had gathered raised issues of potential national security importance,” the court filing says.
Mr. Kramer returned to Washington, and Fusion agreed to give a hard copy of the dossier to Mr. McCain “on a confidential basis via Mr. Kramer,” according to the filing.
Mr. McCain then asked Mr. Steele, through Mr. Kramer, to provide any additional information on Russian interference in the election.
U.S. intelligence officially has concluded that Russia directed a hacking operation into Democratic Party email servers and orchestrated the release of stolen emails via WikiLeaks to help the Trump campaign.
Mr. McCain has confirmed publicly that he personally turned over the dossier to FBI Director James B. Comey. But at that time, the FBI already had obtained the dossier from other sources and had been using it to investigate the supposed Trump-Russia connection.
Afterward, Mr. Steele continued to receive “raw intelligence,” including the Gubarev accusations. He wrote the December memo after his work for Fusion had ended.
He provided that memo to British national security officials and to Fusion through an “enciphered email,” with instructions to provide a copy to Mr. McCain.
The court filing says Mr. Steele has worked with Fusion for “a number of years” and was hired in June to begin investigating Mr. Trump. It was in June when the Democratic National Committee disclosed publicly that it had been hacked and its cybersleuths singled out Russia as the likely culprit.
Mr. Steele does not mention another American contact he made: The New York Times reported that the FBI, during an October meeting in Rome, offered him $50,000 to continue investigating Mr. Trump. Presumedly, Mr. Steele would continue to investigate the president as a surrogate for the FBI. The deal, however, did not go through.
Some Republicans have questioned why the FBI would try to put a Democratic-paid opposition researcher on the payroll, especially one who produced a dossier that remains unproven. The Times said the FBI wanted Mr. Steele to provide more proof of his charges.
Mr. Gubarev also is suing BuzzFeed for libel in Florida, where XBT has an office and where his firm Webzilla is incorporated.
The lawsuit calls BuzzFeed’s posting “one of the most reckless and irresponsible moments in modern journalism.”

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## HFTengineer

Comney:
For those of you who continue to consume anonymously-sourced news from the likes of CNN, NYT, WAPO, etc, as pure fact and a perfect substitute for actual, unbiased journalism, while blindly ignoring the overwhelming evidence which continues to suggest these outlets are simply pushing a sensationalized narrative aimed at bringing down an administration of which they disapprove, please consider Comey's testimony from earlier today in which he describes a February NY Times story, which alleged numerous contacts between Trump associates and Russia, as "almost entirely wrong"

Cotton:  "On February 14 the New York Times published a story, the headline of which was "Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence." 

You were asked earlier whether that was an inaccurate statement and you said you said 'in the main.'  Would it be fair to characterize the story as 'almost entirely wrong?'"

Comey:  "Yes."



For those who missed it, we covered the original New York Times article in a post entitled "NYTimes Reports Trump Aides' "Repeated Contact" With Russian Intel Officials, Admits No Collusion Discovered."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/u...=top-news&_r=2


Meanwhile, in earlier testimony with Senator Risch, Comey further explained why anonymously sourced stories can often be pure "nonsense."

Risch:  "So the American people can understand this, that report by the New York Times was not true, is that a fair statement?"

Comey:  "In the main it was not true.  And, again, all of you know this, maybe the American people do not, the challenge, and I'm not picking on reporters, about writing stories about classified information is, the people talking about it often don't really know what's going on and those of us who actually know what's going on are not talking about it. 

And we don't call the press to say 'hey, you got that thing wrong about his sensitive topic.'"

"I mentioned to the chairman the nonsense around what influenced me to make the July 5th Statement.  Nonsense, but I can't go explaining why it's nonsense."



Of course, just like with CNN's story yesterday, we're certain that the New York Times will promptly retract their erroneous reporting and offer an apology to their readers for the unfortunate mistake...not that it matters much because the story has already reached millions of readers and inflicted the damage for which it was intended.



