Trump -psykoosi

[Rantojen mies]

Se on sitten eurooppakin lähdössä kauppasotaan trumpin kanssa, autoista se kaikki alkoi. Mitähän ovat EU komissaarin suunnittelemat vastatullit, 20 miljardia.

https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/...-arkkuun/77f81e09-1b94-4955-97c5-5d992603f565

Jos "eurooppa" on EU ja "trump" Yhdysvallat, niin toivotaan totisesti, ettei kauppasotaa tule. Siinä käy huonosti.

 

[Mustaruuti]

Heh. Adam Schiff, totuuden ja kaiken hyvän esitaistelija. Hän näkee todisteita, mutta muut, oikeus mukaan lukien, ei vaan Adamin näkyjä hyväksy. Hieno mies.

Niin. Tämä on mielenkiintoinen tilanne.

Senaatin tiedustelukomitean puheenjohtaja sanoo, ettei näe colluusiota. Edustajainhuoneen tiedustelukomitean puheenjohtaja sanoo, että näkee.

Toinen on republikaani, toinen demokraatti.

Yllättyneet? Voi nostaa käden ylös.

Tämä kertoo nimenomaan juuri siitä, mistä jo on ollut moneen kertaan puhetta. Jenkkilän kaksipuoluejärjestelmäinen poliittinen koneisto on halvaannustilassa.

Siksi kannattaa ennemmin luottaa lehdistöön, tiedusteluasiantuntijoihin, virkamiehiin, ja oikeuslaitokseen. Heillä on pyrkimys selvittää ja kertoa miten asiat ovat.

Sen lisäksi kannattaa käyttää myös omaa järkeä.

Ja yksi hyvä vanha sanonta pätee hyvin, kun noita jenkkilän kuvioita tulkitsee. "On vaikea saada ihmistä ymmärtämään jotain, kun hänen toimeentulonsa riippuu siitä, että hän ei sitä ymmärrä"

 

[Mustaruuti]

Heh. Adam Schiff, totuuden ja kaiken hyvän esitaistelija. Hän näkee todisteita, mutta muut, oikeus mukaan lukien, ei vaan Adamin näkyjä hyväksy. Hieno mies.

Sanos muuten vielä, mitä Adamin "näkyjä" oikeus ei ole hyväksynyt? Muller esim. on voittanut tähän mennessä kaikki oikeuskäsittelynsä.

Ennen poliitikon uraansa Schiff oli kuitenkin valmistunut Stanfordista ja Harvardista sekä toiminut USA:n liittovaltion syyttäjänä. Joten voisi kuvitella että hän osaa arvioida noita asioita paremmin kuin keskimääräinen poliitikko.

 

[Rantojen mies]

Niin. Tämä on mielenkiintoinen tilanne.

Senaatin tiedustelukomitean puheenjohtaja sanoo, ettei näe colluusiota. Edustajainhuoneen tiedustelukomitean puheenjohtaja sanoo, että näkee.

Sellainen mauste ainakin löytyy, että Senaatin komitea - ei siis Burr - oli useasti pyytänyt näitä Schiffin todisteita. Ei ollut vastausta tullut.

 

[taantumu]

Roger Stone ilmeisesti innokkaasti halajaa odottamaan oikeudenkäyntiään vankilaan saadakseen marttyyrin leiman itselleen. Stonen ei ole sallittua julkisesti kommentoida oikeudenkäyntiään mutta siitä huolimatta julkaisi Instagramissa juttunsa tuomarin kuvan ja tekstin jossa houri deep statesta ja kuinka hänen näytösoikeudenkäyntinsä tuomarina on Obaman nimittämä Amy Berman Jackson. Stone siis yrittää omalla hölmöilyllään saada lisää sanktioita jotta voisi valittaa kuinka häntä sorretaan.

A federal judge has demanded that Roger Stone explain why the conditions of his release and freedom to talk about the charges against him should not be changed after he posted an Instagram photo of that judge that included her name, a close-up of her face and what appeared to be the crosshairs of a gun sight near her head.

Stone deleted the initial picture soon afterward, then reposted it without the crosshairs before deleting that post, as well.

He later said he did not mean to threaten the judge overseeing his criminal case. In a letter to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, he apologized and called the picture “improper.”

But Jackson has scheduled a hearing for Thursday afternoon, saying Stone must “show cause . . . as to why the media contact order entered in this case and/or his conditions of release should not be modified or revoked.”

In a text message to The Washington Post on Tuesday, Stone wrote: “I will be present for the hearing as ordered.” He also offered another explanation for the image in the photo, writing that “it is evidentially more correctly a Celtic symbol.”

Jackson is presiding over Stone’s criminal trial, in which he has pleaded not guilty to charges of lying about his efforts to gather information about hacked 2016 Democratic Party emails that were published by WikiLeaks.

In a text message to The Washington Post on Monday, Stone said the photograph of Jackson had been posted by a “volunteer” who helps him with his social media accounts.

“The photo has been misinterpreted and in no way did I mean to threaten the judge or disrespect the court,” Stone wrote. “[It] is a random photo selected from the Internet and was posted at my direction. Because it was open to misinterpretation I have ordered it taken down.”

In an appearance Monday on Infowars, the conspiracy-minded website, Stone described the image in the photo he posted as an “occult symbol.” But he did not explain what that supposed symbol might mean. “The fake news continues to make me a favorite target. This latest tempest is a perfect example about it,” he said.

“I took it down because it was open to misinterpretation and there’s a thousand stories now from the usual suspects saying Roger Stone posted a photo of Judge Jackson with a crosshairs on it," he said. “That is false. That was not my intention, and I apologize if anyone got that impression. That was not the intent of my posting."

He said he did not intend to threaten or disrespect the judge.

Jackson imposed the gag order Friday, telling Stone that he could not make statements to the media about his case near the federal courthouse in Washington, but imposing no other restrictions on his ability to make public comments.

The judge put greater constraints on attorneys and potential witnesses, telling them not to make statements that could prejudice jurors.

In the text accompanying the first post, Stone referred to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who brought the case against him. “Through legal trickery Deep State hit man Robert S. Mueller III has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson,” Stone wrote, adding that Jackson is “an Obama appointed judge” and the “#fixisin.”

The U.S. Marshals Service, which provides security to federal judges, did not respond to a request for comment.

Stone also disputed that the original post included crosshairs.

“What some say are crosshairs are in fact the logo of the organization that originally posted it — something called corruption central,” Stone told The Post. “They use the logo in many photos.”

The photograph does appear on at least one far-right blog, emblazoned with the crosshairs-like logo.

