Trump-Haley-Israel, Sessions, Mattis, and an anti-Trump Taxi Driver

TODAY THE REAL NEWS IS SO GOOD THAT IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO CHOOSE. Let's start with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Now, I don't usually pray, one-on-one, for Attorneys General, but I like Jeff Sessions so much and have been so distressed by his silent inaction that I pray for him every day. And, yesterday when I heard he is asking for a re-examination of the Uranium One deal, I just shouted "Yes" and knew my prayers had been answered. • • • SESSIONS ASKS FOR URANIUM ONE REVIEW. Breitbart hit the internet first, announcing that NBC had broken the news that AG Jeff Sessions has ordered DOJ prosecutors to interview the FBI agents who investigated possible corruption in the Uranium One deal and its players’ links to the Clinton Foundation. Here's the NBC News release : "On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News. The interviews with FBI agents are part of the Justice Department’s effort to fulfill a promise an assistant attorney general made to Congress last month to examine whether a special counsel was warranted to look into what has become known as the Uranium One deal, a senior Justice Department official said. At issue is a 2010 transaction in which the Obama Administration allowed the sale of US uranium mining facilities to Russia’s state atomic energy company. Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State at the time, and the State Department was one of nine agencies that agreed to approve the deal after finding no threat to U.S. national security." NBC News realeased its breaking story in the eaarly hours of December 21 -- Thursday. NBC said a senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the initial FBI investigation told it that there were "allegations of corruption surrounding the process under which the US government approved the sale. But no charges were filed." • NBC mentioned the Clinton Foundation's role : "As the New York Times reported in April 2015, some of the people associated with the deal contributed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. And Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a Moscow speech by a Russian investment bank with links to the transaction. Hillary Clinton has denied playing any role in the decision by the State Department to approve the sale, and the State Department official who approved it has said Clinton did not intervene in the matter. That hasn't stopped some Republicans, including President Trump, from calling the arrangement corrupt -- and urging that Clinton be investigated." • It was Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Stephen Boyd who wrote to Representative Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to say that Justice Department lawyers would make recommendations to Sessions about whether an investigation should be opened or expanded, or whether a special counsel should be appointed to probe a number of issues of concern to Republicans. • NBC wrote that : "In recent weeks, FBI agents who investigated the case have been asked by Justice Department prosecutors to describe the results of their probe. The agents also have been asked if there was any improper effort to squash a prosecution, the law enforcement sources say. The senior Justice Department official said the questions were part of an effort by the Sessions team to get up to speed on the controversial case, in the face of allegations from Congressional Republicans that it was mishandled." • The FBI refused ot comment to NBC. • • • THE URANIUM ONE DEAL. On June 8, 2010, Uranium One announced it had signed an agreement to sell a majority stake to the mining arm of Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy agency. At the time, Uranium One's two licensed mining operations in Wyoming amounted to about 20 percent of all uranium mining production capacity in the US, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NBC added an parenthetical to those facts to say "That figure has since decreased." • Because enriched uranium is a component of nuclear weapons, the deal required a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, the New York Times reported, Uranium One's Canadian chairman, Ian Telfer, used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Foundation, the Times reported, despite a promise to publicly identify all donors. The Foundation later said it made a mistake. Others associated with Uranium One also donated to the Clinton Foundation, according to the NYT. • Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, raised objections to the sale, saying it would "give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America's uranium production capacity." The US ambassador to Kazakhstan also cabled Clinton's State Department to express concern that Rosatom was acting on behalf of Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, to scoop up uranium mines after Russia felt "squeezed" by having their uranium imports limited by other countries. • Despite all that, NBC reported that "the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, approved the deal by a unanimous vote, according to public reports." NBC wrote that "Clinton was just one member of the nine member CFIUS by virtue of her role as Secretary of State. The other eight members of CFIUS came from Treasury, Homeland Security, Commerce, Defense, Energy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Office of Science & Technology, and the Justice Department." • Defenders of the deal point out that the Russians don't have a license to export the uranium out of the US [Fake news because the Obama administration tweeked existing export licenses to let the urananium be exported to Canada, from where it went on to Europe, without any indication that it stayed there or returned to the US.], and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found no