* * *

For those who missed it, Comey's opening statement also outed another anonymously-sourced 'fake news' article pushed by CNN.  





Back on May 9th, the White House released the letter that President Trump sent to former FBI Director James Comey informing him that he'd been relieved of his duties at the FBI.  Within that letter, Trump awkwardly inserted a sentence thanking Comey for informing him "on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation."  Here's the full sentence (full post here):

"While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau."
Not surprisingly, this statement set off alarm bells at CNN and other MSM outlets because, if true, it would put a real damper on their "Trump colluded with Russian hackers to stage a coup" narrative. Therefore, those outlets set out on a mission to 'prove' that Comey never made those statements and that, by definition, Trump clearly lied about his past interactions with the former FBI Director. 

And not long after setting out on that mission, courtesy of those infamous 'anonymous sources', CNN and ABC struck gold when they confirmed that "FBI Director James Comey is reportedly set to testify he never told President Donald Trump that he was not under investigation."  Here is a summary of CNN's reporting from their primary echo chamber, HuffPo:

"Former FBI Director James Comey is reportedly set to testify he never told President Donald Trump that he was not under investigation in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to CNN and ABC News."
And here is the original CNN reporting:

CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politi...ion/index.html

"Trump has made a blanket claim that Comey told him multiple times that he was not under investigation."

"But one source said Comey is expected to explain to senators that those were much more nuanced conversations from which Trump concluded that he was not under investigation.  Another source hinted that the President may have misunderstood the exact meaning of Comey's words, especially regarding the FBI's ongoing counterintelligence investigation."
Unfortunately, CNN's 'anonymous sources' seem to have been 'mistaken' on this one.  And while we have no doubts, generally, about the integrity of CNN and/or their anonymous sources, Comey's direct testimony released just a while ago seems to confirm exactly what Trump said in his original May 9th letter and exactly the opposite what CNN subsequently reported. 

In fact, here are precisely three instances (ironic, right?), directly from Comey's testimony, in which he personally told President Trump he was not under investigation:

1.  January 6th Meeting at Trump Tower:
"In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance."

2.  January 27th Dinner at White House:
"During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it."

3.  March 30 Phone Call:
"I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that."
Of course, we're 'absolutely positive' that everything else CNN has learned and reported from their anonymous sources, regarding Trump and his Russian collusion, is completely accurate and reflect nothing but the highest levels of journalistic integrity.  As such, we are quite confident that CNN will promptly retract their erroneous reporting and offer an apology to their readers for the unfortunate mistake.

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## HFTengineer

Vidjo e transcrptit eshte ktu, per pytjen e pare :

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## HFTengineer

Vodjojaj per pytjen e dyte

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## HFTengineer

Deep state cifuti muller roli i tij  dhe avokati i tij cifut rosenstein:


 As noted earlier, on Monday evening Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of the conservative news site and TV network Newsmax, caused a media uproar when he said during an interview on "PBS NewsHour" that Trump is thinking about firing special counsel Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference.

As NBC noted last night, it is open to question how reliable Ruddy's comments are. "He is often described as a close friend of Trump's, and reporters spotted him leaving the White House on Monday. But a source familiar with the visit told NBC News that any meeting Ruddy was to have had with the president was postponed. Still, his remarks prompted this reply on Twitter from Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who said the committee would simply reappoint Mueller and then advised the president: "Don't waste our time."

So following up on that particular thread, moments ago Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, speaking at a Senate Appropriations Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday said he has not seen "good cause" to fire Robert Mueller.

Rosenstein clarified that he has the authority to hire and fire Mueller, and not Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“Have you seen good cause for firing Mueller?” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) asked Rosenstein.

“I have not,” he replied.

The exchange was notable because the Deputy AG essentially assured the Senate that Administration will follow 28 CFR 600.7, which says that only he can fire Mueller and only for good cause.

Senator Susan Collins then pressed him on reports that the administration is considering firing Mueller, asking whether he would fire Mueller if President Trump ordered him to do so.