However, in a Monday court filing, Stone’s lawyers formally apologized for the post.

“Undersigned counsel, with the attached authority of Roger J. Stone, hereby apologizes to the Court for the improper photograph and comment posted on Instragram today,” the filing reads. “Mr. Stone recognizes the impropriety and had it removed.”

Stone has used the possibility of a gag order as a cudgel to attack the special counsel’s office. Earlier this month, Stone posted a photo of himself on Instagram with what appeared to be a large piece of gold tape over his mouth.

Beneath the photo, he wrote: “Now an Obama-appointed Judge wants to gag me so I can’t defend myself from the many media leaks by the Mueller hit squad. . . . My lawyers are fighting this effort to abridge my First Amendment Rights.”

In the days leading up to Jackson’s courthouse-vicinity gag-order decision, Stone and his family members frequently argued that a gag order would limit his ability to raise money for his legal defense fund.

In a Feb. 8 fundraising letter, Stone’s wife, Nydia Stone, wrote: “The same Obama appointed judge who put [former Trump campaign chairman] Paul Manafort in solitary confinement before his being convicted of any crime is now considering issuing a gag order so that my husband can no longer publicly raise money for his legal defense — that’s why it is important that you rush me your answer today.” She underlined the sentence for emphasis.

Jackson is the same judge who ruled last week that Manafort — Stone’s longtime friend and former business partner — lied to Mueller’s prosecutors.

In past messages to The Post, Stone has struck a more conciliatory note, writing on the day of the partial gag order, “I am pleased that the judge’s order leaves my first amendment right to defend myself in public intact.”

“I will of course continue to be judicious about my comments regarding the case,” he added.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...dnt-mean-threaten-her/?utm_term=.d685e3a412f4

 

[Rantojen mies]

Jussie Smollett sekoilu uhkaa tosissaan keikuttaa muutaman demokraattien ehdokkaan kampanjaa ennen kuin ne ovat kunnolla edes alkaneet.
Varsinkin Harris ja Booker ovat ongelmissa.

Yksi mielenkiintoinen osa 2020 kampanjointia jonka Smolletinkin tapaus toi esiin, on demokraattien suhde juutalaisiin. Puolue on siirtynyt selvästi vasemmalle ja hahmot kuten Ilhan Omar ja
Linda Sarsour ovat omiaan karkoittamaan juutalaisia sekä Israeliin positiivisesti suhtautuvia äänestäjiä.

Varietyn näkemys Smollettin tilanteesta https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/jussie-smollett-felony-false-report-1203142874/

 

[taantumu]

Trump ilmoitti New York Timesin olevan kansanvihollinen. Syynä lienee NYT:n uutinen jonka mukaan Trump yritti saada virkaatekevän oikeusministeri Whitakerin vaihtamaan Trumpille mieleisen syyttäjän häntä koskevaan tutkimukseen naisten hiljaiseksi maksamisesta. Whitaker ei tähän suostunut ja Trump laittoi yhden merkinnän lisää obstruction of justice-listaansa.

President Trump on Wednesday sought to discredit a news report that says he asked his then-acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, whether he could put an ally in charge of an investigation into hush money paid to women during the 2016 campaign.

“The New York Times reporting is false,” Trump said in a morning tweet. “They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”

According to the Times report, Trump called Whitaker shortly after he assumed his post late last year to ask whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a perceived loyalist, could be put in charge of an investigation that included Trump’s role in silencing two women who alleged past affairs with him.

Whitaker knew he could not put Berman in charge because Berman had already recused himself from the investigation, the Times reported, citing several officials with direct knowledge of the call between Trump and Whitaker.

After Whitaker’s refusal, Trump soured on Whitaker, according to the Times reporting, which The Washington Post has not confirmed.

The Times highlighted the anecdote in a story that portrayed a pattern by Trump of seeking to beat back an array of investigations, including the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Trump was asked on Tuesday, after the Times story was published online, about his reported inquiry to Whitaker.

“No, I don’t know who gave you that, that’s more fake news,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “There’s a lot of fake news out there. No, I didn’t.”

Trump went on to say he has “a lot of respect for Mr. Whitaker,” calling him a “very, very straight shooter” and praising his combative performance this month in a hearing by the House Judiciary Committee.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), has summoned Whitaker back to the Hill to explain what he has characterized as “inconsistent” statements made during the hearing.

Among the areas Nadler wants to explore is whether Trump or any White House official expressed displeasure with Whitaker in the wake of the November guilty plea by Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen to charges including lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.

Cohen has also said he was tasked by Trump with facilitating hush payments to women who alleged affairs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...481bf264fdc_story.html?utm_term=.27c5a5f7f8ce

 

[taantumu]

Entinen virkaatekevä FBI:n johtaja McCabe kertoi "Gang of eight":lle (Senaatin ja kongressin puhemiehistö sekä senaatin ja kongressin tiedustelukomiteoiden puhemiehistö) avaavansa vastavakoilututkimuksen Trumpista eikä kukaan heistä vastustanut asiaa. Eli mm. Mitch McConnell, Richard Burr ja Paul Ryan hyväksyivät tutkimuksen ilman mutinoita. Kukaan paikallaolijoista ei halunnut kommentoida asiaa.

Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told NBC's "Today" show on Tuesday that he briefed congressional leaders about the counterintelligence investigation he had opened into President Donald Trump and that "no one objected."

"That's the important part here," McCabe told Savannah Guthrie, who had asked if he had informed the "Gang of Eight" bipartisan group of leaders on the Hill. "No one objected. Not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds and not based on the facts."


The purpose of the briefing in 2017 was to let the congressional leadership, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, then-House Speaker Paul Ryan and their Democratic counterparts, know what the FBI was doing in the probe into Russian election interference and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, McCabe said.

"Opening a case of this nature (is) not something that an FBI director, not something that an acting FBI director would do by yourself, right?" he said. "This was a recommendation that came to me from my team. I reviewed it with our lawyers. I discussed it at length with the deputy attorney general, and I told Congress what we had done."

NBC News has reached out to the congressional leaders for comment on McCabe's remarks. As is typical of members when asked about classified briefings, several refused to comment, including McConnell, Ryan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and panel Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Virginia.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/do...sponds-lying-trump-attacks-calls-them-n972981

 

[Mustaruuti]

Kun P-korea oli laukaissut mannertenvälisiä ballistisia ohjuksia, Trump ei uskonut USA:n tiedusteluviranomaisia. Syynä oli, että hän uskoi ennemmin Putinia, joka oli sanonut, ettei P-Korea pysty siihen.

