Month: August 2019

“The President’s comments are certainly alarming, overt and direct, even for him,” said a former intelligence official who served during the Trump admin about Trump’s remarks that John Ratcliffe would “rein in” intel agencies that have “run amok.” https://t.co/gsUwe4j5eT

Spies in Ukraine – ‘SBU said the ex-officer, whose name was not disclosed, “collected data on the social, political, and economic situation in Zaporizhzhya and regularly visited Crimea” [where he] “handed the collected data to a representative” of Russia’s FSB”.’ https://t.co/Db6XOAJhWg

Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, and Steve Bannon met with King Abdullah II while Flynn was reportedly pressing for a controversial, for-profit deal to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East.

“On the morning of Jan. 5, Flynn, Kushner, and former chief strategist Steve Bannon greeted King Abdullah II at the Four Seasons hotel…”

“Among those who have socialized with the financier — or appear in his infamous “black book” of contacts — are Sergey Brin, Richard Branson, Jason Calacanis, Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.” – Epstein Story

The FTC, ever the stalwart protector of consumer welfare, now says the Equifax settlement cash payouts will be less than promised due to “unexpected” public interest: https://t.co/wRJH0jILcK

Bloomberg: More than half of the Trump administration’s trade-war aid for farmers went to just one-tenth of the recipients in the program. https://t.co/kWCpdWqDU5

American voters say 52-40% that Trump attempted to “derail or obstruct” the Russia investigation and say 56-31% that the Mueller report did not clear Trump of any wrongdoing, according to Quinnipiac.

Micronesian Government Official Sentenced to Prison for Role in Money Laundering Scheme Involving FCPA Violations https://t.co/QtudSdHtAH

Interesting story – The story involved Seth Rich, the 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer who had been shot and killed the previous July in what police believed was most likely a botched robbery. Malia Zimmerman, a Los Angeles-based reporter for the Fox News website, had sent her editors in New York a wild draft of a piece claiming that the FBI had uncovered evidence that Rich — and not Russian military-intelligence hackers — had been the real source of stolen DNC emails provided to WikiLeaks. If that was the case, that botched robbery in Washington would start looking very much like a political assassination.

William Perry Pendley, a conservative lawyer and writer who argues for selling off the nation’s public lands, is now in charge of the federal agency that oversees a nearly quarter-billion acres in federally held rangeland and other wilderness. https://t.co/Yd2bdQp0Ze