“I am not going to follow any orders unless I believe those are lawful and appropriate,” he said, explaining that under federal regulations, Mueller can only be fired for good cause and that reason would have to be put in writing. The deputy AG also said that Mueller may be fired "only for good cause and I am required to put that cause in writing."


Meanwhile, aside from launching several angry tweets targeting "fake news" this morning without much context, Trump has yet to make a statement either way on his view toward Mueller.

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## HFTengineer

Session merret ne pyetje:

After yet another 2+ hour public hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on alleged collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russian spies, we are still no closer to anyone providing a shred of tangible evidence as to the validity of such claims despite Democrats and the mainstream media dedicating virtually every waking moment to the express pursuit of such evidence.  That said, it all makes for great, and neverending, political theater and below are the highlights from today's episode of the continuing insanity.

Sessions set an aggressive tone for the hearing by preemptively stating during his opening remarks that "any suggestion I participated in or was aware of collusion with the Russians is an appalling and detestable lie."

"Let me state this clearly, colleagues, I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States, further I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign... any suggestion I participated in or was aware of collusion with the Russians is an appalling and detestable lie." 




But perhaps no one did a better job of thoroughly dismantling the "Russian collusion" narrative than Senator Tom Cotton who pointed out, as have we on multiple occasions, that no one, including James Comey, has seen a single shred of evidence to suggest that Trump or any of his associates colluded with Russian spies to steal emails from Hillary Clinton or the DNC and/or to generally stage a coup in the United States. 

"The very simple question that should be asked is 'did Donald Trump or any of his associates in the campaign collude with Russia in hacking those emails and releasing them to the public." 

"That's where we started six months ago.  We've now heard from 6 of the 8 democrats on this committee and, to my knowledge, I don't think a single one of them asked that question. They've gone down lots of other rabbit trails, but not that question."

"Maybe, that is because Jim Comey said last week, as he's said to Donald Trump, that on three occasions he assured him he was not under investigation.  Maybe it's because multiple democrats on this committee have stated that they've seen no evidence thus far, after six month of our investigation, and 11 months of an FBI investigation, of any such collusion."
Cotton went on to compare the efforts that would have to be undertaken by the Trump administration to pull off the conspiracy alleged by the Left and mainstream media to a Jason Bourne movie.





On the topic of whether he ever met with Russian Ambassador Kislyak at the Mayflower Hotel, Sessions confirmed that Kislyak was present for the Trump speech and wouldn't rule out short, public exchange of pleasantries, though he had no recollection of such an encounter, but he did definitively confirm that he did not have any private conversations with Kislyak at the event.




Sessions did get testy with Senator Wyden at one point when questioned about Comey's testimony last week that he expected Sessions to recuse himself earlier than he ultimately did.  Those suggestions by Comey have since resulted in wild media speculation over whether Comey was in possession of undisclosed information that would link Sessions directly to the Russian interference investigation.




Multiple democrats on the panel, including Senator Heinrich, accused Sessions of "impeding this investigation" by refusing to discuss the details of conversations he may or may not have had with the President....though they all seemingly forgot that time that Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with an investigation into the "Fast and Furious" gun running scandal.





On whether he lingered outside the oval office while President Trump spoke to Comey alone because he thought it was inappropriate:

"Didn't seem to me to be a major problem....I knew Comey...could handle himself well."



Last week former FBI Director Comey testified that Sessions refused to respond when Comey approached him about not wanting to have direct 1-on-1 conversation with President trump.  Sessions directly refuted that testimony by saying the following:

"I believe it was the next day that he expressed concern about being left alone with the President.  That in itself is not problematic.  He did not tell me, at that time, any details about anything that was said that was improper."

"I affirmed his concern that we should be following the proper guidelines of the Department of Justice and basically backed him up in his concerns and that he should not carry on any conversations with the President, or anyone else, about an investigation in a way that was not proper."