Putin Told Trump North Korea Couldn’t Launch Missiles, and He Believed It
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/putin-told-trump-north-korea-couldnt-launch-missiles.html

In July, 2017, North Korea test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile. President Trump initially dismissed intelligence reports of the launch as a “hoax,” according to former FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Trump often refuses to accept intelligence findings, but in this case, his reasons were … interesting.

“He thought that North Korea did not have the capability to launch such missiles,” McCabe writes. “He said he knew this because Vladimir Putin had told him so.”

 

[Rantojen mies]

Entinen virkaatekevä FBI:n johtaja McCabe kertoi "Gang of eight":lle (Senaatin ja kongressin puhemiehistö sekä senaatin ja kongressin tiedustelukomiteoiden puhemiehistö) avaavansa vastavakoilututkimuksen Trumpista eikä kukaan heistä vastustanut asiaa. Eli mm. Mitch McConnell, Richard Burr ja Paul Ryan hyväksyivät tutkimuksen ilman mutinoita. Kukaan paikallaolijoista ei halunnut kommentoida asiaa.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/do...sponds-lying-trump-attacks-calls-them-n972981

Tämä siis McCaben mukaan. McCabe on joko NYTiin vuotanut FBI lähde ja valehtelee siitä, tai sitten Comey valehtelee. Tai "muistaa eritavalla" kuten McCabe asian muotoili.

 

[taantumu]

FBI:n ex-virkaatekevän johtajan Andrew McCaben mukaan on mahdollista että Trump toimii venäläisten hyväksi.

McCabe: 'I think it's possible' Trump is a Russian asset


Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said Tuesday it is possible President Donald Trump is a Russian asset.

"Do you still believe the President could be a Russian asset?" asked CNN's Anderson Cooper during an interview with McCabe on "Anderson Cooper 360."

"I think it's possible. I think that's why we started our investigation, and I'm really anxious to see where (special counsel Robert) Mueller concludes that," McCabe said.

It's another bombshell comment from McCabe, which comes days after he outlined on Sunday to CBS the reasons top US officials decided to open a counterintelligence probe and obstruction of justice investigation into the President.

McCabe is promoting his new book, "The Threat," which paints a stark portrait of his time at the bureau under Trump, describing in vivid detail his version of interactions with top officials at the White House and Justice Department. The book was released Tuesday and became an instant best-seller.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responded to McCabe's comments on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time," saying McCabe's comment is "hardly dignifying with a response."
"He's a liar and a leaker," Conway said.

The former acting FBI director went on the record in that "60 Minutes" interview confirming some previous reports about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein: That he raised the idea of wiring himself to surreptitiously record interactions with the President, and mused about which Cabinet officials might support an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment to oust Trump from office. Rosenstein has previously said that comment was mischaracterized.

When asked whether he thought someone should wire up to record conversations with the President, McCabe said, "Absolutely not." He added that it was "an incredibly invasive and potentially precedent-setting thing to do," and also said he didn't think it was necessary. He said it would only be necessary to capture evidence of intent, and "we didn't need to do that in this case, we knew what the President intended."

McCabe took over as the leader of the FBI when Trump fired James Comey in May 2017. McCabe was pilloried throughout his time leading the department and was eventually fired in 2018, just days shy of his announced retirement date. He's under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in Washington, DC, for misleading investigators in their probe of the FBI's handling of the investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

McCabe charged that the inspector general report that was used to justify his firing was the result of improper command influence, with it being clear that the President wanted him gone before his scheduled retirement date.

CNN has previously reported McCabe opened an obstruction of justice probe into Trump before Mueller's investigation began. It was an idea previously considered by the FBI but only started following former FBI Director James Comey's dismissal in May 2017. Sources previously told CNN the decision to start the investigation included the President's conversation with Comey in the Oval Office asking him to drop the investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

McCabe had harsh words for the President during his interview with Cooper, charging Trump with undermining the country's top law enforcement agencies for political gain.

"This President is undermining the role of law enforcement, undermining the role of our intelligence infrastructure and negatively impacting the men and women of the FBI, and across the intelligence agencies, (and their) ability to protect this country on a daily basis," McCabe said.

He added that there is no doubt in his mind that the President is undermining the "effectiveness and strength" of government institutions.

In the interview, McCabe described the events leading up to the decision to open a counterintelligence investigation into the President, saying he's not sure if there are things not yet made public. He said that, following the President's firing of Comey and his mention of Russia as part of the rationale, the FBI was "obligated to open the case" as there was an "articulable basis" to believe a "federal crime has been committed."

As to why he didn't speak out earlier, McCabe said he felt he had to make an argument in a thoughtful way about how the President is undermining the justice system.
McCabe wouldn't comment on whether the President's family was being looked into by the FBI. He told Cooper that it was not something he was comfortable talking about, saying it "could go to ongoing investigative matters."

McCabe said he did not continue to receive updates about the Russia investigation after Mueller was appointed.

The former acting FBI director later defended Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and said "the entire country owes him a debt of gratitude" for appointing Mueller. "Rod did the right thing by putting the right person in charge of that investigation."

McCabe said he didn't know if Rosenstein should have recused himself from the Russia probe.

"It was an incredible time, the simple fact that the deputy attorney general and the acting director of the FBI were trying to figure out how to navigate a situation in which we thought the President of the United States might be involved in obstruction of justice and might be doing that to cover up some sort of inappropriate relationship with the Russians," McCabe said.
"It was a head-spinning moment," he added.

As he did in his book, McCabe also had unsparing criticism for former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

McCabe said his impression on many occasions was that Sessions was not reading the President's daily intelligence brief, and said it was "somewhat confirmed to me when I heard from our own folks that the tablet devices that are used to convey the briefing materials were not being opened on a regular basis."

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/19/politics/andrew-mccabe-trump-law-enforcement/index.html

 

[Mustaruuti]

No niin.

Onneksi tässä on käymässä järkevästi. Nykyinen Air Force Space Command käytännössä saa uuden nimen ja lisää kohdennettuja resursseja.

Jos on joskus tarvetta ja se on järkevää, niin sitten siitä voi tehdä ihan aidosti erillisen puolustushaaran. Mutta ei markkinointisyistä.

Trump officially organizes the Space Force under the Air Force ... for now
https://www.defensenews.com/space/2...g-the-space-force-under-the-air-forcefor-now/

 

[taantumu]

Amerikkalaiset ovat pyytäneet europpalaisten liittolaistensa korvaavan Syyriasta lähtevät amerikkalaisjoukot. Tuskin kukaan yllättyi että liittolaisten yksimielinen vastaus oli ei. Jenkkien on tarkoitus häipyä maisemista viimeistään huhtikuun lopussa.