risk to national security." NBC also quoted Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state, who told the New York Times that he represented the department on the committee, and that "Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any C.F.I.U.S. matter." He did not respond to a request for comment by NBC News." NBC also dragged out Hillary's favorite word "debunked" and quoted her spokesman on the Uranium One deal : "At every turn this storyline has been debunked on the merits. This latest iteration is simply more of the right doing Trump's bidding for him to distract from his own Russia problems, which are real and a grave threat to our national security." • President Trump tweeted his response on October 19 : "Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn't want to follow!" That was quoted by NBC but was followed by this : "Stewart Baker, a former top lawyer in the George W. Bush administration and an expert in the CFIUS process, said he doubted that the Uranium One decision ever reached Clinton's desk." Baker also told NBC News about the Foundation contributions: "Is it possible that the Russians thought they needed to do this and that it would help them? Yeah, but that doesn't mean that it actually did." Baker told NBC that it was disquieting that the Sessions Justice Department was re-examining a case that career officials already concluded warranted no charges : "You'd like to think that that wouldn't happen often in a mature democracy." • Uranium One became a much bigger player in the uranium market after it absorbed a company run and co-owned by Frank Giustra, a Canadian businessman and Bill Clinton associate, in February 2007. Giustra, noted NBC, "was the chairman of UrAsia, a company bidding for uranium rights in Kazakhstan. In 2005, after he had begun negotiating for the rights, he and Bill Clinton traveled to Kazakhstan on separate planes and attended a dinner with the country's president. UrAsia had soon closed deals for uranium mining rights in Kazakhstan. In 2006, Giustra donated $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation. The value of UrAsia shares increased seventyfold between 2005 and 2007. Uranium One merged with UrAsia in 2007, after which, says Giustra, he sold his shares and left the company -- three years before the controversial sale of U.S. uranium mining facilities. Giustra has donated more than $100 million to the Clinton Foundation and currently sits on the Foundation's board. In a statement, Giustra said that he had been working on the purchase of mining stakes from a private Kazakh company in early 2005, and the purchase was concluded in late 2005. 'In late 2005, I went to Kazakhstan to finish the negotiations of the sale,' said Giustra. 'Bill Clinton flew to Almaty a few days after I arrived in the country on another person's plane...Bill Clinton had nothing to do with the purchase of private mining stakes by a Canadian company.' " • So, to be clear, just because NBC News broke the story that Sessions has ordered a re-examination of the Uranium One deal, let's not rush to embrace NBC -- it is the same Hillary-complicit mainstream media lapdog that we have know for several years, explaining by Fake news, lies and innuendo why Sessions is wasting his time and will find that Hillary was the "angel" that NBC knows her to be. • • • URANIUM ONE -- FROM THE CONSERVATIVE PERSPECTIVE. Legal Insurrection's Mary Chastain wrote an article on Thursday titled Too many coincidences?" Chastain included the parts that NBC 'forgot' : "In November, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee he already told federal prosecutors to investigate if the department needs to assign a special counsel. One official associated with the initial investigation “told NBC News there were allegations of corruption surrounding the process under which the US government approved the sale.” No one filed charges. But, Chastain adds the part of the Uranium One story that is problematic for Hillay and Bill Clinton : "In recent weeks, FBI agents who investigated the case have been asked by Justice Department prosecutors to describe the results of their probe. The agents also have been asked if there was any improper effort to squash a prosecution, the law enforcement sources say....Even before the Clinton connection came to light, people did not agree with the deal....Through October, TheHill published articles about an undercover FBI agent who accused Obama’s DOJ of blocking him from speaking to Congress 'about conversations and transactions he witnessed related to the Russian nuclear industry’s efforts to win favor with Bill and Hillary Clinton and influence Obama administration decisions.' This informant worked in an FBI probe into Russia’s nuclear industry. He took a job at Russia’s main nuclear energy company Rosatom’s Tenex subsidiary during its 'multiyear campaign to grow Moscow’s uranium business inside the United States.' These records refer to the FBI informant as 'confidential source 1,' 'contractor,' and 'Victim 1.' [Attorney] Toensing said this man is her client. It also shows that her client went to the FBI in 2009 'after Russian officials asked him to engage in illegal activity.' The FBI allowed the informant to hand out 'kickback payments to the Russians' as he gathered other evidence. TheHill heard from sources that this informant led the government 'to crack a multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on US soil that involved bribery, kickbacks, money laundering and extortion.' This led to an executive to expand the nuclear business, an executive at a US trucking firm, and Russian financier from New Jersey to plead 'guilty to various crimes in a case that started in 2009 and ended in late 2015.' The documents that the informant has shows connections between the Clintons and Obama : The information the client possesses includes specific allegations that Russian executives made to him