Of course, as Senator Mark Warner promised at the outset of today's hearing we're undoubtedly still in the early innings of the mass hysteria on this topic and will have the unfortunate pleasure of many more upcoming hearings where wild accusations will be tossed around all while no new facts are ever revealed.

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## HFTengineer

In a move that stunned many members of the media, on Thursday night Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia probe due to Jeff Sessions' recusal and who earlier this week confirmed only he has authority to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, released an unorthodox statement to be “skeptical about anonymous allegations” following the relentless barrage of news reports emerging from the WaPo and the NYT about the evolving probe into Russia’s "election interference" and possible collusion with Trump, all based on "anonymous sources."

"Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous 'officials,' particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch or agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long-established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations.
Rosenstein, who many had seen as a Trump foil at the DOJ, did not cite specific reports. The DOJ released Rosenstein’s statement after 9 p.m., shortly after The Washington Post reported that the special counsel was investigating the business dealings of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser. That report was attributed to unnamed American officials.

As we said, the media and punditry was "stunned" by the official statement: the NYT' Maggie Haberman said "Have literally never seen a statement like this." The new leader of the Trump "resistance", Preet Bharara also chimed in, tweeting "Americans should also exercise caution before accepting as true lies about firing of FBI Director & defamation of a war hero special counsel"

https://mobile.twitter.com/PreetBhar...ymous-official


https://mobile.twitter.com/RogueCPI/...75744864202752




To be expected, Rosenstein - who the media was ambivalent about and following his recent testimony in which he said there was "no grounds" to fire Mueller, praised - promptly became the latest pariah for insinuating that the media's Trump reportage may be, in fact, fake news.

As the NYT reported this morning,

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/1...ymous-official

What to make of Rosenstein's statement?

On one hand, it could be seen as a validation of Trump's repeated allegations that much of what has emerged in press in recent weeks is "fake news." On the other, as some in the media suggested, it could be an attempt to "chill" communications and leaks to the press. Yet others saw this as a preview of what may be another upcoming story. As Bloomberg's Jennifer Epstein who said "If this statement is preemptive: oh, boy, is the story going to be explosive."

 the "statement aligned with the president’s open frustration with unflattering leaks. Mr. Trump has called stories about the investigation “fake news” and complained on Twitter about a Washington Post report on Wednesday night that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was investigating the president himself for possible obstruction of justice. That story was also attributed to unnamed sources, as was a New York Times article that same evening about Mr. Mueller’s request for interviews with three top intelligence officials."

What to make of Rosenstein's statement?

On one hand, it could be seen as a validation of Trump's repeated allegations that much of what has emerged in press in recent weeks is "fake news." On the other, as some in the media suggested, it could be an attempt to "chill" communications and leaks to the press. Yet others saw this as a preview of what may be another upcoming story. As Bloomberg's Jennifer Epstein who said "If this statement is preemptive: oh, boy, is the story going to be explosive."



https://mobile.twitter.com/jeneps/st...ymous-official



Trump has yet to tweet his approval of Rosenstein's comment, although moments ago he did tweet the following:


https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonal...ymous-official


He followed up by tweeting "The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media - over 100 million people! I can go around them"

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## HFTengineer

President Trump's latest twitter target seems to be his own Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who he blasts for the hiring of a Special Counsel to investigate the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, after writing a letter himself explicitly calling for the firing of James Comey.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt"


https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonal...tor-witch-hunt


Of course, Trump's message isn't crystal clear on exactly who the subject of the tweet is and has left some wondering whether he might actually be referring to Special Counsel Mueller.

That said, since Rosenstein did, in fact, draft a letter calling for the termination of James Comey, a letter which Trump revealed publicly on May 9th, it would seem more logical that the tweet is directed at him. Here is an excerpt from our post back in May:

In the letter from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he cites the handling of Comey's Clinton investigation, and says that Comey was wrong to cite his conclusions about the Clinton email probe in July of 2016: "I cannot defend the Director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken," Rosenstein wrote.