As the deadline approaches for the withdrawal of U.S. forces fighting the Islamic State in Syria, America’s closest European allies have turned down a Trump administration request to fill the gap with their own troops, according to U.S. and foreign officials.

Allies have “unanimously” told the United States that they “won’t stay if you pull out,” a senior administration official said. France and Britain are the only other countries with troops on the ground in the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State.

Along with the United States, they have provided training, supplies, logistics and intelligence for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-dominated group that has done most of the fighting. U.S., French and British forces also operate heavy artillery and conduct the airstrikes that have been decisive against the militants.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said last week that he was mystified by Trump’s policy. On Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that “there is no prospect of British forces replacing the Americans” in Syria.

European refusal to stay unless President Trump reverses at least part of his troop withdrawal order is one of several factors that U.S. military officials, lawmakers and senior administration officials have said should make Trump think again.

Their concerns coincide with the administration’s failure, so far, to reach an agreement with Turkey not to attack the SDF, which it says is a terrorist group. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the Turkish military, massed at the border, is prepared to move into northeast Syria once the Americans leave.

One of the principal requests the administration has made of the allies — including Germany, which has no forces in Syria — is to form an “observer” force to patrol a 20-mile-wide “safe zone” on the Syrian side of the border, separating Turkey from the Syrian Kurds.

Officials in Ankara said Turkey’s defense minister, Hulusi Akar, and its military chief of staff will travel to Washington on Thursday to discuss Syria and other regional matters with acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan.

For its part, the SDF has appealed for Western nations to keep a force of up to 1,500 in northeast Syria to coordinate air support and back its efforts to hold militants and other adversaries at bay. In anticipation of the departure of some 2,000 U.S. troops, the Kurds are negotiating with both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia, his primary foreign backer along with Iran.

Russia, meanwhile, has proposed that Assad’s forces simply be allowed to take over the entire area now controlled by the United States and its allies. “No one, including the Kurds and the Turks, thinks the regime coming into the northeast is a good idea,” the senior administration official said.

Trump has long complained that his own top aides and the military were blocking his determination to exit Syria once the Islamic State was defeated. In December, he said that the goal had been achieved and that U.S. troops were leaving “now,” after which Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned. Trump subsequently agreed that the departure would be “deliberate and orderly.” The military is planning a full withdrawal by the end of April.

But while national security adviser John Bolton, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), and others have told allies that some American troops may remain, those reassurances have not filtered up to the level of a presidential order to the Pentagon.

“I won’t talk to what Sen. Graham or NSA Bolton would like,” a defense official said in an email. “Gen. Votel has been very clear that we are currently focused on executing a full withdrawal from Syria at the order of the president.” Gen. Joseph Votel is the head of the U.S. Central Command in overall charge of U.S. forces in the Middle East.

U.S. and foreign officials spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive and ongoing diplomatic discussions and military operations.

In recent weeks, Trump has said that nearly 100 percent of the wide swath of Iraq and Syria that once formed the Islamic State’s “caliphate” has been liberated, although a small patch of militants has stubbornly hung on in southeastern Syria. Trump said Friday that he expected the complete “eradication of the caliphate” to be announced “over the next 24 hours,” but no such announcement has been made.

Military officials have repeatedly flagged what they see as the hazards of a hasty pullout, even after the Islamic State’s territorial presence has been eliminated. Officials expect that the group will retain an insurgent capability and the potential to stage a comeback, as it did after the American departure from Iraq in 2011, and estimate that between 20,000 and 30,000 militants remain in the two countries.

Senior officials, including Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have cautioned that the SDF requires ongoing assistance to stabilize cleared areas.

Last week, Votel said publicly that he did not support Trump’s withdrawal decision.

Graham, who leads a group of lawmakers opposed to the pullout plan, has proposed leaving 200 U.S. troops in northeast Syria as a way to incentivize European allies.

In a closed-door meeting at last week’s Munich Security Conference, Shanahan faced tough questions from congressional delegates who said he had failed to articulate a substantive justification for Trump’s exit plans.

“Are you telling our allies that we are going to go to zero by April 30?” Graham asked Shanahan, according to an account Graham gave to Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin. When Shanahan replied that those were the president’s order, Graham said he replied, “That’s the dumbest f---ing idea I’ve ever heard.” Shanahan, he said, agreed that likely consequences included a return of the Islamic State, a Turkish attack on Kurdish forces and an advantage for Iran.

Lt. Col. Joseph Buccino, a Pentagon spokesman, said the meeting was productive and “ended on a positive note for all parties.”

An official familiar with the Pentagon’s view of the meeting said Shanahan was prepared for tough questions from lawmakers but did not want to appear to be questioning the White House plan. Pentagon officials anticipated that portions of the meeting could be made public.

Bolton has told allies that even if they withdraw from northern and eastern Syria, U.S. troops will remain at the American garrison at Tanf, on Syria’s southern border with Jordan. Bolton is the administration’s leading hard-liner on Iran and believes, as he recently told reporters, that Tanf “is still very strategically important in connection with our determination that Iran not achieve this arc of control stretching” from Tehran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

But military officials said they had received no such instructions from Trump. The National Security Council declined to comment on the Tanf situation, beyond referring reporters to Bolton’s previous remarks on the subject.

“There is some confusion still in the U.S. government about Tanf,” the senior administration official said, amid rising confusion about what, exactly, Trump’s blueprint entails.

Another U.S. official characterized the situation with Turkey as “gridlock on the U.S. side — a lot of parties not seeing things the same way.”

The two governments appear to have made progress in resolving a subset of their disagreement over the Kurds. They have been conducting joint military patrols in the Syrian town of Manbij, which was retaken from the Islamic State in 2016, and the Americans have agreed to remove 10 SDF fighters from the area in response to Turkish concerns about those individuals.

But the future of a safe zone is far less clear. For U.S. officials, it has meant reconciling Trump’s withdrawal directive with the reality of the tinderbox that would be left behind. “It’s not safe to leave these enemies there, without any referee or mediating force,” the U.S. official said, referring to the Kurdish fighters and the Turkish military.

On Tuesday, Erdogan called the proposed safe zone, with Turkish forces in charge, “the most practical solution” for the return of millions of Syrian refugees who have settled in Turkey and other countries in the region during an eight-year civil war between Assad and his political opponents. He said it depended on the “material, logistical support of other countries” — a reference to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assistance that Turkey, a member of NATO, has requested from the United States and other countries in the alliance.