about how they facilitated the Obama administration’s 2010 approval of the Uranium One deal and sent millions of dollars in Russian nuclear funds to the US to an entity assisting Bill Clinton’s Foundation. At the time, Hillary Clinton was serving as Secretary of State on the government panel that approved the deal, the lawyer said. It has been previously reported that Bill Clinton accepted $500,000 in Russian speaking fees in 2010 and collected millions more in donations for his Foundation from parties with a stake in the Uranium One deal, transactions that both the Clintons and the Obama administration denied had any influence on the approval." Chastain points out that : "Federal law requires officials such as then-Secretary Clinton to avoid both conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts when it comes to the business and financial interests of a spouse. Clinton signed a special agreement when she became secretary to disclose her husband’s charitable donations to the State Department to avoid any such conflicts. Both Clintons have repeatedly insisted no donations raised by the foundation had anything to do with Hillary as Secretary of State." • All evidence that is not ignored or twisted by the mainstream media and Hillary's Hacks reflects a corrupt deal that financially benefitted the Clinton Foundation and weakened America's control of its own strategic uranium supply, and that the deal was facilitated by the Obama administration -- for what reasons we can only guess. • • • HALEY AND TRUMP SET THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY STRAIGHT. Fix This Nation wrote on Wednesday : "One year ago, President Obama engaged in one of the most pathetic foreign policy stunts of his presidency when he instructed his UN ambassador to abstain from a vote condemning Israeli settlements. The U.S. sat out the vote and allowed the rest of the fanatical, Arab-driven United Nations to have their way with our closest Middle Eastern ally. At the time, President-elect Donald Trump vowed that he would never abandon Israel on the world stage in this embarrassing way, and he went a long way towards proving that on Monday in what could be seen as the bookend to that Obama-era vote." • Fast forward to this week -- every member of the UN S Security Council took exception to President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and they made their feelings known in a vote to demand that Washington change course. All 14 members of the Council (expect the US) -- including time-honored US allies like France and Britain -- voted for the resolution in defiance of the Trump administration’s wishes. A weaker President (like, for example, the one we just got rid of) might have backed down and to told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “We tried, but there’s nothing we can do.” But, says Fix This Nation : "Not Trump. The Security Council’s betrayal only inspired further defiance and Trump sent Nikki Haley out there to show the world -- friends and foes alike -- that when the President said “America First,” he damn well meant it. The US under Trump doesn’t take its marching orders from anyone, not even our most trusted allies. Haley vetoed the resolution and gave a stunning speech that rocked the UN building with reverberations of power and freedom." • Nikki Haley, a choice for UN Ambassador that surprised many of us, showed her backbone when the UN tried to tell America how to handle its own foreign policy. Her speech -- some have described it as a Jeanne Kirkpatrick or Daniel Patrick Moynihan tour-de-force, and Benjamin Netanyahu said she sounded like a Maccabee -- made me want to stand up and cheer : "What is troublesome to some people is not that the United States has harmed the peace process -- we have, in fact, done no such thing. Rather, what is troublesome to some people is that the United States had the courage and honesty to recognize a fundamental reality. Jerusalem has been the political, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years. They have had no other capital city. But the United States’ recognition of the obvious -- that Jerusalem is the capital and seat of the modern Israeli government -- is too much for some. Today, buried in diplomatic jargon, some presume to tell America where to put our embassy. The United States has a sovereign right to determine where and whether we establish an embassy....The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy. What we have witnessed here is an insult. It won’t be forgotten. I’m here to say the United States will not turn a blind eye to this anymore. I am here to underscore the ironclad support of the United States for Israel. I’m here to emphasize the United States is determined to stand up to the UN’s anti-Israel bias. We will never repeat the terrible mistake of Resolution 2334 and allow one-sided Security Council resolutions to condemn Israel….It is the UN’s anti-Israel bias that is long overdue for change. The United States will not hesitate to speak out against these biases in defense of our friend and ally, Israel.” • Fix This Nation wrote : "Our allies who voted for this resolution should be ashamed of themselves, and if they weren’t, then they weren’t listening closely enough to Haley’s speech. Our favorite part was where she called the other Security Council members out on their (lack of) financial assistance to the Palestinians : 'The United States has done more than any other country to assist the Palestinian people,' she said. 'By far. Since 1994, we have given over $5 billion to the Palestinians in bilateral economic assistance, security assistance, and humanitarian assistance. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees operates schools and medical facilities throughout the region. It is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions. Last year, the United States voluntarily funded almost 30 percent of UNRWA’s budget. That’s more than the next two largest donors combined. And it’s vastly more than some of the members of this Council that have considerable financial resources of their own. I’ll be blunt: When the American people see a group of countries whose total contributions to the Palestinian people is less than one percent of UNRWA’s budget -- when they see these countries accuse the United States of being insufficiently committed to peace -- the American people lose their patience.” • Fix This Nation called Haley's speech and the US UNSC veto "a defining moment for the US on the world stage, a defining moment for the Trump presidency, and a defining moment for our relationship with Israel. After watching Barack Obama apologize for our country as a matter of foreign policy, we no longer fear being proud of the greatest nation in the world -- no longer afraid to flex the muscles of our unquestioned dominance over the planet’s military and economic atmosphere. THIS is the America we should be, and THIS is the meaning of making America great again." • • • IT WASN'T OVER -- THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY VOTED. Legal Insurrection handled that fiasco. Nikki Haley had already promised in a tweet that the US will be taking names : "At the UN we’re always asked to do more & give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us. On Thurs there’ll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names." • The Palestinians, as always, ran to the socialist-marxist, largely anti-Semitic, UN General Assembly to try to internationalize their dispute with President Trump over his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The Security Council resolution contained diplomatic wording that did not mention the US by name, but was the equivalent of demanding that the US reverse its decision. But, the Palestinians know that in the General Assembly the US has no veto power and they are guaranteed a large majority for anything that is deemed anti-Israel. The 193-member UN General Assembly held a rare emergency special session on Thursday at the request of Arab and Moslem countries on President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said the General Assembly would vote on a draft resolution calling for Trump’s declaration to be withdrawn, which was vetoed by the United States in the 15-member UN Security Council on Monday. ansour said on Monday he hoped there would be “overwhelming support” in the General Assembly for the resolution. Such a vote is non-binding, but carries political weight. Ambassador Nikki Haley was having none of it and is put people on notice that the vote would not pass unpunished. She circulated a letter to members letting them know the US means it : “The President will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us,” she wrote, adding, “Thank you for your consideration, and please do not hesitate to contact my team with any questions or concerns. As you know, the General Assembly is considering a resolution about President Trump’s recent decision on Jerusalem. As you consider your vote, I encourage you to know the President and the US take this vote personally." • The UN General Assembly vote was 126 to 9 with 35 abstentions, calling for the US to reverse its Jerusalem decision. Experts say the count was less than the Palestinians had hoped for. • And, on Thursday, Ambassador Haley called out the United Nations for its anti-Israel vote. In the face of so many opposing countries, she held nothing back : “When a nation is singled out and attacked in this organization, that nation is disrespected. We will remember...when so many countries come calling on us as they so often do to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit," Haley said, as reported by Independent Journal Review. • After the vote was finalized, Haley made sure the countries who stood with America and didn't snub Israel knew they were appreciated, as she tweeted : "We appreciate these countries for not falling to the irresponsible ways of the @UN." But, that wasn't all. Nikki Haley wanted the 44 nations that didn't vote against the United States to understand that America values them. So she's throwing an exclusive "friendship" party for those countries early in January, and the other 129 aren't getting an invite. • EVERY country in Europe -- including The UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Greece -- voted against the US, except Poland, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Bosnia-Herzogovina and Romania, all of which abstained. Other notable abstentions were Australia, Canada, Argentina and Mexico, with the other abstentions coming from Africa and the Caribbean and Central and South America. The 'no' votes were the US, Israel, Guatamala, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nuaru, Palali, and Togo. • As is so of then the cse, perhaps Dons Rumsfeld was right in January, 2003, when in the heat of the Iraq debate at the UN, political leaders in France and Germany hit back at the then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's dismissal of their cherished alliance as representing "old Europe." If there is a New Europe, it in in the east, where nations are fighting back against a bureaucratic and socialist European Union -- the easter European countries lived for 40 years under the disastrous rule of the Soviet Union of SOCIALIST Republics -- they know how unworthy of human life socialism is. • • • DEAR READERS, to circle back the the Obama-Hezbollah bombshell written by Josh Meyer and published by Politico -- the Washington Post finally got around to covering the story, suing its media reporter, Eric Wemple. The headline of Wemple’s article was that Obama officials dispute Meyer’s reporting, but Wemple noted that they had not been able to document any actual inaccuracies : "The pushback doesn’t cite any factual errors involving the story’s claims about shut-down investigations and the