Rosenstein was referring to Comey's decision to announce in July last year that the probe of Hillary Clinton should be closed without prosecution, but then declared - 11 days before the Nov. 8 election - that he had reopened the investigation because of a discovery of a new trove of Clinton-related emails.  Democrats say the decision cost Clinton victory.

Rosenstein also identified several areas in which he said Comey had erred, saying it was wrong of him to "usurp" then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch's authority by announcing the initial conclusion of the email case on July 5.

Comey "announced his own conclusions about the nation's most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders," Rosenstein wrote. Comey also "ignored another longstanding principle" by holding a news conference to "release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation."








tter, critics will note that Trump later admitted that he had been considering the termination of James Comey from the moment he took office.

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## HFTengineer

Nga the hill :



http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...rs-objectivity

President Trump in a new interview with Fox News from the White House questions special counsel Robert Mueller’s objectivity, saying he is “very, very good friends” with fired FBI Director James Comey.

Trump also argues that Mueller has hired "Hillary Clinton supporters" and people who worked for Clinton's 2016 White House bid to work on his investigation, a situation he describes as “ridiculous.”


The president does not say that Mueller should recuse himself, in response to a direct question for “Fox and Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt.

“Well he’s very, very good friends with Comey. Which is very bothersome,” Trump says, with first lady Melania Trump at his side. “We’re going to have to see. But there has been no obstruction, there has been no collusion. There has been leaking by Comey. And virtually everyone agrees on that.”
Trump then fires at Mueller for his hirings.

“The people who have been hired are all Hillary Clinton supporters,” he says. “Some of them worked for Hillary Clinton. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous if you want to know the truth from that standpoint."


Trump concludes, however, by stating that Mueller is “an honorable man, and hopefully he’ll come up with an honorable solution.”

Mueller was appointed to lead the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election, including possible links to Trump's campaign, after the president fired Comey over his handling of the investigation.

Comey has testified that he believes Trump had sought to get him to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michale Flynn. Comey's testimony has raised the possibility of Mueller bringing an obstruction of justice case against the White House. 

It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone working for Mueller actually worked for Clinton.

The Hill previously reported that Jeannie Rhee, a member of Mueller’s team, donated $5,400 to Hillary for American, a political action committee affiliated with Clinton’s presidential campaign. 

Another person on Mueller’s team, Andrew Weissmann, donated money to former President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 while working at a law firm. Weissmann is the senior lawyer on the special counsel team, Bloomberg reported. 

James Quarles, who served as an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, has donated to more than a dozen Democratic PACs since the late 1980s. He was also identified by The Washington Post as a member of Mueller's team.

Trump also discussed his tweet Thursday acknowledging that he did not tape conversations with Comey, whom he fired earlier this year.

Trump for more than a month suggested tapes of his conversations in the White House with Comey might have existed.

On Friday, he said they didn’t, and that his story on Comey had never changed.

“Well I didn’t tape him,” he said. “You never know what’s happening when you see that the Obama administration and perhaps longer than that was doing all this unmasking and surveillance and you read all about it and I’ve been reading about it for the last couple of months about the seriousness of the horribleness of the situation of surveillance all over the place.

“But I didn’t tape, and I don’t have any tapes, and I didn’t tape, but when he found out that there may be tapes out there, whether its governmental tapes or anything else and who knows, I think his story may have changed
Earnhardt, of Fox News, suggested that keeping the tapes was "a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in those hearings."

"Well, uh, it wasn't very stupid, I can tell you that," Trump replied. "He did admit that what I said was right, and if you look further back, before he heard about that, i think maybe he wasn't admitting that. So I think maybe you'll need to do a little investigative reporting to determine that, but I don't think it will be that hard.

“You’ll have to take a look at that. Because then he’ll have to tell what actually took place at the events. And my story never changed. My story was the straight story. My story never changed.”

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