While Erdogan has also told Trump that Turkish forces would move farther into Syria to combat Islamic State remnants, U.S. officials said that was unlikely, given their comparatively limited security capabilities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...481bf264fdc_story.html?utm_term=.92f857cc7447

 

[taantumu]

Trump ei ole tainnut viime aikoina enää elämöidä vaalivilpistä, yhtenä syynä mahdollisesti Pohjois-Carolinassa meneillään oleva oikeudenkäynti. Oikeutta käydään viime syksyn kongressivaalien tuloksesta jossa republikaaninen pastori Mark Harris voitti mutta käytti vilpillisiä keinoja. Harris palkkasi tunnetun vaalivipin tehtailijan kampanjaansa ja tämän henkilökunta keräsi ihmisiltä ennakkoäänestyspyyntöjä, nämä palasivat keräämään ennakkoäänet ja postittivat kerätyt äänet eteenpäin. Lain mukaan ennakkoäänestys on tehtävä henkilökohtaisesti eikä vaalikampanjan "avustamana".

Pastori Harris yritti esittää tutkimuksissa tyhmää ja kertoi hurskaasti ettei tiennyt palkkaamansa kampanjatyöntekijän hämärästä taustasta mutta oikeudessa hänen poikansa todisti varoittaneensa isäänsä puhelimitse ja sähköpostilla palkkaamasta kaveria sillä toiminta on laitonta. Pojan todistuksen jälkeen hengenmies ilmoitti valehdelleensa koska oli sairas! Vaalikampanja myös "unohti" toimittaa pojan sähköpostit oikeudelle ajallaan ja toimitti ne vasta samana päivänä kuin tämä antoi todistuksensa. Tänään Harris myönsi että kongressivaali on uusittava.

Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris says a new election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District is warranted after allegations of ballot tampering.

Harris, during testimony this afternoon to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said a new election was warranted in the hotly contested race, which Harris led by 905 votes. He said he is recovering from an infection that led to sepsis and two strokes, and that he realized he was not prepared for the “rigors” of this hearing.

“I believe a new election should be called,” Harris said, eliciting gasps from the hearing room in Raleigh. “It’s become clear to me that public confidence in the 9th District has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted.”

Earlier Thursday, Harris said he knew nothing of an alleged ballot-tampering scheme led by an operative he hired to work in his 2018 campaign

Harris’s testimony came the day after his son, John Harris, a federal prosecutor, testified about the warnings he offered his father in phone calls and emails that he believed the operative had broken the law in a previous election.

In his own testimony Thursday, the elder Harris maintained as he has in previous interviews with reporters that he was unaware of red flags about the operative’s alleged tactics — notwithstanding what his son told him in the spring of 2017.

Harris said he didn’t follow his son’s advice in part because John Harris was just 27 years old at the time and added that the younger Harris is “a little judgmental and has a little taste of arrogance and some other things. And I’m very proud of him and love him with all my heart.”

Harris, a Baptist minister, took the stand on the fourth day of dramatic hearings into allegations that widespread election fraud tainted the results in the 9th Congressional District, the last undecided congressional race in the country. Harris leads by 905 votes over Democrat Dan McCready.

Harris said he hired the operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, on the advice of a number of Republican friends and colleagues. He said he believed Dowless when he offered to run a legal absentee-ballot program for Harris’s campaign.

Harris’s testimony followed the dramatic opening moments of Thursday’s hearings, in which Josh Lawson, general counsel for the State Board of Elections, disclosed a letter rebuking Harris's campaign lawyers for failing to turn over the emails between Harris and his son until 15 minutes before John Harris appeared Wednesday.

“The timing of your disclosure raises significant and material concerns regarding the Committee’s compliance and candor prior to, and now during, the hearing,” Lawson wrote. He said John Harris's subsequent testimony “strongly suggests” that the campaign’s explanation — that the query for emails had been incomplete — “was not accurate.”

Lawson also asked Harris if he had had any conversations this week describing his understanding that the email exchanges with his son would not be a part of the evidence to be presented at the hearing. Harris said he did not recall — three times to Lawson and once to Marc Elias, the lawyer for Harris’s Democratic opponent, Dan McCready.

After he answered Elias, Harris’s lawyer, David Freedman, abruptly stood up and asked the board’s chairman, Bob Cordle, if he could speak to the board in private.

Before the hearing was paused for that closed session, Harris explained on the witness stand how he had met Dowless — the 63-year-old native of Bladen County at the center of a suspected ballot-tampering scheme that has left the 9th District in limbo since November, when the board declined to certify a winner and launched an investigation instead. The district runs along the South Carolina border from Charlotte to rural eastern North Carolina.

Dowless was a “good ole boy” who “ate, slept and drank” politics and was recommended to him by a former state judge, Harris said. He met Dowless in 2017 at a local furniture store in the 9th District, and the two, along with other Republicans, sat on couches in the store's showroom so that Dowless could describe his absentee-ballot operation.

Harris had heard that Dowless was responsible for delivering an overwhelming share of the absentee ballot vote in the 2016 Republican primary for Todd Johnson, which Harris had lost to the incumbent at the time, Robert Pittenger. Harris was still smarting that he had lost to Pittenger by so few votes, and believed that if he had hired Dowless that year, he would have won.

“I turned to McCrae and said, ‘Well, what makes you so special? What is it that you do?’” Harris recalled.

Harris said Dowless explained to him that his operation was strictly legal. He would hire workers who would collect ballot request forms from voters, and then return once actual ballots had been sent out and help the voters fill out and mail the ballots. “We don’t touch the ballots,” Harris recalled the operative saying. Collecting or filling out another voter’s ballot is a felony in North Carolina.

Harris’s testimony drew skepticism from some board members. He was questioned about how Dowless paid his workers for each ballot request form they turned in — and whether that should have raised a red flag.

Harris claimed very little knowledge about the inner workings of his campaign, which he said was handled primarily by his campaign consultant, Andy Yates of Red Dome Group. Yates completed two days of testimony on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the younger Harris, now 29, said he offered the advice to his father as he considered whether to hire Dowless to run his absentee-ballot program in the 2018 congressional race. He conveyed similar concerns to Yates, he said. Mark Harris hired Dowless despite his son’s concerns.

At one point during his testimony, John Harris’s voice cracked and his father wept.


“I thought what he was doing was illegal, and I was right,” John Harris said about Dowless. He added: “I had no reason to believe that my father actually knew, or my mother or any other associate with the campaign had any knowledge. I think Dowless told them he wasn’t doing any of this, and they believed him.”

