President Trump Has a List of Non-Friends; Apparently, So Does the Queen

PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS A LIST OF 'NON-FRIENDS' AND SO DOES THE QUEEN. Here's a look at both lists. • • • JOHN KERRY IS NOT A 'FRIEND.' Newsmax reported on Friday that : "President Donald Trump said former Secretary of State John Kerry should be prosecuted for talking with Iranian officials after leaving office. The President made his comments on Thursday during an exchange with reporters. The Washington Post detailed his remarks in a report posted later in the day. He accused Kerry of telling Iranian officials not to speak with the Trump administration. 'I’d like to see -- with Iran, I’d like to see them call me,' Trump said. 'You know, John Kerry speaks to them a lot. John Kerry tells them not to call. That’s a violation of the Logan Act. And frankly, he should be prosecuted on that. But my people don’t want to do anything that’s -- only the Democrats do that kind of stuff, you know? If it were the opposite way, they’d prosecute him under the Logan Act.' ” • DC Alert wrote on Friday that : "In September of 2018 Kerry even admitted to Dana Perino that he was telling Iran to wait. 'Is that accurate?' Perino asked. 'Well, I think everybody in the word is sitting around talking about waiting out President Trump,' was Kerry revealing reply." DC Alert said his comment shows he is "through tolerating failed presidential candidate John Kerry." • The WP noted the Logan Act prohibits private citizens from negotiating on behalf of the government without prior authorization. The Post also said it appears to be the first time Trump has publicly acknowledged asking officials to examine whether Kerry could be prosecuted -- although there is no mention of an "examination" in the President's remarks to reporters. • • • BERNIE SANDERS IS NOT A 'FRIEND.' Newsmax reported on Friday that President Trump : "...predicted Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former vice president Joe Biden, or “SleepyCreepy Joe,” as Trump called him, are the front-runners for the Democratic nomination. 'Looks to me like it’s going to be SleepyCreepy Joe over Crazy Bernie. Everyone else is fading fast!' Trump tweeted early Friday morning. The President previously dubbed Biden 'Sleepy Joe,' and has unfavorably compared him to Sanders in recent interviews. Biden is 'not as smart as Bernie, and he’s not as quick,' Trump said on Boston Herald Radio last week, although in the same interview he admitted, 'in many ways, I like' Biden. He explained some of his reasoning behind the nickname in an interview with Sean Hannity last month. 'I thought to refer to him as Sleepy Joe, because a lot of people wanted me to take the word ‘sleepy’ to something that rhymes with it. Does that make sense to you? And I thought it was too nasty,' Trump said. • • • BIDEN IS REALLY NOT A 'FRIEND,' PARTLY BECAUSE OF HIS UKRAINE CONNECTIONS. The Daily Caller's Molly Prince spelled out Joe Biden's Ukraine problems in a Sunday article. Prince summarized : "Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors of a Ukranian company as part of an effort to recruit well-connected Americans while the company was under investigation, according to the New York Times. Then-Vice President Joe Biden played a role in pressuring Ukraine to oust the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company, Burisma. Shokin’s successor initially ended the investigation into Burisma, but decided in March 2019 to reopen it. A Ukrainian gas company gave a seat on its board to the son of former Vice President Joe Biden in an attempt to secure relationships with Democrats while it was under multiple investigations, according to a recent New York Times report. Biden largely took credit for pressuring Ukraine into removing its top prosecutor, who was leading those probes. Ukraine recently relaunched an investigation into the company, the Times reported Wednesday, and President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has repeatedly called for the US Department of Justice to scrutinize the Bidens." • Molly Prince says : "Hunter Biden was appointed to the four-member board of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest privately owned gas company, in April 2014. The seat came while the elder Biden was serving in former President Barack Obama’s administration and was slated to head relations with Ukraine for the administration. Burisma is a natural gas exploration and production company owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a cabinet member of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. Yanukovich was removed from his position in February 2014. He currently lives in exile in Russia and is wanted by Ukraine for high treason. Zlochevsky later fled the country in late-2014 as Ukrainian prosecutors launched investigations into his time in public office as well as his private businesses. Around the same time, the UK Serious Fraud Office froze $23 million in a London account that was linked to Zlochevsky. A British court later unblocked the bank accounts in January 2015 and 'found no grounds for further consideration of the case,' according to The Kyiv Post. Roughly two years after Hunter Biden’s appointment to Burisma’s board, the vice president traveled to Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, where he threatened that the US would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Ukraine ousted its prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was