like." Wemple quotes a Politico defense of the Meyer reporting : "Josh Meyer’s groundbreaking investigation was rigorously reported, deeply sourced, thoroughly vetted and is of significant public interest given the national security implications. POLITICO is proud of this story and believe it captures the complexity of the decision making by the Obama administration in pursuit of a deal with Iran that it viewed as a major foreign policy achievement. It’s hardly surprising that Obama loyalists have pushed back on the overall thrust of the article. In his months of reporting the piece, Josh conducted an exhaustive review of government documents and court records and spoke with dozens of key participants at all levels of government. It’s worth noting that the principals mentioned in the piece were given the opportunity to comment and when they declined, POLITICO interviewed numerous sources who could speak on their behalf. Also, Josh responded himself on television [Tuesday], specifically responding to the false claim that the article is based on uncorroborated complaints from disgruntled low-level officials. 'I also talked to many, many dozens of other people to get a sort of ground truth and see what their allegations were when held up to the light of day. So this is not a story in 14,000 words where I was just taking spin from some people,' he said." Legal Insurrection wrote on Wednesday : "Given that Meyer’s reporting has held up to scrutiny so far, that the pushback is from the Iran Deal Echo Chamber, and that no factual errors have been pointed out, you’d think this would be receiving wider coverage in the major newspapers. But it’s not. Nor is Meyer being invited on TV much to talk about his report, something he lamented on Twitter : 'Happy to discuss my @politico stry on TV, especially given the orchestrated smear campaign, which STILL hasn’t contested a single fact in it.' " This story is not going away. There will be congressional investigations, including focused on Rhodes, as the Free Beacon reports : "Lawmakers are launching an investigation into Obama-era efforts to thwart a longstanding US investigation into the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah....Representative Ron DeSantis, a member of the House Oversight Committee and chair of its National Security Subcommittee, told the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday that he and other top lawmakers are examining evidence that could implicate top former Obama officials, including National Security Council official Ben Rhodes, the architect of the former administration’s self-described pro-Iran 'echo chamber.'....Lawmakers will be paying particular attention to whether Rhodes or other senior officials accused of misleading Congress and the American public about the Iran deal played a role in thwarting the Hezbollah investigation. 'Congress will be investigating this thoroughly and my National Security subcommittee will be particularly interested in how such a decision came about and whether it was driven by key Iran deal architects such as Ben Rhodes,' DeSantis said." DeSantis and Representative Jim Jordan, also a member of the House Oversight Committee, called for the Department of Justice to hand over by January 8 all documents related to interference with law enforcement efforts against Hezbollah. They also asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to brief the oversight panel’s staff by January 12. • And, on a final note, Secretary of Defense James Mattis left Washington on Wednesday and didn't tell the majority of the press he had left. Only after the press asked where he was did they found out he was on a trip visiting service members for the Christmas season. His first stop on the trip was the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is the first defense secretary to visit the base since Donald Rumsfeld in 2002. Mattis gave the troops one of his famous pep talks, which included some of his “Mattisisms” and explained that what they are doing is important to the nation's security. Mattis spoke about North Korea, maintaining that the United States is first seeking a diplomatic solution to dealing with the rogue regime, but the military has to be ready if that fails : “If we have to do it (militarily), we expect to make it the worst day in North Korea’s life,” he said, adding that if the United States goes to war, “every submarine he’s got is to be sunk and every ship he’s got is to be sunk.” He then told troops he used to have stress, but not anymore. "I create it." Mattis told the troops : “I need you to be at the top of your game." Mattis was not the only member of the Trump administration visiting service members for the Christmas season. President Donald Trump went to talk with the wounded warriors being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Thursday, where he award a Purple Heart to a wounded military member. And, Vice President Mike Pence also met with and gave a speech to troops deployed in Afghanistan, telling them : “Give yourselves a round of applause. We couldn't be more proud of every one of you." • And on a post-final personal note -- I was in a taxi in a French-speaking part of Europe today, and when the driver heard my anglo accent, he asked if I was from the UK. I told him I'm American -- and he instantly launched into a tirade against President Trump, calling him a dumb tweeter who is laughed at all over the world, including North Korea. THEN, he asked me what I think of Trump. I told him I am 100% for President Trump. He asked why and I gave him a few reasons. He then said Hillary should be President. I said she should be in jail. It was then that he must have remembered his tip -- he apologized, turned off the meter, and didn't want to take any payment or a tip. I put both on the front seat and said, that's who Americans are, and our President would do the same thing. Have a happy weekend before Christmas.