Investigators also shared an email between father and son in which the younger Harris wrote: “Good test is if you’re comfortable with the full process he uses being broadcast on the news.”

The younger Harris told the board Wednesday that he began studying absentee-ballot tallies in the 9th District in June 2016, when his father narrowly lost the Republican primary.

John Harris described digging into the numbers and discovering that mailed ballots for Johnson had arrived at county election offices “in batches” — which he believed suggested that they had been collected illegally by campaign workers.

Harris said he told his father then of his suspicions. Dowless, who declined to testify this week to avoid self-incrimination, is accused of doing just that in the 2018 cycle — hiring a team of workers to illegally collect, sign, forge and turn in ballots.

Both Yates and Harris have denied knowledge of those alleged tactics. But in another email from 2016 displayed during testimony Wednesday, the two Harrises discussed the anomalies that year — as well as the irony that Dowless had submitted a complaint to state elections officials that Democrats had employed similar tactics in Bladen County.

“Guess he didn’t like the Dems cutting into his business!” the elder Harris wrote.

In a televised interview in early January, Mark Harris told Spectrum News in Raleigh that reports, including one in The Washington Post, that he had been warned of Dowless’s alleged tactics, were untrue.

In his testimony Wednesday, the younger Harris also called into question the account of Yates, whose political consulting firm had paid Dowless on behalf of the campaign.

John Harris said he was surprised to hear how little oversight Yates provided to ensure that Dowless was performing the services that he was being paid for. He was also surprised to hear Yates say he was shocked to learn of Dowless’s alleged tactics once the investigation began in November.

“Mr. Yates said he was shocked and disturbed by the testimony,” the younger Harris said. “I was disturbed. Less shocked.”

Harris said that after he warned Yates of Dowless, “Andy assured me, ‘Yeah, we’re going to make sure that he does what he says he’s going to do.’ ”

John Harris emphasized his belief that his parents did not know of Dowless’s alleged tactics, but he also acknowledged in wrenching testimony that they “wanted” to believe Dowless — perhaps against their better judgment.

The younger Harris asked the elections board if he could make a few final remarks after lawyers had completed their questioning of him.

“I love my dad, and I love my mom,” he said. “I certainly have no vendetta against them, no family scores to settle. I think that they made mistakes in this process, and they certainly did things differently than I would have done them.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...a14d7fec96a_story.html?utm_term=.86b3ca31c271

 

[Mustaruuti]

Pojan kannattaisi asettua ehdolle isänsä sijaan. Näyttäisi olevan paremmalla arvostelukyvyllä varustettu nuoremmasta iästään huolimatta. Ehkä tässä näkyy ero liittovaltion lakimiehen ja pastorin välillä?

 

[Panssari Salama]

Pojan kannattaisi asettua ehdolle isänsä sijaan. Näyttäisi olevan paremmalla arvostelukyvyllä varustettu nuoremmasta iästään huolimatta. Ehkä tässä näkyy ero liittovaltion lakimiehen ja pastorin välillä?

Tuntuvat nämä syvää uskoaan huokuvat evankelikristityt olla niitä pahimpia koijareita. Mikä sinällään ei ole mitään uutta.

Miten se menikään: "You should never trust religious leaders who tell you how to vote nor should you ever trust politicians who tell you how to pray".

 

[krd]

Trump tahtoo jo 6G:n, 5G taitaa olla jo eilisen tekniikkaa?:
https://mobiili.fi/2019/02/22/trump...a-6gn-yhdysvaltoihin-niin-pian-kuin-nopeasti/

 

[taantumu]

Tuntuvat nämä syvää uskoaan huokuvat evankelikristityt olla niitä pahimpia koijareita. Mikä sinällään ei ole mitään uutta.

Miten se menikään: "You should never trust religious leaders who tell you how to vote nor should you ever trust politicians who tell you how to pray".

Evankelisia ei tule sekoittaa kristittyihin, ovat enemmänkin lahko sillä eivät juuri Jeesuksen opetuksia seuraa. Evankeliset ovat yhä Harrisin tukena ja kollegan mukaan se ettei vaalien tulosta hyväksytty on rikollista.

On election night, in the back room of an exclusive country club outside of Charlotte, N.C., Mark Harris, a pastor turned politician, gathered a small group of friends and advisers to pray as they waited for the results.

A longtime friend and fellow pastor, Mike Whitson, assured Mr. Harris, the Republican congressional candidate for North Carolina’s Ninth District, that “it was God who sets up kings” and that “God could be trusted with the outcome” of this race. Mr. Harris won by just 905 votes, and jubilation set in.

But now, a month later, the story of Mr. Harris’s path to victory appears far from a divine anointing.

In one of the most dramatic developments of the November elections, state-election officials have refused to certify Mr. Harris’s victory over Dan McCready, a Democrat, and are investigating potential voter fraud after questions emerged over irregular absentee ballot activity, allegedly involving a consultant hired to advance Mr. Harris’s campaign efforts. Congressional Democrats are calling for an emergency hearing. On Thursday, the executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party said he would be open to holding a new election, and on Friday Mr. Harris said he would be as well if fraud occurred that changed the election’s outcome.

The developments have turned the national spotlight onto a previously little known pastor, and onto the political ambitions of the Christian right that he represents. Mr. Harris’s race was one of the few House seats that the religious right targeted in the midterm elections, when they focused largely on increasing the Republican majority in the Senate.

The Christian right represents one of most influential voting blocs for President Trump and the Republican Party, and Mr. Harris represents their ideal candidate. He is a grass-roots culture warrior who gained local fame for his opposition to gay rights and for his support of a controversial so-called “bathroom bill.” He is seen as someone who would champion their political priorities in Washington.

Religious-right leaders are rallying around him, and are citing his commitment to faith as reason to dismiss the possibility that Mr. Harris could have done something wrong in the election. Mr. Whitson, the pastor who prayed with him on election night, calls the Board of Election’s decision to not certify the results not just “unfair,” but “criminal.”

“Mark is a man of deep convictions, he is a man of integrity, he walks with God,” Mr. Whitson said in a phone interview. He has been texting Mr. Harris spiritual encouragement that “this too shall pass.”

But outrage is growing among critics, not just at the questions of possible unethical or illegal activity, but also at the way they say Christianity is being used to cloak injustices in the state’s voting process.

“A person like Mark is once again the beneficiary of the racist policies of voter suppression and gerrymandering,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, a prominent North Carolina pastor and a longtime former leader of the state’s N.A.A.C.P.

Mr. Harris, he said, cannot truly be described as “evangelical.”