accused of ignoring corruption within his own political office. But Shokin was also investigating corruption within Burisma. Several investigations into Burisma, which included possible tax evasion and money laundering, preceded Shokin’s time as prosecutor general. But he also launched a separate investigation into gas licenses that Zlochevsky issued while serving in his official capacity in the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, according to the Times. Shokin was fired from the prosecutorial position days after Biden’s arrival and subsequent pressure campaign in Kiev. US officials reportedly stated that the British prosecution crumbled after Shokin stepped down and the succeeding Ukrainian prosecutor general declined to cooperate." • Hunter Biden, says Prince, "who did not previously have any experience in the eastern European country, was paid up to $50,000 per month for his work with Burisma, according to financial disclosures. Only months before he accepted the position as a board member, the Navy Reserve had discharged him after failing a drug test, which tested positive for cocaine. 'I have had no role whatsoever in relation to any investigation of Burisma, or any of its officers,' Hunter Biden told the Times. 'I explicitly limited my role to focus on corporate governance best practices to facilitate Burisma’s desire to expand globally.' But he was appointed to Burisma’s board to 'be in charge of the holdings’ legal unit and will provide support for the company among international organizations,' a press release obtained by the Times said. Hunter Biden said Burisma’s release was a mischaracterization, saying that 'at no time was [he] in charge of the company’s legal affairs.' " • Joe Biden’s role with Ukraine has been well documented, but, according to Prince, "a new report detailed Burisma’s endeavor to onboard 'well-connected Democrats' such as Hunter Biden and his American business partners, reported the Times. At the time, the company was under investigation not just by the Ukrainian government, but by the US government as well. Ukraine’s prosecutor general who replaced Shokin, Yuriy Lutsenko, decided in March 2019 to reopen the investigation into Burisma, TheHill first confirmed. Lutsenko also happened to be the same prosecutor who had previously cleared Hunter Biden’s employer and fully closed the investigation. The move was revealed during the country’s 2019 election and was largely seen as a strategic attempt for President Petro Poroshenko to become an ally of Trump, reported the Times. But Poroshenko ultimately lost re-election by an overwhelming vote....President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky said he would replace Lutsenko, but it’s not clear if the investigation will continue with the administration change." • Prince says that : "Regardless, Trump’s team has seized upon the possible corruption and have encouraged further investigations, most notably from Giuliani, according to the Times....Giuliani’s interest in the affair stemmed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling during the 2016 US election. He contended that Democrats conspired with Ukrainians to kick off what became Mueller’s investigation. 'I can assure you this all started with an allegation about possible Ukrainian involvement in the investigation of Russian meddling, and not Biden,' Giuliani told the Times. 'The Biden piece is collateral to the bigger story, but must still be investigated, but without the prejudgments that infected the collusion story.' Giuliani reportedly sat down with Lutsenko in New York on various occasions over the past year. He confirmed to the Times that he discussed his meetings with the President. Trump has subsequently proposed that Attorney General William Barr review the investigation’s findings, as well as other possible alliances between Ukraine and the United States, according to the Times." • Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine while his father served as Obama’s point man on US relations with the country appears to have been lucrative, wrote Molly Prince, citing "financial reports provided by the Ukrainian deputy prosecutor. Between April 2014 and late-2015, Burisma paid Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC $3.4 million....Rosemont Seneca Bohai had been regularly paying Hunter Biden as much as $50,000 each month, according to the bank records placed in the Manhattan federal court [in a lawsuit related to another Rosemont partner]. Hunter Biden resigned from Burisma’s board of directors in April 2019, saying that his term had expired. He added in a statement that his “qualifications and work are being attacked by Rudy Giuliani and his minions for transparent political purposes.” • Giuliani on on Saturday decided to heed advice he has received and cancel his plan to go to Ukraine. Giuliani announced earlier last week that he was going to go to encourage president-elect Volodymyr Zelensky to move ahead with investigations involving Joe Biden’s son and probes related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian involvement in the United States’ 2016 presidential campaign. On Fox News Friday night, Giuliani said that he would not be going, in order to avoid any political problems. “I will step back and just watch it unfold,” indicating that at least two sources in the know told him he would be walking into a “setup” if he went to Ukraine : “No trip because I believe I was walking into a bunch of people, one of whom already has found to be involved on this, and I think this was a setup. The whole thing, by the way, is a setup. From the very beginning. That is what you’re going to find. It goes back to at least January of 2016 when they decided that they should deal with Ukraine. You’re also going to find that some of the Steele Dossier memorandum was written in Ukraine. After all, Steele didn’t go to Russia for nine years. How could he have written a memorandum about Russia if he hadn’t been there for nine years?” The announced trip by Giuliani brought out the Insane Democrats who said it would be improper. Democrat Senator Chris Murphy immediately sent a letter to Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch Murphy calling for the panel to send a query to the White House for details about Giuliani’s efforts to persuade Ukrainian prosecutors not to abandon the investigations. The letter stated in part : “Rudolph Giuliani, the President’s personal lawyer, has apparently held meetings with Ukrainian officials in the United States and plans to travel to Ukraine for further discussions. As far as we know, none of these meetings are being coordinated with the US State Department or other government agencies.” But, Giuliani's answer the the New York Times was : “This isn’t foreign policy. I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.” • • • HILLARY IS CERTAINLY NOT A 'FRIEND,' AND, LIKE BIDEN, HAS UKRAINE PROBLEMS TO EXPLAIN. Fox News reported last Friday that : "President Trump told Fox News' Thursday night that Attorney General Bill Barr is handling the 'incredible' and 'big' new revelations that Ukrainian actors apparently leaked damaging information about then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort to help Hillary Clinton's campaign. Last month, Ukraine Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko opened a probe into the so-called 'black ledger' files that led to Manafort's abrupt departure from the Trump campaign. The investigation commenced after an unearthed audio recording showed that a senior Ukrainian anti-corruption official apparently admitted to leaking Manafort's financial information in 2016 -- including his ties to pro-Russian actors in Ukraine -- to benefit Clinton. Ukrainian law enforcement officials said earlier this month they have a slew of evidence of collusion and wrongdoing by Democrats, and that they have been trying to share this information with US officials in the Justice Department. A Ukrainian court recently ruled that the Manafort leak amounted to illegal interference in the US election. Asked by host Sean Hannity whether Americans need to see the results of Ukraine's ongoing investigation into whether officials in that country worked with the Clinton team, Trump replied, 'I think we do. I would imagine [Barr] would want to see this....I would certainly defer to the attorney general, and we'll see what he says about it,' Trump said. 'He calls 'em straight....It sounds like big stuff, very interesting with Ukraine. I just spoke with the new president a while ago, and congratulated him....But that sounds like big, big stuff, and I'm not surprised.'....A 2017 investigation by Politico found that Ukrainian officials not only publicly sought to undermine Trump by questioning his fitness for office, but also worked behind the scenes to secure a Clinton victory. Among other initiatives, Politico found, the Ukrainian government worked with a DNC consultant to conduct opposition research against Trump, including going after Manafort for Russian ties, helping lead to his resignation.' " • • • BIDEN AND HILLARY -- BEYOND THEIR PRIME?? Or, to put it as American Thinker's M. Catharine Evans did on May 6 : "If Joe Biden secures the Democratic nomination in the upcoming presidential race, how long will it be until we see the 77-year old (in 2020) being thrown into an SUV like a side of beef after passing out? Or coughing uncontrollably during a stump speech? Or staring into space at a campaign appearance? We've already seen Biden pull out of a major speech last August due to an undisclosed illness. Can he withstand the grueling pace of a primary campaign, not to mention a presidential run against a man who continues to schedule rallies where tens of thousands of excited fans line up to hear his MAGA speeches? President Trump is only a few years younger than Biden but his legendary stamina during the 2015/ 2016 campaign season made some younger Republican candidates look like low-energy slackers. Already, in his first rollout speech in Pittsburgh last Monday Biden slurred, stumbled over and mispronounced words. It’s 2016 all over again. Biden has a long way to go until the election and already his staff is running interference with the media. Apparently, they do not want anyone to get close enough to the former Vice-President to ask any hard questions. According to the Washington Examiner, a freelance journalist complained via Twitter that several reporters and photographers were physically blocked by Biden's people from taking pictures or getting a comment from the candidate at his Des Moines rally. Similarly, in 2016 Clinton's campaign aides kept their boss away from reporters by corralling the press behind a rope. As Hillary walked along a Fourth of July parade route in New Hampshire, members of the press sidled along the barrier out of earshot of any conversation between Clinton and her supporters." • Catharine Evans points out that : "Strategically, distancing reporters from scandal-ridden candidates with health problems is a no-brainer. During her run for President, Clinton could hardly get through a speech without keeling over much less answer for the whereabouts of 30,000 deleted emails or for her role in the murders of 4 Americans, including an ambassador, in Benghazi. Like Hillary, Biden may not be mentally capable of fielding inquiries from independent journalists about his son's dealings with a Ukrainian energy company under investigations, or the various complaints by several women of inappropriate touching, kissing and hair smelling, or the YouTube videos showing him feeling up little girls. His recent mockery of China as a geopolitical competitor in his folksy 'China is going to eat our lunch, come on man' style babble left even his fellow Democrat Bernie Sanders stunned. Couple all of this with the never-ending campaigning from one state to the next and it's enough to raise even a 30 year-old's blood pressure. Hillary Clinton found out the hard way how difficult it is to run a race in poor health. At the age of 65, she was hospitalized for a blood clot on the brain. In 2016, at the age of 69 it was obvious to most observers this serious condition had taken its toll. Biden has had two brain surgeries in the past for cranial aneurysms. Although his prodigious gaffes over the years have been largely laughed off by the mainstream media as a endearing feature of ‘Uncle Joe’s’ quirky personality, Democrats could be in for an embarrassing repeat of 2016 if he becomes the party's nominee." • • • NADLER IS NOT A 'FRIEND.' And he hasn't been for a long time. Liberty Headlines published an Agence France-Presse article last week that said : "Congressman Jerry Nadler‘s aggressive actions against a member of Donald Trump’s inner circle have ramped up the Democrat’s feud with the President, marking the latest tussle in a decades-long grudge match between the two New Yorkers. Nadler went into battle in the 1980s against Trump’s Manhattan real estate projects as a state assemblyman, and the two have never made up since. As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Nadler is once again a thorn in Trump’s side, the driving force behind investigations into possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power by the President and his administration. It is a far cry from their Big Apple brawling. Today Nadler wields extraordinary power when it comes to keeping the executive branch in line, as any proceedings to impeach the President would be initiated in his committee. Nadler has bluntly accused Trump of 'disobeying the law,' and on Wednesday declared that the nation is 'now in a constitutional crisis.' In perhaps the most direct challenge of Trump’s power in their combative relationship, Nadler took the provocative step of conducting a vote to hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress." • The less than pro-Trump AFP states : "The pair first came to loggerheads when Nadler, representing Manhattan’s affluent Upper West Side in the state legislature, opposed a huge Trump development that would transform the historic district. The project on the site of a dilapidated railroad yard originally envisaged a 150-story skyscraper, the world’s tallest, with Trump occupying the lavish penthouse. But opposition from residents led in part by Nadler forced the real estate magnate to substantially revise his ambitions. When Nadler gained a seat in Congress in 1992, he continued to pressure Trump, successfully suppressing the use of federal funds in support of the project. In a book published in 2000, “The America We Deserve,” Trump took his revenge, singling out Nadler as 'one of the most egregious hacks in contemporary politics.' ” • The AFP did say that : "An editorial in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal suggested Nadler overreached with Barr, likening the committee chairman to 'a crooked sheriff in a low-budget Western.' ” • AFP wrote : "Last month Trump declared victory over Nadler in their real estate dispute, but signaled on Twitter that their feud might be permanent. 'I changed course (slightly), became President, and now I am dealing with Congressman Nadler again,' he tweeted. 'Some things never end, but hopefully it will all go well for everyone. Only time will tell!' ” • • • IS CHINA'S XI JINPING A FRIEND OR FOE? BlabberBuzz reported on Sunday a Reuters article that stated : "China and the United States have agreed to hold more trade talks in Beijing, Vice Premier Liu He said as US President Donald Trump ordered his trade chief to begin the process of imposing tariffs on all remaining imports from China. Liu voiced a measured optimism on reaching a deal, but said there were 'issues of principle' on which China would not back down. 'Negotiations have not broken down,' Liu, China’s chief negotiator in the talks, said in Washington on Friday, according to state television on Saturday. 'Quite the opposite, I think small setbacks are normal and inevitable during the negotiations of both countries. Looking forward, we are still cautiously optimistic,' Liu said. But Liu’s optimism was tempered by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who told CNBC on Friday that there were no further talks with China planned 'as of now.' And on Saturday, Trump tweeted, 'Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs? Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!' " Obviously, China strongly opposes the latest US tariff hike, and as a nation, has to respond to that, Liu told a small group of Chinese reporters : “Right now, both sides have reached mutual understanding in many things, but frankly speaking, there are also differences. We think these differences are significant issues of principle. We absolutely cannot make concessions on such issues of principle.” He added that talks would continue in Beijing, but gave no details. There are, according to Liu, three differences that remain. One is over tariffs, Liu said, according to a transcript of the Q&A published by Phoenix, a Hong Kong-based television station that is close to Beijing. China believes that tariffs were the genesis of the trade dispute, and that if both sides wanted to reach an agreement, then all tariffs must be eliminated, Liu said. The second is about procurement, on which an initial consensus was reached between the leaders of the two countries in Argentina late last year. The two sides now have differing views on the volumes, Liu said. The third is over how balanced the text of the draft agreement should be, he said. “Every nation has its dignity, so the text ought to be balanced,” Liu said. According to Reuters, the major stumbling block is that China had deleted its commitments in the draft agreement that said it would change laws to resolve core complaints of the United States : theft of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets; forced technology transfers; competition policy; access to financial services; and currency manipulation. Liu denied the accusations of China’s reneging on promises, saying China thought it was normal to make changes before a final deal. Both sides had differing views on how to phrase it, he said. Liu said he hoped this issue would be resolved, so it was unnecessary to "over react” to that point. Similar to Liu, Chinese state media said China would not give in on its core interests. Meanwhile; President Trump said last week that he had received a "beautiful letter" from Chinese president Xi. So, we will have to wait and see whether Xi is a friend or foe. • • • THE QUEEN ALSO HAS FRIENDS AND FOES. BizPac Review reported on Saturday that : "London Mayor Sadiq Khan is finally getting a strong message from Queen Elizabeth II on his openly hostile views of President Trump. The Moslem mayor, who has been a vocal critic of the President, was noticeably left off of the invitation list for the banquet planned in honor of Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom next month. 'The mayor has not been invited to the state banquet,' Khan’s spokesman, Jonathan Weisgard, told Newsweek. The Queen has apparently opted not to invite the London Mayor to Trump’s state banquet at Buckingham Palace as he makes a three-day state visit in June to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The ceremonial state visit will include a formal welcome at Horse Guard’s Parade as well as lunch and dinner at Buckingham Palace. Khan and Trump have had a contentious history with angry comments exchanged on topics from immigration to terror attacks. The mayor blasted Trump in June 2017 after the President called him out for the response to a recent Islamic terror attack. 'Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his 'no reason to be alarmed' statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017.' Khan, a member of the UK’s opposition Labour Party, was furious and demanded the government cancel Trump’s stop as he made an official visit to the UK in July 2018, meeting with and Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle as well as British Prime Minister Theresa May. Thousands took to the streets to protest his visit as Khan infamously approved the so-called 'Trump Baby Blimp' to be flown by the crowds. 'You have a mayor who has done a terrible job in London. He has done a terrible job,' Trump told British tabloid, The Sun, when he was in London at the time. London’s first elected Moslem mayor blasted the current decision to roll out the red carpet for the US President, saying in a recent interview that Trump was not 'in the same class' as his predecessors. 'Of course we should have a close relationship with the President of the United States, but we shouldn’t be rolling out the red carpet; we shouldn’t have a state banquet,' Khan told British radio station LBC. 'History tells us only two presidents have had a state visit. I think President Trump is certainly not in the same class as those two,' Khan continued, referring to former President George W. Bush who visited in 2003 and the visit by former President Barack Obama in 2011. Khan’s absence from the Queen’s guest list, said BizPac Review, was a celebrated bit of news on social media where many feel the disrespectful mayor is finally getting put in his place. One British tweeter said : "Queen Elizabeth is awesome London Mayor & dismal failure #SadiqKhan has been talking smack about disrespecting #Trump during his state visit. The Queen handled that by crossing Khan’s name off the guest list for the state dinner. Nicely Played." • • • DEAR READERS, thank goodness President Trump is not 'in the same class' as US Presidents GW Bush and Barack Obama. • What we can learn about friends and foes, is that one may survive, somewhat, being a foe of President Trump, but there is no hope of a normal life after being a 'foe' of Queen Elizabeth. As other tweeters said : "Hooray for the Queen!" "This man ruined London...good on the Queen." AND, my favorite -- "Make England Great Again! MEGA." • MEGA -- it has a certain happy ring to it, doesn't it.