Urgent News for Democrats : It's not about the Money, Stupid, It's about the Message and Candidates

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE HURTING FOR MONEY AND VOTERS. • • • MONEY, THE MOTHER MILK OF POLITICS. Politico reported on Sunday that new Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez -- the former Obama Secretary of Labor and Hillary's pick for the DNC top spot -- is taking longer than anticipated to get up to speed with fundraising, in part because of the sheer scale of the undertaking. But, reports Politico : "The Democratic National Committee is reeling, facing a turnaround that's proving a much bigger lift than anyone expected as it struggles to raise enough money to cover its basic promises. Many donors are refusing to write checks. And on-the-ground operatives worry they won’t have the resources to build the infrastructure they need to compete effectively in next year’s midterms and in the run-up to 2020. Here in the halls of Bally's hotel and casino in Las Vegas for the DNC's fall meeting through the weekend, state committee chairs and operatives echoed a now-common concern among donors and strategists : The DNC's recovery is still a ways away, and that could have serious repercussions for the party in the coming years." Nebraska Party Chair Jane Kleeb told Politico : "Donors, small and large, are so over the party. Everybody thinks that some magic three-page document and some magic tagline is going to turn everything around for us. But this is very typical work." Kleeb is working on grassroots fundraising for the DNC. • The DNC reboot under Perez has taken longer than anticipated, and one DNC member who has spent years fundraising for the PArty said : "It's a very legitimate concern." Besides the sheer scale of the Democrat Party's problems, Politico says the financial challenges reflect a broader struggle at a DNC led by a chairman who is new to party politics and is on a steep learning curve at a time when national Democrats are still searching for an identity after the historic 2016 presidential loss. Politico says : "It's not just donors who are staying away as the Perez-led group promises an expansive set of new investments and innovations. The party's old leaders, led by former President Barack Obama, have kept their involvement to a minimum, as well. So with 2018's midterms presenting a clear opportunity for Democrats to leap forward, the worry is that they simply may not be prepared in time. While the House and Senate Democratic campaign arms -- and individual candidates -- are having no problem raising funds, the comparatively anemic cash flow at the central committee and state branches could affect organizing efforts on the ground across the country." Politico cites the "State Party Innovation Fund, a planned $10.5 million competitive grant program that DNC leadership has made available to interested state parties over the next year." The SPIF money is meant to pay for organizing, ground operations and other support essential to countering Republican National Committee investments that helped elect Donald Trump and a slew of other other Republican candidates in 2016, leapfrogging Democrats in the process. The planned SPIC funding is to be on top of the $10,000 each state party receives from the DNC every month. But, says Politico : "Entering October, the DNC had just $7 million in its main account, which also has to cover its central responsibilities and salaries." In Las Vegas, Minnesota party chairman Ken Martin, who is president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs, went out of his way while speaking to a gathering of state party executive directors to assure them the SPIF grant program was on schedule, since the money will be doled out over the course of a year and so doesn’t have to be raised yet, said one Democrat in the room. Brandon Dillon, the Michigan Democratic Party chair, said he believes that the matching grant program will help focus donors’ attention by giving them a specific target, with specific operations that they’d be funding. Asking for money to help a DNC that few have faith in anymore and that lacks a clear mission isn’t working, he warned. • Financial concerns dominated conversation over the four-day Las Vegas meeting, and officials repeatedly alluded to the DNC's fundraising troubles in formal sessions. Alice Germond, a former DNC Secretary, told Politico : ""We're all aware the money is not flowing in the way we hoped it would. The abundance of new resistance-minded groups asking for cash from donors has been pretty overwhelming, and a newer phenomenon, and it represents 'competition for the party.' " • Top DNC finance officials painted an optimistic picture during an executive committee meeting on Friday, but still acknowledged the concerns. Bill Derrough, the new DNC Treasurer, said : “The finance organization has only recently been built up,” but he insisted their efforts were "on track. In general, we're in decent shape." National finance chair Henry Muñoz agreed, but added : "But none of us are satisfied." • Perez did not address the committee's fundraising during the Las Vegas conference. But DNC press secretary Michael Tyler pointed out that most of the party's donations are small-dollar contributions, a sign of grassroots enthusiasm : "While our overall fundraising is on pace with previous 'off-years,' we want to do better and that's why we are building a team to elect Democrats to win as we head into 2018 and beyond." • Politico pointed out that : "Compared not just with the RNC, but with other Democratic committees, groups and candidates that are teeming with donations, the DNC's funding problems are stark. That is the case even though it's customary for an out-of-power committee to face a drop-off. Perez, who had no previous fundraising experience, has been hitting the road nonstop for months in a bid to bring new donors and win over disillusioned contributors who are withholding checks after the 2016 election. He hit fundraising hot spots like Martha's Vineyard this summer and swung through San Francisco and Seattle in recent weeks, according to Democrats familiar with the events. Perez is also visiting secondary money destinations, including a planned stop in North Carolina later this month. This isn't a social club, he says at roundtables and meet-and-greets, according to donors who've heard the pitch. It's something they all have to participate in, since they have to win -- though it's not going to be easy or cheap," he tells the faithful. Party officials involved in fundraising say donors repeatedly turn them away with a "try again next year," especially since it became clear there won't be an official party autopsy from 2016. Democrat Jon Ossoff's loss in his much-hyped special congressional election in Atlanta's suburbs in June has also depressed donor enthusiasm. California attorney Guy Saperstein, a part-owner of the Oakland Athletics and a prominent funder of progressive causes and candidates said : "I've made it pretty clear I don't want to donate to the DNC, DCCC, or the Senate counterpart, so they have not called me." And, even donors who are more willing to play ball have a stern message -- The party needs a clearer plan to win before we fork over more money. • DNC members themselves have now been asked to give or raise $1,000 each, some said -- a request people who've been around the committee for decades told Politico they can't remember being made before. Part of the problem has been the lack of major draws for the contributors. For the past eight years, much of the party's donor strategy has been built around large events featuring Obama. But, Obama so far has committed to just one DNC event since leaving office -- a September event in Washington that brought in $2.5 million, a total that was less than officials had hoped for, according to people involved. Other high-profile party officials, like the dozens of potential presidential contenders, have not signed up to raise cash for the committee. • The DNC and Democrat Party's problems are not just about money. The Democrats have to rebuild political infrastructure and trust in the wake of Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz's controversial tenure atop the committee, the loss of the White House, and the fallout from the Russian hack of the committee computer system. After being slow to assemble a full staff, the DNC is still advertising to fill 22 jobs, including a chief security officer and a data science lead. Paying for those jobs will take more money, which means winning over more skeptical donors. Orlando attorney John Morgan, a longtime top party donor who is now considering a Florida gubernatorial run, told Politico : "I’ve had enough dinners. I’m not really interested. I’m going to let them get new blood. I can’t get motivated.” • • • THE DEMOCRAT PROBLEM. It's not about "the money, stupid," it's about the message and the candidates and potential candidates delivering the message. • • • THE SONOMA FIRE AND SANCTUARY STATE CALIFORNIA. Consider this Breitbart report of last Thursday by Michelle Moons : "US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tom Homan confirmed on Thursday that a man arrested in connection with setting a fire in Sonoma County Wine Country is an illegal alien from Mexico who has been twice returned to his 'home country.' Homan also confirmed that ICE has issued detainer requests for Jesus Fabian Gonzalez five times now in the past year alone, including the one issued on October 16 in relation to his most recent arrest on suspicion of arson. All the arrests were made 'by Sonoma County on various felony and misdemeanor charges,” according to Homan. Sonoma County is considered a sanctuary jurisdiction and does not fully cooperate with federal immigration officials. That includes not honoring ICE detainer requests. Homan said : “ICE was never notified of Mr. Gonzalez’ various releases.” There were several fires in the region, and it is not clear what role the fires Gonzales allegedly set played in the overall disaster. Homan’s public statement highlights the lack of cooperation from Sonoma County officials and the devastating wildfires that have ravaged the region. Sanctuary cities -- and now states as California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law a bill making all of California a Sanctuary State -- has a price among real Americans who want to be safe in their own neighborhoods and communities. Moons wrote : "Once again, a non-cooperative jurisdiction has left their community vulnerable to dangerous individuals and preventable crimes. ICE lodged a detainer against Jesus Gonzalez with Sonoma County jail officials on October 16, following his arrest on felony charges for maliciously setting fire to a property. This is especially troubling in light of the massive wildfires already devastating the region. Over the past year, ICE has lodged detainers against Mr. Gonzalez after four separate arrests by Sonoma County on various felony and misdemeanor charges. ICE was never notified of Mr. Gonzalez’ various releases. Additionally, Mr. Gonzales has been returned to his home country of Mexico on two separate occasions. The residents of Sonoma County, and the state of California, deserve better than policies that expose them to avoidable dangers. Non-cooperation policies -- now enshrined in California state law -- ensure only one thing: criminals who would otherwise be deported will be released and left free to reoffend as they please." • That ProgDem message cannot be good news for a DNC trying to rebuild its party and raise money at the grassroots level. Even hyper-leftist Californians must be reeling from the revelation that a Sanctuary-protected illegal alien may have been one cause of the ghastly Sonoma wildfires that caused billions of dollars of losses in destroyed homes, as well as deaths. Why would they suport the Democrat Party whose Sanctuary policies may have caused the horrible losses. • • • THE PODESTA GROUP, URANIUM ONE AND HILLARY. Or, what about this Blabber Buzz and InfoWars report of last Friday by Jerome Hudson. He wrote : "The FBI and Justice Department have launched an investigation into whether the Podesta Group, the lobbying and public relations firm co-founded by Hillary Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta, has any connections to alleged corruption that occurred in the administration of former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. The federal probe is, CNN reports, 'examining the work of other firms linked to the former Ukrainian government, including that of the Podesta Group.' The Podesta Group, run by John Podesta’s brother Tony Podesta, was retained by the Russia-controlled firm Uranium One in 2012, 2014, and 2015, to lobby Hillary Clinton’s State Department. The lobbying firm was paid a total of $180,000 according to public records. Yanukovych took office in February 2010. He was forced to flee to Russian after a political uprising in Ukraine. Federal prosecutors are probing the work Yanukovych’s regime paid the Podesta Group to do while he was the head of the Ukrainian government. As it was first detailed in the New York Times bestselling book Clinton Cash, the company Uranium One -- which hired the Podesta Group -- is the firm that funneled millions to the Clinton Foundation as the Russian government gained ownership of the company. According to the New York Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a 'goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.' ” The Times reported last April : "As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well. And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock." According to the Daily Caller, Uranium One “paid the Podesta Group $40,000 to lobby the State Department, the Senate, the National Park Service, and the National Security Council for ‘international mining projects,’ according to a July 20, 2012 filing." CNN reported that the Posesta Group has hired outside counsel to review its relationship with an organization with ties to Yanukovych’s pro-Russian regime, retaining Caplin & Drysdale as independent, outside legal counsel to determine if it was misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine or any other individuals with regard to the Centre’s potential ties to foreign governments or political parties.” a Podesta Group statement said, according to CNN. • And how about the negative impact on DNC donors of this ProgDem-Hillary message of Russia connections, corruption and pay-for-play? • • • HOUSE JUDICIARY AND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEES TO INVESTIGATE HILLARY EMAIL SCANDAL. TheHill reported on Tuesday that the chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees announced a joint investigation into how the FBI handled last year's probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as Secretary of State. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said in a joint statement : "Decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 have led to a host of outstanding questions that must be answered." The two Republican leaders said they have questions about the FBI's decision to openly declare the bureau's investigation into Clinton's handling of classified information, while quietly investigating Trump campaign associates. They said they also want to know why the FBI decided to formally notify Congress of the Clinton probe on two separate occasions; why the FBI -- rather than the Justice Department -- recommended that Clinton not be charged after the investigation concluded; and the reasoning behind their timeline for announcing such decisions. The Goodlatte-Gowdy statement said : "The Committees will review these decisions and others to better understand the reasoning behind how certain conclusions were drawn. Congress has a constitutional duty to preserve the integrity of our justice system by ensuring transparency and accountability of actions taken." • Former FBI Director James Comey apparently began drafting his statement that the FBI would not recommend charges months before his July 2016 announcement. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham first announced in late August that Comey had drafted a statement on Clinton months before making a public statement, saying the decision was drawn up "before the FBI had interviewed key witnesses." The revelation raised questions about why Comey waited months after beginning to draft a statement to announce the end of the investigation in the midst of a heated presidential race. President Trump fired Comey early this year, citing his handling of the Clinton probe. The FBI last week released emails appearing to prove that Comey began drafting a memo regarding his July 2016 statement as early as May, but the contents of the emails were unclear as nearly all of it was redacted. The now-public records show the email titled “Midyear Exam --- UNCLASSIFIED” was sent by Comey on May 2, 2016, to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI general counsel James Baker and FBI chief of staff and senior counselor James Rybicki. On May 16, a response email from Rybicki, said, “Please send me any comments on this statement so we may roll into a master doc for discussion with the Director at a future date. Thanks, Jim.” The existence of the documents was first revealed by Grassley and Graham, after they reviewed transcripts of interviews with top Comey aides who alluded to the emails' existence. The issue has raised questions about Comey’s past explanations for his decision to go public in the case -- in a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey was asked whether his decision to announce the results of the investigation was influenced by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s infamous meeting days earlier on an Arizona tarmac with former President Bill Clinton. “Yes, in an ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me -- that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation,” Comey said. At a House Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2016, Comey also testified that he made the decision not to recommend criminal charges “after” the FBI interviewed Clinton. Comey was leading the Trump-Russia inquiry at the time, but after he was fired by President Trump, special counsel Robert Mueller took over the investigation. • The top Democrats on the House panels, Oversight’s Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Judiciary’s John Conyers of Michigan, slammed the decision, issuing their own joint statement : “This new investigation is a massive diversion to distract from the lack of Republican oversight of the Trump Administration and the national security threat that Russia poses, ten months of abdication of responsibility" to look into the abuses taking place at the White House, adding : “The Russian government continues to represent a clear and present threat to the United States and our democratic system, and we are the targets of near-constant cyberattacks by foreign adversaries. Yet House Republicans have taken no concrete steps to secure our next election. Apparently, House Republicans are more concerned about Jim Comey than Vladimir Putin." Comey has come under heavy scrutiny for the decisions he made regarding the email investigation. He disclosed during his June testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch had urged him to describe the Clinton email probe as a "matter" rather than an investigation. Comey said her request gave him a “queasy feeling” because it matched "how the [Clinton] campaign was talking about how the FBI was doing its work.” • And how about that as a negative message for DNC donors -- lying under oath and corruptly influencing the FBI. • • • HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE URANIUM ONE DEAL AND HILLARY'S EMAILS. Fox News reported on Tuesday that in addition to the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees' joint investigation of the Hillary email scandal and its handling by the DOJ and the FBI, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes of California announced that his Committee and the House Oversight Committee will jointly investigate the so-called Uranium One deal. Nunes said : “We’re not going to jump to any conclusions, but we’re going to try and get the facts.” Both controversies have hit the online headlines recently. The uranium deal, which was covered in 2015, especially by the New York Times, concerns the 2010 approval of the sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to Russia’s Rosatom nuclear company. The US was involved because the sale gave the Russians control of 20% of the uranium supply in the US. The Hill reported, however, that the FBI had evidence as early as 2009 that Russian operatives used bribes, kickbacks and other dirty tactics to expand Moscow’s atomic energy footprint in the US. Fox reported that Nunes said Tuesday the main question for Hill investigators will be whether there was an FBI probe at the time and “if so, why was Congress not informed of this matter." Representative Pete King of New York said : “It’s important that we find out why that deal went through.” Representative Ron DeSantis of Florida, an Oversight Committee member, threatened to use subpoena power to get access to a former FBI informant in the case who apparently has not yet been released from a nondisclosure agreement. While scrutinizing the 2010 approval, Republican lawmakers have also revived questions that first surfaced in 2015 about payments to both Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation from “interested parties.” • Addressing the matter Monday on C-SPAN, Hillary Clinton said : “It’s the same baloney they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone. In fact, it’s been debunked repeatedly and will continue to be debunked. The closer the investigation about real Russian ties between Trump associates and real Russians...the more they want to just throw mud on the wall.” But, Hillary is known for "debunking" every allegation, many of them accurate, aimed at her or Bill, so we may conclude that she is just engaging in her usual stonewalling. But, she must be feeling a little nervous, now that her only "protector" in high office is Robert Mueller, who, as we learned in Tuesday's blog, is himself coming under scrutiny. Last month, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee formally renewed their call for a second special counsel to be appointed by Attorney General Sessions to probe 2016 controversies involving Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration. • The Justice Department released a statement vowing to “fully cooperate with this important Congressional investigation.” Let's hope that with Congresss gearing up to fully investigate the Clinton emails and Uranium One deal and the Clinton Foundation role in the deal, AG sessions will wake up and fully assume his role as President Trump's chief law enforcement officer. • Meantime, the negative Uranium One message must be gut-wrenching for reluctant DNC donors. • • • DEAR READERS, I cannot imagine that all Democrats are tone deaf to the shockwaves breaking across their 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton concerning her email scandal and her pay-for-play role in the Uranium One deal that gave 20% of America's uranium into the hands of Russian entities. Grassroots Democrats must see the corruption being alleged and must know the prior history of Hillary Clinton and her shady practices. Why would they support the DNC led by a man, Tom Perez, she chose for the job? Why??? And, why would very wealthy Democrat donors continue to throw money, and possibly their reputations, at a Democrat Party that cannot even stand up and separate itself from the Clintons or the Podestas? Why??? And, more important, why would any American continue to be associated with or vote for the Democrat Party that is standing by these crooked ProgDem elites???

The Democrats Are in Trouble -- Uranium One, Hillary, the Foundation, Mueller, Comey

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT SPECIAL COUNSEL MUELLER MAY BECOME A CONGRESSIONAL TARGET. The online media on Monday and Tuesday was full of reports that Robert Mueller has in several ways done things that, if true, should require his removal as Special Counsel investigating the Trump-Russia 'collusion' allegations -- or even perhaps making Mueller a possible subject of investigation himself. • • • THE URANIUM ONE DEAL AND COVER-UP. Breitbart's Kristina Wong reported on Sunday that the Senate Judiciary Committee is looking into the 2010 sale of US uranium to Russia under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to determine "whether then-FBI Director Robert Mueller alerted the Obama administration about the FBI investigation into Russians involved in the deal, according to Newsweek." The FBI investigation began in 2009 into corruption and extortion by senior officials of Tenex, a subsidiary of Russian nuclear company Rosatom, TheHill revealed last week. This validated reporting by Breitbart News editor-at-large Peter Schweizer, who first wrote about the uranium deal in his book Clinton Cash. Wong says court filings show that Rosatom was aware of the bribery scheme by Tenex head Vadim Mikerin, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to orchestrating more than $2 million in bribe payments, through accounts in Cyprus, Latvia, and Switzerland. But, despite the existence of the FBI investigation into Rosatom subsidiary Tenex, the Obama administration allowed the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian-based company with US uranium assets, to Rosatom. Hillary Clinton and then-Attorney General Eric Holder presided over the US Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) that approved the deal that began in 2009 and ended in 2013, transferring American uranium deposits in Kazakhstan -- that is, 20% of American reserves transferred into Russian hands. • Recent news is that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent an October 12 letter to various agencies involved in the deal that said, “in 2009, when the validity of the mining licenses was at issue, the Chairman of Uranium One, Mr. Ian Telfer, donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation via his family charity called the Fernwood Foundation.” The letter noted that Telfer was also a major investor in the company UrAsia, and between 2008 and 2010, Uranium One and former UrAsia investors donated $8.65 million to the Clinton Foundation -- donations made while the Uranium One sale was being hammered out. The FBI told Newsweek it had no comment as to whether Mueller had alerted senior Obama administration officials, including Clinton, about the ongoing FBI investigation before they brokered the deal. In true Swamp style, Mueller is now leading a special counsel investigation -- Fake? -- into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election and whether there was any collusion by the Trump campaign. • • • MUELLER'S FINANCIAL ENTANGLEMENTS. Blabber Buzz and Offended America's Jacob Wohl reported on Monday that : "Robert Mueller’s complex financial entanglements include investments linked to George Soros and Russia. During Mueller’s tenure at the FBI, high profile cases of financial wrongdoing within hedge funds that he invested in were ignored by federal law enforcement. An Offended America investigation has revealed that Mueller’s holdings in a fund of funds expose him to Russian investments and to hedge funds tied to George Soros. Mueller’s exclusive hedge funds were not open to the general public, but rather wealthy private accredited investors. The minimum investment in several of the funds is $10 Million." • Mueller also has been an investor in Mellon Optima L/S Strategy Fund, LLC for many years, according to his financial disclosures. That fund consists of holdings of other hedge funds in a structure commonly referred to as a “fund of funds,” says Wohl : "According to 2017 SEC Filings, one of the funds held by the Mellon Optima L/S Strategy Fund is the OCCO Eastern European Fund, run by Charlemagne Capital. The fund released a performance overview on August 31st that said in part : 'August was a relatively quiet month for markets and a strong one for the portfolio....Russia was again the main driver with supportive contributions from other markets.'....The OCCO Eastern European Fund also stated in late August 2017 that 'Our single largest position at ten percent total gross exposure is the 5% long position in Novatek paired with a cash neutral short position in Gazprom.'....According to Charlemagne Capital, the OCCO Eastern European Fund is based in the Cayman Islands and has a net-long position in the Russian markets. This means that Robert Mueller gains financially if the Russian market does well....The fund’s prime brokers are Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse." Wohl says that Mueller isn’t the only person investigating Russia with financial interests in Russia : "California Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, reported owning at least $16,000 of Russia-linked investments on his most recent financial disclosure." • The point of this revelation is that Mueller’s investments in Russia could present a conflict of interest in how he carries out his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. • Jacob Wohl also revealed in his Offended America report that : "Mueller benefited from Ponzi Schemes. Another hedge fund that Robert Mueller disclosed owning was Defenders Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund, LLC. This hedge fund was run by William P. Sauer, who has been sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for running two separate Ponzi Schemes. Sauer ultimately settled the lawsuits for $5 million. This hedge fund did business under 4 different names during its 9 years of existence, and "fed clients into...Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme and eventually paid $200 million to settle complaints associated with alleged misconduct surrounding this investment. The FBI never investigated any of the people or entities associated with the Defenders Multistrategy hedge fund or other funds that Mueller has invested in. The hedge fund at the center of these allegations of wrongdoing never faced investigations from the FBI, and produced profits for Robert Mueller, who headed up the FBI when the allegations were made, prompting the SEC to begin their investigation." According to Wohl : "The US Department of Justice launched wide- ranging investigations into many of the 'feeder funds' that put client money with Bernie Madoff. [But] BNY Mellon’s Madoff feeder funds in which Robert Mueller had a financial interest remained completely untouched by the FBI and DOJ. These facts spark suspicions that Mueller intentionally turned a blind eye to wrongdoing at the BNY Mellon fund, in order to protect his financial interest in the fund." • As if that is not enough, Wohl also reveals Mueller's Soros ties : "In 2013, Mueller was invested with a fund of funds called Mellon Optima. Mellon Optima invested a portion its funds in Karsch Capital a fund managed by Michael Karsh, who worked for Soros Fund Management before leaving the firm in 2000, according to Reuters. Stanley Druckenmiller, the trader who infamously broke the Bank of England, netting over $1 billion in a single day when he worked alongside George Soros, personally provided seed capital to Karsch Capital. SEC disclosures reveal that the fund of funds that Mueller holds, Mellon Optima, also invested in Highbridge Long/Short Equity Fund. Alec McAree, who is the Managing Director of Highbridge, previously worked as a Managing Director for Soros Fund Management according to a Highbridge press release. Alex Soros, son of hedge fund billionaire and anti-Trump money-man George Soros, revealed his close relationship with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in an Instagram post. Politico previously reported that Mueller has teamed up with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office. Sources told Politico that Schneiderman is currently working together with Mueller in an investigation regarding the financial dealings of President Trump and members of the 2016 Trump campaign. Many are questioning how Schneiderman could possibly carry out or assist with an impartial investigation in regards to President Trump, given his clear ties to George Soros and well-documented tendency towards partisanship." • Not enough about Robert Mueller?? Try this. Jacob Wohl also touches on Uranium One : "In 2006 the Department of Energy, which oversees the United States’ nuclear technology, confiscated highly enriched uranium from a smuggling operation involving one Russian firm and several Georgian companies. In August 2009, Wikileaks released a classified State Department cable which showed the details of this transfer of highly enriched uranium. TheHill recently reported that as soon as Hillary Clinton became Obama’s Secretary of State, FBI counterintelligence agents observed Russian operatives successfully attempting to gain influence with Bill and Hillary Clinton’s inner circle. The activity that took place appeared to be criminal in nature, according to FBI counterintelligence agents familiar with the matter. Russia requested a ten-gram sample of a batch of highly enriched uranium (HEU) seized in early 2006 in Georgia during a nuclear smuggling sting operation involving one Russian national and several Georgian co-conspirators. The seized uranium was transferred to US custody and was being held at a secure Department of Energy facility. In response to the Russian request, the Georgian government authorized the United States to share a sample of the material with the Russians for forensic analysis. Wikileaks showed as early as 2009 that Hillary Clinton’s State Department began facilitating the transport of samples of high enriched uranium to members of the Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB. The person tasked to transport the highly enriched uranium to the FSB was none other than Robert Mueller. Wikileaks’ release of classified State Department wires showed in part : 'Director Mueller previously planned to deliver the sample in April (Ref A), but due to a scheduling conflict the trip was canceled. Embassy Moscow LegAtt informed the FSB prior to Mueller’s intended April delivery and received confirmation that the FSB would take custody of the sample after the Director’s plane landed. FSB Moscow also informed Rosatom of the planned transfer and that the US placed a high priority on completing this transfer (Ref B). Once the LegAtt told FSB counterparts the April trip had been canceled, Ambassador Beyrle informed Igor Neverov (Ref C), who said that he understood but was disappointed the trip was postponed. The September 21 visit provides again an opportunity to deliver the requested ten-gram sample from the seized HEU in order to obtain cooperation from the GOR on this nuclear smuggling case and to eventually establish a more productive mechanism of US-Russian cooperation on nuclear forensics.' " Mueller’s role in dealing with the Russian government in uranium transfers, which have been investigated and may currently be under investigation by the FBI, says Wohl : "raises questions over his ability to serve as the Special Prosecutor tasked with investigating Russia. Mueller’s involvement in transporting highly enriched uranium to Russia as head of the FBI, as well as his current investments in Russia and co-investments with anti-Trump financier George Soros raise serious doubts over whether he can conduct an impartial investigation. Like Jim Comey, Mueller is quickly losing the confidence of the public. The loss of confidence in Mueller’s investigation seems to extend to within his ranks. Peter Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence investigator, resigned from Mueller’s team in mid-August and transferred to the FBI’s human resources department. This move into human resources has been described as unprecedented by several former and current FBI counterintelligence agents, including Asha Rangappa, who said 'I have seen instances where if some issue comes up, the agent might be moved to another investigation or to the operations center, where you essentially field calls all day, but why he would be moved to HR is just bizarre.' Mueller’s many conflicts of interest creating a serious crisis of credibility in his expansive investigation. One question remains: how can Mueller investigate Russia while having so many vested interests in Russia?" • • • THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE JOINS SENATOR GRASSLEY. Fox News reported on Monday that the House Oversight Committee has started looking into the "Obama-era deal in which a Russian-backed company bought a uranium firm with mines in the US." Fox cites Representative Ron DeSantis, who told Fox News on Sunday that he’s spoken with the federal government’s “confidential informant” on the Uranium One matter. The uranium agreement was reached while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, and some investors in the Russian-backed company, Uranium One, had relationships with former President Bill Clinton and donated to the Clinton Foundation. DeSantis told Fox : "I’ve spoken with the confidential informant that helped the FBI uncover this bribery scheme. Clearly, it’s in the public’s interest that this individual be able to tell his story to Congress.” When asked by Fox News if a criminal investigation would be coming, DeSantis responded: “It could be criminal.” He cited statutes of limitations that may limit prosecutions of any crimes that may arise from the 2010 deal. • The Senate Judiciary Committee last week said it started an investigation into the matter, including whether federal agencies knew the FBI was looking into possible corruption before the deal was approved. In addition, Iowa GOP Senator Charles Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, has requested the Justice Department lift a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that the former FBI confidential informant said prevents him from speaking to Congress about the handling of a criminal probe linked to the deal. Grassley said the Justice Department had threatened to prosecute the informant if he disclosed details of his involvement in the investigation. DeSantis said Sunday the informant to whom he spoke signed his original NDA with Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder and was “threatened with reprisal” by the Justice Department under Attorney General Loretta Lynch when he tried to “come forward” in 2016. DeSantis also said he has spoken with the informant’s attorney, but it’s unclear whether the informant is the same one to whom Grassley has referred. • The House Oversight Committee doesn’t appear to have announced officially that it has opened a probe or a more formal investigation. Fox couldn't reach Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy on Sunday for comment, but DeSantis said : “I have spoken with Chairman Gowdy. He believes that this is an important issue and he has indicated to me that he is supportive of what we are doing. So, I think you are going to see action." • President Trump said last week that media outlets have failed to cover the purchase of American uranium mines by the Russian-backed company adequately. During the 2016 campaign, Trump cited the deal for the uranium, which is used in nuclear reactors, and has returned to the issue at rallies recently. Trump says the 'real Russia story' is not about allegations of collusion during the 2016 presidential election, but about how Russia acquired control of 20% of US uranium mining capacity. Clinton's State Department was one of nine US government agencies that had to approve the deal. But Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and former State Department officials have insisted she was not involved in the approval process by the CFIUS. • The mainstream media refuses to cover this Uranium One story, and it now appears that the fallback argument of the principal players will be to deny their participation in the deal or to say that they bowed out of the uranium deal before it was approved. Note that while Republicans have pointed to some of the investors in the deal and their ties to the former President -- Canadian financier Frank Giustra, a top Clinton Foundation donor, sold his company, UrAsia Energy, to Uranium One, which was chaired by Ian Telfer, also a Clinton Foundation donor. That is participation, but Giustra has said he "sold his stake in the deal in 2007," while Clinton and Barack Obama were vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. That ignores the ongoing intertwined financial transactions that are reported to have involved Giustra in the Clinton Foundation after the Uranium One deal was completed. The New York Times reported that Giustra "flew to Kazakhstan with Bill Clinton to meet the Central Asian nation’s president. Shortly thereafter, Giustra secured a lucrative concession to mine Kazakh uranium, despite his company’s lack of experience with uranium ore. As Bill Clinton opened doors for Giustra, the financier gave generously to the Clinton Foundation." The NYTimes also reported that the Giustra-Clinton dealings gave Clinton donor Giustra control of a significant portion of the world’s uranium supply, and according to the NYT report : "Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall : a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it [much later]. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s [later] public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former President has its privileges." • While other media, such as the left-leaning PolitiFact fact-checker that "found" that most of the donations from individuals related to Uranium One and UrAsia Energy were made before and during Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign -- before she became Secretary of State -- Don't Be Misled. These smoke screens are the Progressives gearing up to once more protect Hillary and Bill Clinton even as they pursue Trump with outrageously inaccurate accusations. • • • THE ALLEGATIONS, IF TRUE, ARE CRIMES. The corrupt Uranium One scheme is said to have been financed by the Russians through bribes, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering. The FBI and the Department of Justice reportedly had the evidence in their possession before the uranium sale, but kept the matter secret and never notified Congress which would have stopped the transfer of uranium to Russia. The entire corrupt affair remained hidden for seven years. But, now that Congress is waking up to the scope of the alleged curruption, the ProgDems are gearing up to counterattack. The thing to remember is that it is a crime to use a public office to confer a benefit to a foreign government in exchange for money. Referred to as “pay-to-play,” such actions can be prosecuted under anti-corruption laws passed by Congress, including the federal bribery statute, the federal gratuity statute, the mail fraud statute, the wire fraud statute, the program bribery statute, and the Travel Act. Fox News legal expert Gregg Jarrett says : "The FBI evidence, if true, would seem to show that one or more of these illegal 'pay-to-play' laws were broken. The government would have to prove that Hillary and Bill got paid, while the Russians got to play. And prosecutors are required to show a 'quid pro quo' or 'nexus' between the payments and the benefit provided. But it appears that the FBI already possesses all the evidence it needs to make a compelling case. If Hillary leveraged her public office as Secretary of State for personal enrichment, but also used her charity as a receptacle or conduit for money obtained illegally, that would also constitute racketeering, as I first argued in a column almost a year ago. Racketeering is the use of a business for a corrupt and illegal enterprise. The “Mafia” and other organized crime syndicates are often prosecuted under the “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act” or “RICO” (18 USC 1961-1968). Frequently, they devise a dual purpose company -- one which operates lawfully from the front door, but unlawfully out the back door. There is little doubt the Clinton Foundation operated as a charity. But if the FBI documents demonstrate that there was a secondary, hidden purpose devoted to self-dealing and personal enrichment, then prosecution could be pursued against Clinton for racketeering. According to the Associated Press, more than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she served as Secretary of State donated money to her Foundation. If Clinton was peddling access, was she also peddling influence? Again, the reported FBI documents seem to answer that question." Jarrett asks the key question : "But why has there been no prosecution of Clinton? Why did the FBI and the Department of Justice during the Obama administration keep the evidence secret? Was it concealed to prevent a scandal that would poison Barack Obama’s presidency? Was Hillary Clinton being protected in her quest to succeed him? The answer may lie with the people who were in charge of the investigation and who knew of its explosive impact....Holder, Mueller, Comey & Rosenstein....If the evidence is as compelling as reported, a second special prosecutor should be appointed to determine whether Hillary Clinton and others should be indicted for crimes of corruption and racketeering." • Fox News journalist Dan Gainor wrote on Monday : "It’s been nearly a year since President Trump was elected and the media have been trying to tie him to Russia for most of it. Finally, after 11 months, there’s strong evidence linking Russia to a 2016 presidential candidate. But the candidate is Hillary Clinton. According to TheHill, the FBI, 'obtained an eyewitness account -- backed by documents -- indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the US designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable Foundation.' Even worse, that was 'during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.' Our guardians of press freedom ran from that story like it was the radioactive uranium itself, diving for cover under desks as kids did during 1950s nuclear bomb drills. Forget tough questions. It’s duck and cover. No wonder Americans 'believe the news media fabricate news stories about President Donald Trump and his administration, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.' It’s not just making up the stories -- it’s hiding stories....The broadcast networks have suppressed the scandal....This is the latest example of how the media downplay the disaster that is the Clinton Foundation, giving scandals at the operation almost no attention in more than two years." • • • AND THE CLINTON FOUNDATION MAY BE IN REAL TROUBLE. InfoWars' Jerome Corsi wrote last Thursday an article titled "The Clinton Foundation Did Not Report Russian Uranium One Payments, Wall Street Analyst Argues." Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel, in a detailed analysis of Clinton Foundation financial accounting reports, reveals what he believes is a systematic pattern of fraud designed to hide payments the Clinton Foundation reportedly received related to the Uranium One deal. To stress the gravity of the Clinton Foundation’s Russian Uranium One scandal, Ortel told Infowars that he believes Clinton Foundation financial reports are criminally fraudulent in failing to report payments received in relation to the Russian Uranium One scandal -- a criminal omission Ortel believes could cause the Clintons their fortune and leave them no option but to face jail time. Current reports, says Ortel, suggest as much as $145 million may have flowed to the Clinton Foundation from the Russian Uranium One deal, but the money cannot be found anywhere in the Clinton Foundation financial reporting : "The truth is that use of the Clinton Foundation as an unregulated conduit through which cash likely was traded for influence is a story that began at that entity’s birth on 23 October 1997 and continues to present -- no part of the Clinton Foundation and none of the Clinton Foundation’s many ‘affiliates’ has ever been properly overseen by trustees, audited by accountants, or even validly organized by its lawyers for 20 years,” Ortel explained to Infowars in an exclusive interview. Ortel stressed no outsider actually knows what happened to all sums that may have been sent towards the Clinton family. However, he acknowledged, it is possible to discern, through digging, that significant portions of these supposed donations “leaked” (were diverted) along the way....Ortel’s examination of the Clinton Foundation, now extending into its fourth year, has driven Ortel to search for and acquire detailed financial reports for the Clinton Foundation, stretching back to the foundation’s inception, including all audited financial statements, as well as all available state and federal regulatory filings, including required annual IRS tax filings. Ortel pointed out that the "available Clinton Foundation regulatory filings are riddled with what appear to be intentional ommissions.” Ortel argues : “The Clinton Foundation was originally organized as a ‘Presidential Library’ to be a repository for ‘Presidential Records,’ but it has never validly altered its controlling ‘Articles of Organization’ to engage in any other tax-exempt purpose. Yet, it and people claiming to work with it have roamed worldwide soliciting more than $2 billion in cumulative declared donations.” Ortel’s point is that "ever since 23 October 1997, the Clinton Foundation, its trustees, its executives, and its agents seems to have been using the mails, telephones, and the internet to solicit massive donations while false and materially misleading filings circulated in the public domain....This ongoing, criminal solicitation is a massive scandal hidden in plain sight that certainly is illegal. Just ask former US Congresswoman Corrine Brown who awaits sentencing on numerous federal counts for illegally operating a much smaller slush fund.” • • • DEAR READERS, Ed Timperlake of American Thinker wrote last week that the Russians have a "long history of trying to bribe Clinton, Inc." Timperlake says he knows this because he is : "an original source on Russian bribes, having been part of a 60 Minutes story with the late Mike Wallace in 1998. As a congressional investigator for the House Committee on Rules, we had the "impeachment inquiry," and I was tasked to investigate successful attempts by the Chinese to buy in to the Clinton 1996 presidential campaign and also any and all Russian Mafia attempts at bribery. In investigating Russian Mafia attempts at bribing President Clinton, I teamed up with Mike Wallace and his 60 Minutes team. We jointly interviewed Dr. Gregori Loutchansky, an alleged leader of a global criminal smuggling syndicate. We all met in a suite in the Hotel Maurice in Paris. Dr. Loutchansky really impressed me as a very smart man. He had been implicated in a bribery scheme through a NYC "straw donor" to then-president Clinton. Mike Wallace and his able producers for the 60 Minutes segment pointed out how dangerous Dr. Loutchansky was in smuggling "bad things to bad people," mostly weapons and nuclear components for the development of weapons. During the interview, Mr. Wallace, whom I have the utmost respect for, asked him directly : 'Dr. Loutchansky, did you try to bribe President Bill Clinton?' Answer: 'Of course I did. It was not a crime for me.' Now we find out that in 2010, Russian criminal elements were finally successful in bribing Clinton, Inc. This time, the corruption was a criminal gambit to capture 20% of our uranium mining activity. Nancy Soderberg, a real Clinton operative spin-master, tried to filibuster Tucker Carlson on his Fox show. Tucker Carlson made a brilliant point that even if the successful bribery occurred years ago, the infamous Clinton spin machine -- 'old news, distant past, nothing to see, flush down the memory hole,' -- was not going to work, because Tucker simply pointed out that it is still happening." • Hillary Clinton, if she collected donations for the Clinton Foundation, far overstepped her legal role as Secretary of State. Uranium is now in the hands of Russia, and perhaps of operational criminal syndicates -- uranium-mining is part of the continuum of reactor operations leading to "bomb material," but that didn't seem to worry Secretary Hillary. So, thanks to the Clintons' often-cited greed and corruption, 20% of American uranium is now in the hands of totally corrupt people -- one estimate quoted by Timperlake is that about 64,000 tons of uranium ore will be refined, a lot of very toxic dirty bomb material. • From Whitewater to Travelgate to Bill's sexual predations to the well-documented financial corruption of the Clinton Foundation from Hillary's pay-to-play as Secretary of State. People have gone to prison for such crimes. The real tragedy is that the Left with its ProgDems and complicit mainstream media still reveres Bill and Hillary. Where is the Progressive conscience, code of ethics, or any sense of morality. And yet they lecture the rest of us and call us Deplorable racists and white supremacists. Hillary's book tour rolls on in an embarrassment of monumental proportions as she blames others for her electoral loss. Has she ever truly examined her own actions? One thing is sure -- ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo will not do it for her. Their own lack of values and contempt for anything traditionally American prevent self-examination. And make no mistake : Obama was as corrupt as Hillary, either by complicity or by turning a blind eye and refusing to investigate. Americans, normal Americans, the ones who elected Donald Trump, now see the great damage done to the Republic. They want it punished and stopped. But, the establishment elites of both parties are doing their best to Stop Trump. He is hanging in there and making progress, but he needs America's help to defeat this bunch of shameless, corrupt Swamp Creatures.

Uranium One, A Tale of Corruption Deep in the Swamp -- and the Beauty of a Widow's Witness to Truth

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT THE RUSSIA FAKE NEWS MAY SNARE SENATOR McCAIN. Fusion GPS and the ex-British spy with a penchant for writing fiction instead of factual intel reports are key players. • • • WHO LEAKED THE STEEL FAKE NEWS REPORT TO THE MEDIA? That's the question that is hitting close to John McCain. Daily Caller wrote last Thursday : "The number of people who could have provided BuzzFeed News with a copy of the infamous Trump dossier is vanishingly small. Only a few people had access to the full document, which consists of 17 memos dated between June 20, 2016 and December 13. One person who was provided a copy of the salacious document, written by former British spy Christopher Steele, is Arizona Senator John McCain. But McCain, who has already acknowledged providing an early version of the dossier to former FBI Director James Comey, denied this week that he also gave a version to BuzzFeed, which published it on January 10." • McCain told the Daily Caller : “I gave it to no one except for the director of the FBI. I don’t know why you’re digging this up now.” McCain was asked whether he was BuzzFeed’s source after the Republican’s office declined to answer direct questions on the matter. Only a few people are known to have had possession of the full 35-page document before BuzzFeed obtained its copy. In addition to McCain and Steele, opposition research firm Fusion GPS had the dossier, as did David J. Kramer, a former State Department official and an associate of McCain’s. Earlier last week, BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger disclosed in federal court -- in response to a lawsuit related to the Steele dossier -- that he obtained a copy of the report in December. Bensinger said that his source allowed him to take photographs of the dossier." • The identity of BuzzFeed’s source is significant for two reasons, according to Daily Caller : "It is a central question in a lawsuit filed against the media outlet by Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian tech executive named in the dossier. Gubarev is identified by name in Steele’s December 13, 2016, memo. In it, Steele alleges that Gubarev was recruited under duress by the FSB, Russia’s intelligence agency, and that he used his companies to infiltrate the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee. Gubarev’s attorneys have said they want to find out if BuzzFeed’s source provided any warnings or qualifications about the allegations made in the dossier. If so, the lawyers are likely to argue that BuzzFeed was negligent and careless in publishing the document. BuzzFeed, which has apologized to Gubarev, has defended its decision to publish the dossier, noting that its article unveiling the Steele memos explicitly stated that the memos had not been corroborated." The Daily Caller also noted that then-FBI Director James Comey had briefed President Trump on its allegations during a meeting on January 6 -- so, in addition to its importance to the Gubarev lawsuit, the identity of BuzzFeed’s source is of widespread interest "because of the possibility that a government official disseminated the uncorroborated document to the media, possibly as a hit job on Trump." It was widely believed until recently that Fusion GPS itself gave the dossier to BuzzFeed. But, Daily Caller reports that Fusion GPS -- an opposition research firm founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters that has close relationships with DC Swamp journalists -- prior to the election arranged for Steele to brief several reporters on his findings." YET, in a surprise twist, Fusion recently denied in a court proceeding that it gave BuzzFeed the final version of the document. Evan Fray-Witzer, a Gubarev lawyer, said in a federal court deposition in a case in Florida in which BuzzFeed is being sued : “Buzzfeed went to [Fusion GPS] and tried to get the dossier from them and they refused to give it to Buzzfeed.” Steele has also denied that he was BuzzFeed’s source, saying that he did not give the dossier to any news outlets, in court filings in London, where he is being sued by Gubarev. • McCain and Kramer, a former official at the McCain Institute -- McCain Institute for International Leadership is a Washington DC-based think tank in cooperation with Arizona State University that uses Senator McCain's name but that the Senator says he has nothing to do with -- were first told about the dossier in November, during a conversation with Sir Andrew Wood, a former British spy and associate of Steele’s. McCain then sent Kramer to meet with Steele in London on November 28. Steele, who operates Orbis Business Intelligence in London, has revealed in the London lawsuit that he allowed Kramer to view the dossier but did not provide him a copy. He said that an “arrangement” was later made for Fusion to provide a copy of the dossier to McCain through Kramer. McCain then provided a copy of the document to Comey during a December 9, 2016, meeting. Four days after McCain met with Comey, Steele produced the final memo of the dossier, the one that was provided to BuzzFeed and which included the allegations against Gubarev. While Steele sent the final memo to Fusion with instructions to pass a hard-copy to Kramer and McCain, it is unclear how the dossier was disseminated after that. Fusion has not said whether it gave the final version of the dossier to anyone outside the company. The denials by Steele, Fusion and McCain that they were BuzzFeed’s sources leaves just a few posibilities, including Kramer, who has not commented about whether he gave the dossier to any news outlets. He has not talked on the record to any reporters since being identified in the controversy. • Did John McCain leak the Steele dossier to the media??? We cannot say -- yet. • • • WHAT AND WHO ARE FEEDING THE RUSSIA FAKE NEWS? American Thinker's Clarice Feldman wrote a long article published Sunday that sheds light on these questions. Feldman says the major developing stories this week have been "so scantily and poorly covered in the mainstream press that you may want an easy primer. To fully understand it you have to look at alternative media, because...Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller and a cast of characters, including a press determined to cover for them, have hidden what occurred. It’s taken some time, to be sure, but the evidence of their wrongdoing is becoming harder and harder to hide. Stalling and misdirection are their last redoubt." Here are her answers. • • • THE WHO. Robert Mueller, former head of the FBI and now special counsel purportedly investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to win the election. --- Andrew McCabe, appointed by then-President Obama, was the Assistant FBI Director in charge of investigating charges by the FBI’s own underground informant that the Russians engaged in bribery to obtain uranium supplies in the US; McCabe's wife received nearly half a million dollars from Hillary Clinton buddy Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe for her 2015 Virginia state senate campaign, which McCabe did not disclosed to the Department or seek clearance for from its ethics office; McCabe is now the Deputy Director of the FBI and is himself under investigation by the DOJ inspector general concerning the contribution to his wife. --- The unnamed FBI undercover informant, represented by criminal attorney Victoria Toensing, witnessed the scheming, kickbacks and corruption in the Russian effort to obtain 20% of US uranium supplies held by Canadian-based Uranium One; he reported to his FBI bosses McCabe and Mueller prior to the October 2010 approval of the sale to Uranium One; he says Lynch has threatened him with criminal prosecution if he reveals what he knows to Congress, but Senator Grassley has asked present Attorney General Jeff Sessions to waive the nondisclosure agreement that seems in any event to be perhaps unconstitutional, according to Toensing : “It’s a constitutional issue. The executive branch can’t forbid someone from giving information to the legislative branch. That’s a separation of powers issue.” said Toensing. Grassley wants a waiver of the NDA so the informant can tell the Senate Judiciary Committee what he knows. Toensing points out the MSM's alleged cover-up role : “Jake Tapper had (former Attorney General) Eric Holder on the other day after this story broke and didn’t even ask him if he had been briefed on the corruption investigation. He didn’t even ask him. He calls himself a journalist?” --- CFIUS (The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US) is the interagency organization which is supposed to review such transactions to be sure they dn't jeopardize national security nad to block them f it determines such sales will harm national security. --- The US Intelligence Community, through the Director of National Intelligence (under Obama the DNI was James Clapper) serves as ex officio member of the CFIUS and is required to provide an intelligence assessment to CFIUS for review; the Secretary of Labor [now DNC Chairman Tom Perez] was also added as an ex officio member; in total, CFIUS is comprised of nine agencies, two ex officio representatives and other members as appointed by the President representing major departments and agencies within the US federal executive branch, and in addition to Treasury, the Departments of Energy, Commerce, State, Homeland Security, Justice, Trade, Science and Technology Policy and Defense are represented; author Jim Rickards says DNI James Clapper disbanded the CFIUS advisory for the intel community just before the Uranium One deal was approved. Convenient?? --- The Chairman of Uranium One is on the Clinton Foundation Board and is a close friend of the Clintons; as the deal was being considered by approval by CFIUS, nine members of Uranium One contributed more than $145 million to the Clinton Foundation family piggy bank; yellow cake from these uranium mines “has gone to some unknown destination” since the sale was approved. --- Hillary Clinton, former first lady and failed candidate for President, was Secretary of State when the Uranium Sale was approved by the CFIUS; the FBI undercover informant claims millions of dollars in Russian nuclear funds went to “an entity” assisting the Clinton Foundation. --- Bill Clinton, former President, husband of Hillary Clinton and recipient of a $500,000 dollar speaking fee for a speech in Russia from Renaissance Capital (a Russian finance corporation) prior to the approval of the sale to Uranium One. --- Rod Rosenstein, former US Attorney for the District of Maryland, presently Deputy Attorney General for the DOJ overseeing the Mueller investigation into claims that the Russians colluded with the Trump campaign (2005-2017). --- Andrew Weisman, presently a member of Mueller’s team, and former prosecutor of the Russian briber Vadim Mikerin and the American Trucking executive whom Vadim worked with and through; the American Trucking executive pleaded guilty June 2015, but the court record shows he has not yet been sentenced; Weisman pursued those convictions under Rosenstein’s supervision. --- Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining billionaire with a long Clinton relationship sought and obtained uranium in Kazakhstan (UrAsia Energy); Uranium One bought his company. --- Rosatom, a Russian government corporation that bought into Uranium One after receiving the needed US approval to obtain it, because it held 20% of U.S. uranium supplies. --- Ian Teifer, Chair of Uranium One (since 2007 when it merged with Ur Asia) and other individuals contributed millions to the Clinton Foundation from 2009-2013, and the donations were apparently not disclosed publicly as Hillary had pledged to do. • • • THE WHAT. This is how Clarice Feldman outlines the WHAT. Hillary and the Uranium One deal were explained by Daniel Greenfield : "The same year that Hillary brought over her ‘Reset Button,’ the FBI was investigating a top Rosatom figure in America for racketeering, extortion, bribery and money laundering. The investigation was supervised by the controversial current FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe [see above for his financial ties to the Clintons]. The investigation dragged out for five years, that is, just enough time for the Rosatom deal to be approved. When the legal procedures were started in 2014, the Russians had already gotten all they wanted -- 20% of America's uranium. Holder’s DOJ, like Hillary’s State, signed off on the Rosatom-Uranium One deal despite the ongoing investigation. Holder and his associates at the DOJ kept the investigation secret. The trails leading to the Clintons were blocked. The FBI’s confidential witness in the case was an American businessman who was making payments to a Rosatom figure. He knew firsthand about the Russian efforts to influence Bill and Hillary, and through them, the Obama administration, but, Obama’s DOJ threatened him with criminal charges if he revealed what he knew, including his knowledge of comments by FBI agents about political pressure from the DOJ during the Uranium One-Rosatom approval process. Meanwhile, during the approval process, Bill Clinton was getting paid $500,000 by a Russian bank with Russian government ties, even as his Secretary of State wife had the power to block a deal by Rosatom. While Clinton and Obama cronies are scurrying around to tie Trump to Russia, their own bosses were giving a Russian state corporation whose branches included the [Russian] nuclear weapons complex access to our nuclear materials." Greenfiled said : "Not only did Obama and his people at the DOJ and FBI turn a blind eye to Russian nuclear malfeasance in America, but they covered up evidence tying that malfeasance to the Clintons, and then threatened an informant to protect that cover-up." • TheHill also provided an explanation : "At the same time the Russians were paying Clinton half a million dollars to speak and donating to the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton sought permission in May 2010 to meet with Arkady Dvorovich, one of the highest-ranking members of the Russian government sitting on Rosatom’s Board, and then when approval dragged on, he met directly with Vladimir Putin..." Feldman says : "A close associate of Bill Clinton who was directly involved in the Moscow trip and spoke on condition of anonymity, described to TheHill the circumstances surrounding how Bill Clinton landed a $500,000 speaking gig in Russia and then came up with the list of Russians he wanted to meet. The friend said Hillary Clinton had just returned in late March 2010 from an official trip to Moscow where she met with both Putin and Medvedev. The President’s speaker’s bureau had just received an offer from Renaissance Capital to pay the former President $500,000 for a single speech in Russia. Documents show Bill Clinton’s personal lawyer on April 5, 2010, sent a conflict of interest review to the State Department asking for permission to give the speech in late June, and it was approved two days later. The Clinton friend said the former President’s office then began assembling a list of requests to meet with Russian business and government executives whom he could meet on the trip. One of the goals of the trip was to try to help a Clinton family relative 'grow investments in their business with Russian oligarchs and other businesses,' the friend told The Hill. 'It was one of the untold stories of the Russia trip. People have focused on Uranium One and the speaking fees, but opening up a business spigot for the family business was one only us insiders knew about,' the friend said." • But, says Feldman, that is not the end of the story : "Without revealing anything about the Rosatom-Uranium One background of bribery and corruption, Rosenstein-McCabe supervised the investigation and two people, including Russian Vadim Mikerin, were prosecuted. Although the FBI and DOJ knew of the corruption involved in getting the Uranium One deal approved...no charges were brought until 2014, and neither the public, the intelligence community, nor the Congress were informed of the cases until after a plea was entered with little fanfare by the defendants....The only public statement occurred a year later when the Justice Department put out a little-noticed press release in August 2015, just days before Labor Day. The release noted that the various defendants had reached plea deals. By that time, the criminal cases against Mikerin had been narrowed to a single charge of money laundering for a scheme that officials admitted stretched from 2004 to 2014. And though agents had evidence of criminal wrongdoing they [had] collected since at least 2009, federal prosecutors only cited in the plea agreement a handful of transactions that occurred in 2011 and 2012, well after the CFIUS’s approval. The final court case also made no mention of any connection to the influence peddling conversations the FBI undercover informant witnessed about the Russian nuclear officials trying to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons even though agents had gathered documents showing the transmission of millions of dollars from Russia’s nuclear industry to an American entity that had provided assistance to Bill Clinton’s Foundation, sources confirmed to TheHill. The lack of fanfare left many key players in Washington with no inkling that a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications had been uncovered." • The WHAT continues. Feldman reports that while the FBI found that Russian intelligence had targeted Hillary Clinton before and during her time as Secretary of State, Clinton’s spokespersons denied that this was so. Clinton opposed the Magnitsky sanctions against Russians involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison that would have penalized officials tied to Putin. After her husband received his $500,000 fee, Clinton moved with unusual speed to whisk the ring of 10 Russian spies out of the US and back to Moscow. She had the lopsided swap take place over a long summer weekend, before the FBI was finished with the spies, and before the spies could stand trial. While the FBI was separately investigating Russians involved with buying Uranium One, she approved the sale of American uranium to Russia’s nuclear weapons agency. Principals in the sale then plowed $145 million into her family foundation and projects. • THE WHY. We still have no information available publicly to answer several key questions -- because the Swamp continues to focus on an innocent Trump while the guilty-as-sin Clintons and FBI go scot free. The questions??? -- Feldman lists them : "What did the FBI know about Russia’s spy service targeting Hillary Clinton and her inner circle? Why did Clinton deny through spokespersons that she had been a Russian target? Why did Hillary work so feverishly to get the spies out of the US and back to Russia? Why has the FBI leadership not been more vocal in touting one of its greatest counterintelligence successes ever? And why did nobody in the FBI leadership raise this issue during the 2016 Russian election meddling controversy?" • The person who surely knew most about the details of this scandal is Robert Mueller, then FBI Director and now special counsel pursuing the FAKE assertion that Russia colluded with Trump. The overwhelming evidence suggests that not Trump but Hillary and Bill colluded with the Russians, giving them one-fifth of US uranium reserves in exchange for cash for themselves and their Foundation. When she lost the election, says Feldman : "Hillary projected her conduct onto everyone else, including Trump. It is beyond doubt -- because it has been admitted by James Comey, the head of the FBI -- that he began his investigation into her charges based on the GPS-Fusion “Dossier” which even its author Christopher Steele asserts was “raw intelligence,” not verified and not verifiable. Last week, Steele refused a congressional demand that he testify as to who paid him and who were his sources. Fusion is known as a ruthless firm that excels in smear jobs, but few have noticed the operation it’s conducting against the lawmakers investigating it. The false accusations against Mr. Nunes -- that he’s acting unethically and extralegally, that he’s sabotaging the Russia probe -- are classic. This is a firm that in 2012 was paid to dig through the divorce records of a Mitt Romney donor. It’s a firm that human-rights activist Thor Halvorssen testified was hired to spread malicious rumors about him....that financier Bill Browder testified worked to delegitimize his efforts to get justice for Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer beaten to death in a Russian prison. It’s the firm behind the infamous “dossier” accusing Donald Trump of not just unbecoming behavior but also colluding with Russia. Republicans are investigating whether the Fusion dossier was influenced by Russians, and whether American law enforcement relied on that disinformation for its own probe. But Fusion’s secret weapon in its latest operation is the Democrat Party, whose most powerful members have made protecting Fusion’s secrets their highest priority." • • • CONCLUSIONS TO BE DRAWN. As Instapundit Glenn Reynolds notes : “The obvious inference is that Fusion’s secrets are their [the Democrat Party's] secrets, and they’re devastating.” Underscoring Reynolds’ point, Fusion GPS is even trying to seek judicial blocking of congressional access to its bank records. Feldman mentioned in earlier articles that "the Washington Post and New York Times had anonymously sourced stories alleging that the FBI tried to pay one of the dossier’s authors but ultimately did not. Well, CNN has anonymous sources that say the FBI did give him money for his work. 'FBI reimbursed some expenses of dossier author,' CNN reported in March. To quote Jake Sherman : "The FBI is in the US government." So, writes Feldman : "Let’s go back to that [CNN] tweet. We have reports at CNN of the FBI paying expenses for the dossier, and trying to pay him even more, according to the Post and Times. We have Fusion GPS already claiming that Democrat supporters of Clinton paid for it. And we have New York Times and various other reports that Russians paid Fusion GPS for allegedly unrelated work, though no evidence that those funds were not used on the dossier. So who paid for it? Russia? The FBI? The Democrats? Or all? Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to know? If only we had some means of finding out the answers to these questions!" • While the Progressive Swamps counts on the credulity of their readers, there is No Evidence for claiming any of the Russian propaganda efforts influenced the election in Trump’s favor. • • • WHY IS SESSIONS PROTECTING THE FBI AND DEMOCRAT SWAMP? Daniel John Sobieski wrote an article on American Thinker last Saturday asking exactly that question -- "Why is Jeff Sessions hiding the Uranium One informant?" Sobieski wrote : "Perhaps as startling as the revelation that the FBI was investigating the Hillary Cllinton/Russia/Uranium One collusion and that key figures like Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe knew about it and said nothing, is the refusal by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to remove the non-disclosure agreement gag order on the FBI informant who arguably could put Bill and Hillary Clinton and a few others in federal prison." Sobieski wrote that Jeff Sessions recused himself from all things Russian because of election campaign conflicts, and perhaps it was really "because he thought it would insulate him from having to divulge what he knew about Uranium One and the people who at the very least knew about the deal, some who approved the deal, including past and present members of the FBI, the DOJ, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team? Is Jeff Sessions part of the Uranium One cover-up? [I do not think he is.] If not, then he needs to explain why he is thus far refusing Senator Chuck Grassley’s request to lift the gag order imposed by the Obama administration as part of the Uranium One cover-up." Senator Grassley is calling for the Justice Department to lift the apparent “gag order” on the FBI informant. Grassley said : "Witnesses who want to talk to Congress should not be gagged and threatened with prosecution for talking. If that has happened, senior DOJ leadership needs to fix it and release the witness from the gag order.” Victoria Toensing, the lawyer for the former FBI informant, told Fox News that her client was “threatened by the Loretta Lynch Justice Department” when he pursued a civil action in which he reportedly sought to disclose some information about the case." In a letter sent last Wednesday to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Grassley said such a Non-Disclosure Agreement would “appear to improperly prevent the individual from making critical, good faith disclosures to Congress of potential wrongdoing.” So, asks Sobieski, why not just lift the gag order, vacate the NDA, which Sessions has the power to do, and let the informant come forward with information on how and why the Clintons conspired to put 20% of our uranium assets under Russian control while lining the pockets of the Clintons and their pay-for-play foundation? As Toensing notes, Sessions could do it, and thereby bring to light the details of this criminal enterprise. • Sobieski says : "Perhaps the reluctance of Jeff Sessions stems from the web of deceit and complicity that ensnares many in the FBI and the Justice Department. As Fox News analyst Gregg Jarrett notes on the Uranium One scandal : It seems it was all covered up for years by the same three people who are now involved in the investigation of President Donald Trump over so-called Russian 'collusion.' ” • • • DEAR READERS, while we're on the topic of the Russians, there are some questions American Thinker's Jack Hellner would like to ask Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch : "Why did you threaten the FBI informant on the uranium deal with jail if he told Congress and the public what he knew? Should Eric Holder, Hillary and the Obama administration have approved the uranium deal to Russia knowing that they were under Federal investigation for corruption and kickbacks? Mueller was involved in the investigation, so do you think he should be investigating the supposed Russian collusion today? [Should] Bill Clinton have been allowed to accept $500,000 from Russia for a speech and meet with Putin while Hillary was Secretary of State? Doesn't over $100 Million in donations to the Clinton Foundation after the uranium deal was completed have all the appearances of kickbacks? What else could they be?...If the Obama Administration, CIA, FBI and others were actually worried about Russian collusion in the election, wouldn't they have also spied on Hillary and her team because of their many Russian connections? Why did Obama change the rules right at the end of his term to make it easier to unmask people? Weren't there any inadvertent conversations between Democrats and Russian officials picked up if the targets of the recordings actually Russian officials and not Trump people? Isn't it a great threat to democracy when a President and his supposedly independent Justice Department clearly targets their political opponents, before and after the election? Was there ever any actual evidence of collusion on the election? Do you truly think it is even plausible that your meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac was a coincidence? Have you had any other examples where you met someone on the tarmac, especially when their spouse was supposedly under investigation? Why did Comey decide before the interview with Hillary to exonerate her? Did you or the President give him that message, especially when you said to refer to it as a 'matter' instead of an investigation? Hillary wasn't interviewed under oath nor were there notes. How often does that happen in an actual investigation? Why should the public believe the Justice Department is independent and gives equal justice for all when they see Hillary skate despite obvious continuing violations of clear law and she obviously had the intent to violate the law although that is not even required?" • More on Russia tomorrow. • But, let's end today on a positive note. Military widow Natasha De Alencar has released the audio of the phone conversation she had with President Trump in April about the death of her husband, Army Staff Sergeant Mark R. De Alencar, who was killed in Afghanistan. President Trump told her in the call : "I am so sorry to hear about the whole situation. What a horrible thing, except that he's an unbelievable hero." Trump told her repeatedly that her husband was a hero, and Natasha stayed composed as she thanked him : "Thank you. I really, really appreciated it. I really do, sir." Trump also used the call, reported by the Washington Post, to invite her to the White House : "If you're around Washington, you come over and see me in the Oval Office. You just come over and see me because you are just the kind of family...Say hello to your children, and tell them your father he was a great hero that I respected. Just tell them I said your father was a great hero." The call is another indication of the ProgDem lies about President Trump being insensitive on a call with another widow, listened to by Representative Frederica Wilson, who said Trump told the widow that her husband "knew what he was getting into." AND, consider this -- the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson was given a 24-hour advance notice before the Trump phone call. More than enough time for the Progressive hate purveyors to do their dirty work. • Make America Great Again -- it isn't easy, but we will do it.

General Kelly Spoke Eloquently of the Fallen Green Berets, and Unhinged ProgDem Representative Wilson Would Do Well to Repent Publicly

TODAY'S NEWS IS ABOUT DESPICABLY EVIL TWISTING THE HONORABLE DEATHS OF AMERICAN GREEN BERETS. But, above all, let us honor the four young men who died honorably serving America as soldiers on duty in Niger. • • • THE NIGER AMBUSH. Fox News reported on the ambush in Niger earlier this month that left four US troops dead. The US troops were attacked after meeting with local village elders in Tonga Tonga, 125 miles north of Niger’s capital, Niamey. Fox News has compiled a timeline of the ambush and its aftermath, which all started with a routine mission to meet village elders : "A dozen US Army soldiers, mostly Green Berets, along with 30 Nigeriens, traveled 125 miles north from their base at Niger’s capital, Niamey, in unarmored trucks on a routine mission and to meet with local village elders in Tonga Tonga, near the border with Mali [a country where French troops have been fighting ISIS and al-Qaida for years with US tactical support] on October 4. After a meeting with the village elders that ended around 12 p.m. local time, the US-led patrol was ambushed by roughly 50 militants from a new ISIS-affiliated group, Islamic State of the Sahel....ISIS of the Sahel leader, Adnan Abu Walid, is thought to have been holding an American aid worker from Niger hostage for a year. A senior defense official told Fox News the US troops were fired on after they were already in their vehicles. The vehicles then scrambled to “get off the X” -- escaping the ambush site using evasive driving maneuvers -- and a gunfight ensued. At about 5 p.m. ET, the Pentagon alerted the White House that US troops had been attacked in Niger. Later that night, US Africa Command confirmed in a statement “that a joint US and Nigerien patrol came under hostile fire in southwest Niger. We are working to confirm details on the incident and will have more information as soon as we can confirm facts on the ground." • The Director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, Lieutenant General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., told reporters October 12 : “The patrol that was attacked last week had actually done 29 patrols without contact over the previous six months or so; no indication that this was going to occur. I would say that what was actually very positive about it was the fact that they were able to have close-air support overhead, about 30 minutes after first contact, which is pretty impressive.” Two French Mirage fighter jets showed up overhead during the attack, but did not open fire on the militants. The jets, however, flew low enough to scatter the group. The government of Niger does not allow armed drone flights overhead, despite the US military operating two drone bases and roughly 800 American troops in the land-locked West African nation about twice the size of Texas. Two French Gazelle helicopters arrived a short time after enemy forces scattered and one of them retrieved two wounded Green Berets and flew them back to the capital for treatment. A short time later, a private US-contractor helicopter recovered the bodies of the three Green Berets killed in the attack, a US official told Fox News. Robyn Mack, a spokesperson, said : “Berry Aviation was on alert during the incident in Niger and conducted casualty evacuation and transport for US and partner forces." US Africa Command confirmed the information. • Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday that the attack is under investigation, and the Pentagon has dispatched a general officer to Niger to probe what happened. Mattis stressed that the US military "does not leave its troops behind," noting news reports he said he has seen about the attack : "I would just ask that you not question the actions of the troops who were caught in the firefight and question whether or not they did everything they could to bring everyone out at once." Mattis noted that French aircraft responded and helped to airlift American soldiers out of the area. • • • THE FALLEN AMERICAN SOLDIERS. Two US Army Green Berets and one soldier were known to be killed and two other Green Berets wounded. Staff Sergeant Bryan Black, 35, Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson, 39, and Staff Segeant Dustin Wright, 29, died from wounds sustained during enemy contact. All three Soldiers were assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) on Fort Bragg. At the time of the attack, the Pentagon asked Fox News and other media not to report that a US soldier was missing because US Special Operations forces were headed to Niger for a rescue mission. The other US Army soldier attached to 3rd Special Forces Group, Sergeant La David Johnson, vanished -- and it was feared he had been taken hostage by the terrorist group -- until his body was discovered 48 hours later, reportedly approximately one mile from the attack site, after an “intensive” search using both drones and US special operations soldiers rushed to the scene, according to a US official who debriefed the media on the incident. • • • GENERAL KELLY PUTS DESPICABLE EVIL IN ITS PLACE. Let's begin with the statement of White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly, who put the whole media frenzy in its sordid place when he said Thursday he was “stunned” and “broken-hearted” after a condolence call President Trump made to the widow of a slain soldier turned into a public and political spectacle pitting the administration against a Democratic lawmaker. Fox News reported Kelly's "rare and emotional moment from the White House briefing room podium," as he condemned Representative Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat, for listening to that phone call and then criticizing the President's tone in the press. General Kelly said : “I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning and broken-hearted, at what I saw a member of Congress doing -- a member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the President" to the widow. It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation, absolutely stuns me. I thought at least that was sacred,” He called Wilson's behavior "selfish." Kelly, whose son Second Lieutenant Robert Kelly was killed in battle in Afghanistan in 2010, said he was so shocked by the escalation of events that he went to Arlington National Cemetery to take a walk. Even NBC Nightly News on Thursday evening showed scenes of Arlington National Cemetery, while criticizing Representative Wilson for listening to the conversation. Kelly said Trump was trying to say something akin to what General Joseph Dunford, now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told him when his own son died : That "he was doing exactly what he wanted to do...he knew what he was getting into." Kelly also said on Thursday that Obama did not call him when his son died. However, he stressed that he did not say that as a "criticism" of Obama. Kelly told reporters Thursday that he advised Trump what to say to the families of the soldiers who had died in battle. Initially, Kelly said he instructed the President not to make the phone call. • • • THE TRUMP PHONE CALL. President Trump called the widow of Army Sergeant La David Johnson, one of the four Americans killed in the ambush in Niger on October 4. Representative Wilson within hours went to the press to criticize Trump for allegedly saying during that phone call that "he knew what he signed up for," claiming the remarks were insensitive. Soon after Kelly's remarks, Wilson responded in a comment that is baffling : "Let me tell you what my mother told me when I was little. She said 'The dog can bark at the moon all night long, but it doesn’t become an issue until the moon barks back.' " Wilson lashed out at Trump for being "cold-hearted and insensitive" to Myeshia Johnson on the call, accusing him of not even knowing the name of her husband. The President, however, disputed Wilson's account of the call and Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called Wilson's statements "appalling." • Progressives and the mainstream media once again blamed President Trump for everything -- this time for starting a political controversy over how Presidents interact with Gold Star families last week. BUT, it is the media that is actually calling Gold Star families seeking stories that are negative for President Trump. • Fox News "MediaBuzz" host Howard Kurtz said the media coverage on President Trump's call to a Gold Star widow has turned into a "really sad episode." Melissa Francis noted that reporters are now calling Gold Star family members to see whether they received a phone call from Trump : "I feel like this story has sunk to a new low." Kurtz lamented the politicization of the story, which he said has distracted from the deaths of the four US Green Berets. Kurtz pointed out that there was very little media coverage of the soldiers' deaths in Niger on October 4 : "Now it's getting thousands of times more coverage because it's about Trump. Partisans on both sides have made this into yet another Trump controversy and that really is depressing." • • • FAKE REPUBLICAN JOHN McCAIN ATTACKS MATTIS. Fox News controversial military analyst General Jack Keane said the main question is why the American forces appear to have been "unnecessarily exposed" : "[That] is what's really bothering the Pentagon and my dear friend, John McCain. Why was this group so exposed?" Keane added that the Pentagon deserves time to figure out what went wrong in the remote area. Keane said this incident will likely "spark" a broader review of the US strategy hanging on from the Obama administration in northern Africa. • Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, in another ill-placed but business-as-usual #NeverTrump attack on President Trump, told Fox News a "subpoena" and hearings may be needed so Congress can gain information on the deaths of the Green Berets. McCain answered "of course not" when a reporter asked whether the Trump administration had been forthcoming on the October 4 attack. But, Fox News reports that Secretary Mattis met Friday with McCain on Capitol Hill, and McCain later said he and Mattis were working on “clearing up” the lack of information. • The online news outlet Conservative Zone wrote about McCain : "President Trump and Senator McCain sparred in the Republican Presidential primaries and McCain hasn’t forgotten Trump’s comments that being a prisoner of war is not enough to make one a hero. The Senator, while being honored with the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal, blasted Trump’s international and national policies by referring to what he called a 'half-baked, spurious nationalism.' McCain’s remarks came after he was presented the prestigious medal by former Vice President Joe Biden. McCain was being honored for his 'lifetime of sacrifice and service' to the United States. While the honor is certainly deserved....past recipients of the Liberty Medal include...Representative John Lewis, Hillary Clinton...and CNN International." Accepting the award, McCain said in his speech : “To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last best hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.” • Although he didn’t name President Trump, it was obvious who McCain was aiming his remarks at. White House senior advisor Kellyanne Conway disputed McCain’s assessment, telling Fox News : “Well, I just don’t see that in the President’s agenda or in his philosophy. His moorings are conservative, and he is governing as a center-right President who believes that we pay too much in taxes, that we’re over-regulated, and that we have not taken terrorists seriously...We’ve not even been willing to call them terrorists for the last however many years. This country is safer and more prosperous under President Donald Trump.” Conway added that she does not see any of the “spurious nationalism” in President Trump that McCain condemned in his acceptance speech. • The media loves McCain -- not because he’s a traditional conservative, or even because he’s a neoconservative -- but because he almost always stands in the way of Trump’s agenda. This division might cause many Republican voters to ask : why are two members of the same party so viciously locked in opposition with one another? The answer lies in the heart of McCain’s outdated philosophy, says Conservative Zone : "Neoconservatism was born in the 1970s when a group of Democrats abandoned their party and declared themselves newly minted Republicans. Led by Irving Kristol, the self-proclaimed 'godfather' of the movement, neocons follow his lead in calling for 'a conservative welfare state.' Not surprisingly, it was neocons that did everything they could to keep Ronald Reagan from being the Republican nominee for President in 1980. This doesn’t mean that McCain never votes conservative. In fact, he has generally voted conservative on important issues as evidenced by the American Conservative Union scorecards from 1987 to 2015....He is mildly pro-gun right, anti-abortion, and very hawkish on foreign affairs. In spite of that record, McCain has shown a definite leaning to the left over the course of his long tenure in the Senate. From 1987 to 1996, the Senator’s voting record was one of a down-the-line conservative, but since that time he has been much harder to categorize. McCain’s shift to center-left came as he was gearing up for his first presidential run in 2000, when his 'maverick' storylines came into focus....His recent stands or lack of them, however, have brought into focus that his last twenty years in the Senate have been a long, slow limp to the Left." • As John McCain fights the newly energized conservative core of the Republican Party, he is becoming a liability not only for Presidernt Trump but also for the military whose budget and programming he oversees as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is time for Majortiy Leader Mitch McConnell to remove McCain from his chairmanship and appoint a Republican who is a real member of the GOP, and not a neo-Progressive interloper -- "neo-Progressive," my new label for Republicans becoming ProgDems because they hate Trump's real conservatism. • • • THE DESPICABLE EVIL. Representative Frederica Wilson is 74 years old. She has three children and five grandchildren. Her husband died in 1988. • What about Wilson’s political career? She is a former elementary school principal, who was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2010. She previously served in the Florida state Senate from 2002-2010 and the state House of Representatives from 1998-2002. Her House of Representatives website lists several issues of concern, including education, gun violence, health care, immigration and jobs. She says she's against "Republican efforts to change Medicare from an entitlement to a voucher program for individuals aged 54 and under." As for Social Security, Wilson says that she "will vote against any measure to privatize the program, cut benefits, or increase the eligibility age." This year, Wilson voted against the Republican health care bill, also known as the American Health Care Act of 2017. In February 2015, she sponsored a bill that was introduced on what would have been Trayvon Martin's 20th birthday, calling for the House to press "any State legislature to reject or repeal Stand Your Ground legislation." • Wilson claims she and Myeshia Johnson were in a car going to Miami International Airport to meet the soldier's body when Trump called. The fallen soldier’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, told the AP Wednesday that the congresswoman’s account was correct. • It also turns out -- despite the fact that Wilson is now being held out as a staunch supporter of the military -- that Representative Wilson has almost always voted against measures intended to help veterans and their families, according to VoteSmart.org, a vote-tracking site whose founding board members included former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. The measures that Wilson opposed included a bill that could have ensured that families of four soldiers slain in Afghanistan in 2013 received death and burial benefits. Wilson’s voting record on veterans issues may call into question the sincerity of her recent defense of US service members and their families, because despite Wilson's claim to be “committed to honoring our service members, not only with words but with deeds,” she has voted against most bills ensuring continued funding for veteran benefits, including payments to widows of fallen soldiers, the vote-tracking site shows. She has also opposed measures designed to improve the Department of Veterans Affairs. In March 2013, Wilson opposed the “Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act,” which prevented a government shutdown and provided funds for the US military and the VA. The bill passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by the Obama administration, providing funding to the military and the VA until the next government shutdown showdown. Later in 2013, Wilson again voted against a resolution aimed at ensuring benefits paid to the veterans and their families would not be affected by the government shutdown in October that year. The motion was particularly important in the wake of reports that the families of four soldiers slain in Afghanistan in 2013 had been deprived of benefits due to the shutdown in Washington. The families of slain soldiers were denied burial benefits and up to $100,000 to each family, among other benefits, the New York Times reported. Wilson voted against the resolution ensuring that the benefits reached the families. Defense Department spokesman Carl Woog said the DOD did not have “the authority to pay death gratuities and other key benefits for the survivors of service members killed in action” due to the government shutdown. Congresswoman Wilson also opposed numerous bills aimed at improving VA services provided the veterans and their families. Wilson's office has not commented on her veterans and military voting record. • Representative Wilson is one more example of ProgDems who talk a good story about loving America and its soldiers, only to act against them, or ignore their needs, when the rubber hits the Progressive road. • • • DEMOCRATS WEAPONIZE GOLD STAR FAMILIES AGAINST TRUMP. As many Democrats weaponize Gold Star families against the GOP, the mainstream media now seems to be approaching the families of dead soldiers one by one in an attempt to find the next controversy surrounding President Trump. • Khizr and Ghazala Khan spoke out against President Trump at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The Gold Star family Khizr and Ghazala Khan were given an opportunity to speak at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Their son, Captain Humayun Khan, was killed in 2004 during the Iraq war. But the Pakistani-American Khan trashed then-candidate Trump rather than honoring their fallen-soldier son. Khizr Khan waved a tiny pocket copy of the US Constitution as he said : “Donald Trump, you're asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.” The Khans were back in the news on Tuesday, mocking Trump in a statement to TheHill : "Trump's “selfish and divisive actions have undermined the dignity of the high office of the presidency.” • Fox News said Gold Star widows and parents were all over the place on Wednesday, from CNN to the New York Times, mostly to criticize Trump. The Washington Post successfully found a Gold Star father who alleged that Trump didn’t come through on a $25,000 promise -- President Trump's check is now on its way. The Associated Press even tweeted a glorified classified ad with the hope of locating more Gold Star families willing to chat. The ad tweet read : “Are you a member of a Gold Star family who’s had contact with the White House? Confidentially share your story here." A former Reuters contributor commented that the AP’s tweet “seems outside the scope” of journalism. • It is DESPICABLE that the Progressive Democrats and their propagandist media are using the families of fallen soldiers as political ammunition and, there seems to be no end in sight to using every situation to attack the duly-elected President that ProgDems detest. • • • DEAR READERS, it is obviously not true that President Trump was disrespectful. General Kelly was in the room when he called and on Thursday put the matter in its proper place. President Trump also talked to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Sunday morning. When asked about General Kelly’s Thursday appearance in the White House briefing room after Trump was criticized for his condolences to the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson and Florida Democratic Representative Frederica Wilson saying Trump told Johnson’s widow that her deceased husband “knew what he signed up for,” Trump said his chief of staff is “an elegant man” : “He was so offended, because he was in the room when I made the call and so were other people. And the call was a very nice call.” Trump also dismissed Wilson’s claim that Kelly was forced to make public statements to keep his job : “He didn't want this job. He is a man who felt this was important for the country.” • I apologize in advance if what I am about to say offends anyone, but let's consider the Trump phone call in its totality. The Progressive Democrats and their bought-and-paid-for media singled out an American black family that lost a son and husband in the military. Sergeant Johnson and all black Americans who serve honorably as soldiers and marines and sailors -- whether Green Berets or regular force members -- deserve the gratitude and deep respect of the entire nation, as do their families. They have truly given the last full measure. But of the four Green Berets killed in Niger, only one was black -- Sergeant La David Johnson -- and Florida Congresswoman Wilson who listened to the call and attacked Trump is black. Why was the only black fallen hero singled out by Progressive Democrats and the mainstream media to be used as a weapon against President Trump? Why was Representative Wilson chosen to carry the Progressive load of attacking Trump? As Wilson later charged in a ProgDem fit, because the Progressive MSM and ProgDems are still trying to label all Republicans, and President Trump in particular, as "racist." But, Sergeant Johnson deserves to be honored as the American hero he was -- not as a black American, but as an American. Full stop. His widow deserves to be comforted in her grief by a thankful nation. His parents and family deserve to hear of his valor; instead of being bombarded by the ugly face of Progressivism trying to turn his death into a political point scored to make of Sergeant La David Johnson's valor anti-Trump political fodder. Shame on Frederica Wilson. Shame on the media. Shame on Progressives. • Wilson claimed that Kelly's use of the term "empty barrel" to describe the contents of her seemingly unhinged mind was the same as attacking the color of her skin. The White House, she added, is "full of white supremacists." But, the supposedly offensive and "dehumanizing" phrase ''empty barrel" that Kelly spoke dates back centuries, and even appears in Shakespeare : "I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart. But the saying is true: ‘The empty vessel makes the greatest sound,' " a character says in Henry V. • The charges, writes American Thinker, are crazier and crazier "as the Left congeals in its inability to accept the wisdom and realism of Kelly's slam-dunk statement. Instead of moving on, they're like a frenzied hooked fish, thrashing and flopping wildly on a deck, knowing they've been caught. It's a waste of time, as the Kelly statement speaks for itself. The Drudge Report has scraped the controversy off its website due to lack of reader interest. RealClearPolitics has largely moved the issue over to a side column. Fewer and fewer pieces are now coming out about it now. Game over. Yell as it likes, the Left has lost." • God bless you, Sergeant Johnson. God bless you, Staff Sergeant Bryan Black, Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson, and Staff Segeant Dustin Wright. America loves you and honors your valor and patriotism and grieves with your families and widows.