“They hijacked that term to make what they are saying sound theological when it is really not,” Dr. Barber said. “He is clearly a Christian nationalist, extreme on his views.”
Mr. Harris, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has long framed his political ambitions in spiritual terms. Ever since he decided to run for office in 2014, “it was almost like, I don’t have a choice, I’ve got to obey what God was calling me to do,” Mr. Whitson recalled.

He earned a reputation as a compelling orator in his more than two decades in the pulpit. But his sermons were controversial, though not uncommon in Southern Baptist circles; he asserted that women should “submit” to their husbands and questioned whether it was the “healthiest pursuit” for women to have careers.

Around the time he became the pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte in 2005, Mr. Harris went to a conference sponsored by the conservative Family Research Council that urged pastors to pursue civic involvement. It was a turning point that steered him toward a role in politics, and he began to train “culture impact teams” across his state to encourage conservative pastors to get involved politically. He worked periodically on contract with the F.R.C.

In Charlotte, he often led groups of congregants to nearby government offices at City Hall to pray for and with local leaders.

“He’d walk across the street and come up with a group of members of his congregation and say, ‘How can we help you?’” said Pat McCrory, a Republican who, before serving as governor of North Carolina, was Charlotte’s mayor for 14 years.

He invited Republicans like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee to speak to his church (Mr. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, campaigned for Mr. Harris this fall). One Sunday after Tony Perkins, the president of F.R.C., preached at his church, Mr. Harris told him he wanted to run for office.

“As he got more involved, he saw more of the need,” Mr. Perkins said in a phone interview. “I told him I’d be supportive.”

Still, Mr. Harris’s decision to run for elected office — and to keep running — came as something of a stunner in Charlotte’s sometimes clubby political scene, particularly when he began to challenge United States Representative Robert Pittenger in Republican primaries.

After Mr. Harris ran for Senate in 2014 and lost to Thom Tillis, he challenged Mr. Pittenger in the House in 2016 and lost by 134 votes. This year, when he challenged the congressman again, he won the primary by 828 votes. That victory is also in question in the current investigation.

“I never knew he had interest in public office,” said Mr. McCrory, who lives in the Ninth District. “I was even more surprised when he kept doing it. The guy has been through the meat grinder in terms of losing close elections.”
Mr. Harris was hardly ever the favored candidate of the donors who fuel Republican politics in the Charlotte area. But he found support outside of North Carolina’s largest city, his brand bolstered by evangelical groups with great sway in the state.

“His chance to win was going to be through a grass-roots effort,” Mr. McCrory said.

Mr. Harris gained momentum among North Carolina’s conservative voters in 2012 when he championed an amendment to the state’s constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, a move that was later ruled unconstitutional and overturned in court.

“Mark was a man who was willing to be bold and step up on the front lines and talk about biblical values,” said Tami Fitzgerald, the executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition, a group that works with pastors across the state.

In 2016, he supported House Bill 2, a controversial state law that, in addition to removing anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, required transgender people in public facilities to use the bathroom that corresponded with the sex stated on their birth certificate. That bill, too, was later repealed.

After a Charlotte police officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott in 2016, Mr. Harris went to the riots intending to defuse anger against the police, recalled his friend Leon Theatt, an African-American pastor in his district who joined him.

During this most recent election cycle, the legislative affiliate of the Family Research Council ran social media ads for Mr. Harris, distributed voter guides and sent its Values Bus to make multiple stops in support of him, including at President Trump’s rally for Mr. Harris in October. One of their Facebook ads urging voters to support Mr. Harris showed a “liberal vigilante” tackling and threatening white men.

Some progressive Christians in the state are also angered by Mr. Harris’s policy focus.

“He claims to be following the Bible, but he says very little about what Jesus said about policy toward the poor, the sick,” Dr. Barber said. “He is aligned with others who have tried to convince America that a moral agenda is simply being against gay people, being against abortion, for prayer in school, being for tax cuts for the wealthy, and for guns.”

Mr. Harris’s supporters are encouraging him to press onward.

Ms. Fitzgerald, from the Values Coalition, said she spoke with Mr. Harris last week, and they discussed the fraud allegations that have clouded his election.

“He was shocked, and just a little shaken, I guess, because it totally came out of left field,” she said.

Mr. Theatt believes Mr. Harris won the race “fair and square” and that he will ultimately be awarded the victory.

“It’s like a bad case of a stomach virus,” he said of the investigation. “You sometimes have to let it run its course.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/...tion=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

[Mustaruuti]

Mullerin tutkinnan on ennustettu tulevan valmiiksi säännöllisin väliajoin. Ensimmäinen ennuste arvioi Mullerin saavan asian valmiiksi jo puolitoista vuotta sitten tästä hetkestä (silloin puolen vuoden tutkinnan jälkeen siis).

Ehkä on paikallaan tässä vaiheessa mainita, että huhut ovat taas tällä viikolla kiihtyneet, että parin viikon sisään tapahtuisi isosti.

Olen ollut skeptinen, koska tutkinta on selkeästi monelta osin vielä kesken (esim. Roger Stonen oikeuskäsittely on vasta alkamassa). Mutta on toki mahdollista, että Muller tässä vaiheessa julkaisisi väliraportin.

Muutama pointti.

• Jos kyseessä on väliraportti, Muller tulisi siis edelleen selvittämään jäljellä olevia elementtejä
• On epäselvää, mitä tuotaisiin julki ja miten, ja miten käsiteltäisiin se, jos Mueller olisi löytänyt Trumpista epäilyttäviä asioita. Koska todennäköisesti Mueller ei tulisi presidenttiä syyttämään
• Siksi mahdollinen viraltapano etenisi sitten Kongressin käynnistämän prosessin kautta
• On tietysti mahdollista, että Muller vapauttaa Trumpin syytteistä, vaikka moni muu kampanjasta todennäköisesti vielä joutuukin syytteeseen
• On todennäköistä että Kongressin ja Senaatin komiteat tarvitsevat Mülleriltä lisätietoja ja tehostavat tutkintaansa, jos Mueller lopettaa. Toki tilanteesta riippuen. Mutta Muellerin mandaatti on kuitenkin ollut varsin rajattu. On monia teemoja, jotka kuuluvat enemmän Kongressin ja Senaatin vastuulle. Ja nämä ovat osin ilmeisesti varoneet, etteivät häiritse Mullerin tutkimusta.
• Oleellista on myös huomata se, että Trump, Trumpin firma, Trumpin vaalikampanja, virkaanastujaisrahasto jne ovat edelleen useamman eri normaalin syyttäjäviranomaisen tutkinnan alla. Ne tutkinnat jatkuvat, vaikka Mueller sulkisikin toimiston kokonaan.

 

[taantumu]

Mullerin tutkinnan on ennustettu tulevan valmiiksi säännöllisin väliajoin. Ensimmäinen ennuste arvioi Mullerin saavan asian valmiiksi jo puolitoista vuotta sitten tästä hetkestä (silloin puolen vuoden tutkinnan jälkeen siis).

Ehkä on paikallaan tässä vaiheessa mainita, että huhut ovat taas tällä viikolla kiihtyneet, että parin viikon sisään tapahtuisi isosti.

Olen ollut skeptinen, koska tutkinta on selkeästi monelta osin vielä kesken (esim. Roger Stonen oikeuskäsittely on vasta alkamassa). Mutta on toki mahdollista, että Muller tässä vaiheessa julkaisisi väliraportin.

Muutama pointti.

• Jos kyseessä on väliraportti, Muller tulisi siis edelleen selvittämään jäljellä olevia elementtejä
• On epäselvää, mitä tuotaisiin julki ja miten, ja miten käsiteltäisiin se, jos Mueller olisi löytänyt Trumpista epäilyttäviä asioita. Koska todennäköisesti Mueller ei tulisi presidenttiä syyttämään
• Siksi mahdollinen viraltapano etenisi sitten Kongressin käynnistämän prosessin kautta
• On tietysti mahdollista, että Muller vapauttaa Trumpin syytteistä, vaikka moni muu kampanjasta todennäköisesti vielä joutuukin syytteeseen
• On todennäköistä että Kongressin ja Senaatin komiteat tarvitsevat Mülleriltä lisätietoja ja tehostavat tutkintaansa, jos Mueller lopettaa. Toki tilanteesta riippuen. Mutta Muellerin mandaatti on kuitenkin ollut varsin rajattu. On monia teemoja, jotka kuuluvat enemmän Kongressin ja Senaatin vastuulle. Ja nämä ovat osin ilmeisesti varoneet, etteivät häiritse Mullerin tutkimusta.
• Oleellista on myös huomata se, että Trump, Trumpin firma, Trumpin vaalikampanja, virkaanastujaisrahasto jne ovat edelleen useamman eri normaalin syyttäjäviranomaisen tutkinnan alla. Ne tutkinnat jatkuvat, vaikka Mueller sulkisikin toimiston kokonaan.

Oikeusministeriö kertoi että huhut joiden mukaan raportti valmistuisi ensi viikolla eivät pidä paikkaansa.

Despite mounting speculation that special counsel Robert Mueller would deliver his final report to Attorney General William Barr as early as next week, a Justice Department official with knowledge of the matter said Friday the handover is not imminent.

News accounts that the report could be delivered as early as next week -- while President Donald Trump is overseas in Vietnam for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un -- are "incorrect," the official told ABC News.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mue...clicksource_77_2_hero_headlines_headlines_hed

Paul Manafort on saamassa viimein tuomionsa Muellerin syytteistä ja Manhattanin pääsyyttäjä valmistautuu syyttämään Manafortia osavaltion lakien rikkomisesta. Prosessi oli jäissä häiriöiden välttämiseksi Muellerin syyttäessä Manafortia. Syytteitä on tulossa ainakin pankkilaiilla kikkailusta. Manhattanin pääsyyttäjän nimi Cyrus Vance Jr. saattaa kuulostaa tutulta sillä hänen isänsä Cyrus Vance Sr. toimi Carterin ulkoministerinä.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is preparing state criminal charges against Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, in an effort to ensure he will still face prison time even if the president pardons him for his federal crimes, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.

Mr. Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced next month for convictions in two federal cases brought by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. He faces up to 25 years in prison for tax and bank fraud and additional time for conspiracy counts in a related case. It could effectively be a life sentence for Mr. Manafort, who turns 70 in April.

The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but no such authority in state cases. And while there has been no clear indication that Mr. Trump intends to pardon Mr. Manafort, the president has spoken repeatedly of his pardon power and defended his former campaign chairman on a number of occasions, calling him a “brave man.”

The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., first began investigating Mr. Manafort in 2017 in connection with loans he received from two banks. Those loans were also the subject of some of the counts in the federal indictment that led to his conviction last year. But the state prosecutors deferred their inquiry in order not to interfere with Mr. Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

They resumed their investigation in recent months, and a state grand jury began hearing evidence in the case, several people with knowledge of the matter said. The panel is expected to wrap up its work in the coming weeks, several of the people said, and prosecutors likely will ask the grand jurors to vote on charges shortly thereafter.

Mr. Vance’s office is expected to seek charges whether or not the president pardons Mr. Manafort. The plan was first reported by Bloomberg.

Any charges brought by Mr. Vance’s office would likely be challenged on double jeopardy grounds. New York state law includes stronger protections than those provided by the United States Constitution, and Mr. Manafort’s defense team is likely to challenge any state charges. But prosecutors in Mr. Vance’s office have expressed confidence that they would prevail, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Mr. Manafort, said his legal team had no comment. Mr. Vance’s office also had no comment.

Mr. Manafort, who worked for Mr. Trump’s campaign during a critical five months when he became the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2016, was convicted in federal court in Virginia in August on eight counts of various financial crimes. Prosecutors said Mr. Manafort used foreign accounts to hide millions of dollars from his political consulting work in Ukraine and evade taxes, and lied to banks to obtain millions of dollars in loans.

Weeks later, he agreed to plead guilty in a related case in federal court in Washington, D.C., and cooperate with prosecutors from Mr. Mueller’s office. But the deal blew up when a judge ruled he had repeatedly lied to the government about his contact with a Russian associate during the campaign and after the election. Prosecutors claim that the associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, has ties to Russian intelligence, and have been investigating whether he was involved in a covert attempt to influence the election results.

In the Manhattan case, the evidence presented to a grand jury appears to have been connected to loans issued by Citizens Bank in Rhode Island and Federal Savings Bank in Chicago.

The banks have received grand jury subpoenas for records relating to the loans they issued to Mr. Manafort, which were worth millions of dollars, people with knowledge of the matter said. The grand jury has also been hearing testimony about the loans. Citizens Bank has been cooperating with the investigation, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. A spokeswoman for Federal Savings Bank did not respond to a request for comment.

It is unclear precisely what charges Mr. Manafort would face, but they could include two state felonies: falsifying business records, if the evidence shows Mr. Manafort used the loan money for an unauthorized purpose, and mortgage fraud.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/nyregion/manafort-pardon-trump.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage