02/23/17

HUNT THE MEDIA: James O’Keefe Exposes CNN With Insider Audio [Video]

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Right Wing News

James O’Keefe is going the WikiLeaks route. He has gotten a hold of 119 hours of audio from CNN from 2009. Now, he’s asking Americans to help him out by going through the raw audio and transcribing it. That will help him and his team ferret out the hijinks going on behind the scenes at the media giant that President Trump has labeled, ‘very fake news’. I have no idea if there is anything damning in the audio at O’Keefe’s site… Project Veritas. But there will be a lot of people eager to find out and break a story. I’d say the hunt is on.

Between those such as James O’Keefe and Trevor Loudon, I imagine a lot of people and their dirty laundry are going to be uncovered this year and it should be. Turn about is fair play. CNN has been manipulating our news for years and playing us for fools. Now, maybe we’ll get to see what they really think (not that we don’t already know). After going after ACORN, the Democratic Party, voter fraud and other issues… O’Keefe is now focusing on the media and it should be very interesting to say the least.

From the Washington Examiner:

Conservative sting activist James O’Keefe on Thursday released 100 hours of audio of CNN employees that surreptitiously recorded in 2009 and provided to his organization from an anonymous source.

O’Keefe said he has not edited the audio and is calling on the public to sift through it to find controversial pieces within it. It’s posted at his Project Veritas website.

In one of the clips O’Keefe featured in a tease for all the audio, Richard Griffiths, who is now CNN’s vice president and senior editorial director, is heard describing his philosophy on journalism.

“Aid the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To a degree, right?” Griffiths says, citing a common journalism trope. “Is that not part of the traditional role of a journalist? It’s actually one of the things I can be most proud of as a journalist.”

In another clip, Joe Sterling, who at the time worked as an online editor for CNN, is heard saying “there is no debate” over the science on climate change and he likens it to “born-agains” who say there remains a debate over creationism.

The media wouldn’t be viewed or treated like the enemy if they didn’t play the part so well. Well, now the hunter is the hunted and they’ll get a taste of their own medicine. And there is more on the way to be released. Evidently, there is an anonymous source at CNN and they are feeling like they want some ‘transparency’ in media. They are claiming that so far on the tapes, a displayed hatred for Fox News and the manipulation of polling data to influence the public has been uncovered. The source is a CNN insider who apparently grew frustrated with the perpetually biased reporting of the “fake news” media outlet. Wanna bet they are a Trump supporter?

CNN’s bias for Obama and abject hatred of President Trump is blatantly obvious. There is an open war between them and the White House these days. And with the American people for that matter. The full 119 hours of audio footage will eventually be available here. You may have some issues as traffic is exceedingly high on the site. Keep trying. Meanwhile, noting that this is just the “beginning of the end for the MSM,” O’Keefe also announced that he will pay a $10,000 award to anyone who comes forward with legally obtained audio or video footage exposing media malfeasance. Let the games begin and good hunting!

Joe Sterling, once News Desk Editor @CNN admits he has a clear bias in favor of @POTUS44. Doesn't #CNN claim to be "most trusted?" #CNNLeaks pic.twitter.com/VhxeJCK1lL

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 23, 2017

If you are an employee in a newsroom and hear or see something unethical, record it. If it's good enough I'll pay you $10k. #cnnleaks

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 23, 2017

I want to start exposing the media and their flaws. This is the beginning of the end for the MSM. And it starts today. @CNN

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 23, 2017

Have video inside a newsroom? I will go to jail to protect your name. We will defend you. Come to me. Come to us. I will protect you.

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 23, 2017

Just received confirmation that @realDonaldTrump has seen and heard about the @Project_Veritas @CNN leaks. He said "that's so cool"!

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 23, 2017

11/8/16

FBI Director Confirms that Hillary Lied, and Mishandled Classified Material

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

On Sunday, FBI Director James Comey sought to put a cap on the bottle he opened on October 28 when he announced that the FBI was once again investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails, based on a device they had discovered containing what turned out to be approximately 650,000 emails. The device was the shared computer of sexting pervert and former congressman Anthony Weiner and his long suffering wife, Huma Abedin, top aide to Hillary Clinton and a woman with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Comey caused an uproar in the campaign, on both sides of the aisle. Democrats and their allies in the media were outraged that Comey would drop this bomb into the campaign with 11 days until the election, and not explain the urgency or the substance of his findings. Many Republicans, and their allies, who were outraged by Comey’s conclusions back in July—namely that Hillary Clinton was guilty of serious violations of the law, but that he didn’t believe that she had any criminal intent, nor that “any reasonable prosecutor” would attempt to prosecute the case against her—were saying that maybe Comey was going to implicate Hillary in serious criminal activity after all. He wouldn’t have reopened this matter, they believed, if he didn’t have something new and serious that he had seen.

Now, the roles are reversed again, with Democrats claiming that Comey’s latest statement represents a complete vindication for Hillary, while Republicans are questioning the timing and point of the whole exercise. Did the FBI, even with their high-tech reading devices, actually go through 650,000 emails in a week, and conclude that there is no there there? And why is the State Department only able to process 500 emails per month? The wheels of justice seem to turn at whatever pace the Democrats need them to.

I have a bit of a different take. In the November 6 letter to Congress, Comey stated:

“I write to supplement my October 28, 2016 letter that notified you the FBI would be taking additional investigative steps with respect to former Secretary of State Clinton’s use of a personal email server. Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation. During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.

“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

While Comey did, in fact, argue back in July that he was not recommending an indictment or prosecution of Hillary, he also drew other “conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.” He had concluded that she lied when she said that she hadn’t sent or received classified materials on her private, unsecured server. She lied when she said that nothing that she sent or received was marked classified. She lied when she said that she only used one device, when in fact she used at least 13 devices, at least two of which were destroyed by hammers. And she lied when she said that she had turned over all of her work-related emails. No, in fact Comey said that there were “thousands” of work-related emails they found that she had not turned over. You can watch here to see Comey draw all of these “conclusions” back in July.

This is what the Clinton campaign is wearing as a badge of complete exoneration, and a closing of the books on her so-called email scandal, which is actually a national security scandal. As we have often pointed out, others have gone to jail, been fined, lost their security clearances and were run out of public life for far less egregious examples of mishandling classified material.

Andy McCarthy, the former U.S. Attorney who successfully prosecuted the Blind Sheikh for his involvement in the first World Trade Center bombing, argued back in July that Comey basically rewrote the law. Comey “conceded that former Secretary Clinton was ‘extremely careless’ and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.”

McCarthy added that “Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.”

“In essence,” wrote McCarthy, “in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.”

But this has been a corrupt process. The fix was in. It had to be to protect President Obama as well, who knowingly exchanged emails with Hillary on her private server. As Politico pointed out, “President Barack Obama used a pseudonym in email communications with Hillary Clinton and others, according to FBI records…” Those FBI records, released in late September, confirmed what McCarthy had earlier predicted: “As I explained in February,” wrote McCarthy, “when it emerged that the White House was refusing to disclose at least 22 communications Obama had exchanged with then-secretary Clinton over the latter’s private e-mail account, we knew that Obama had knowingly engaged in the same misconduct that was the focus of the Clinton probe: the reckless mishandling of classified information.”

It is possible that America will be electing someone as president on Tuesday who has committed serious crimes that could all be wiped away by a presidential pardon. The media’s failure to accurately cover this story could very well be the cause of a major constitutional crisis, the likes we’ve never witnessed before.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

11/2/16

IMAP: Four letters that spell potential doom for Hillary and Huma

Doug Ross @ Journal

I’ll bet you’re growing tired of the ongoing cancer that is the Hillary Clinton campaign of corruption, cover-ups and criminality.

Fear not. I’ve got something you may not have heard before. I hadn’t heard of it until an hour or so ago. It’s a technical acronym, related to Internet email, that most lay people wouldn’t quite grok.

The inimitable Karl Denninger offers us the single, critical tidbit of data that makes all the difference. It relates to a statement that tech billionaire Mark Cuban made on CNBC:

This “newly discovered” laptop is very likely to be literal nuclear waste for Hillary and everyone around her, including the Clinton Foundation and all of Hillary’s “advisers” such as Podesta.

Mark Cuban said that Huma used Outlook and IMAP (for Yahoo and similar). True.

But then he said this was unlikely to lead to “new” evidence in the form of the emails.

That’s a lie.

It’s a lie because Cuban knows he’s full of crap; he knows enough about the technologies involved to be fully aware that he was peddling nonsense.

The term IMAP is key. It represents an Internet email protocol — a messaging language — that copies data from a server to a client. In English, IMAP would copy messages from Hillary Clinton’s illegal, bathroom email server to a single PC running Outlook. Like the PC Huma shared with ~~Carlos Danger~~ Anthony ~~Weinis~~ Weiner.

And that means all messages on Hillary’s server that were addressed to Huma Abedin may have been replicated to the Weiner machine.

Well, Doug, what does all of this mean? Consider the following:

It’s likely that Huma Abedin committed perjury: Under oath, Hillary’s key aide asserted that she had turned all over all emails related to her work with the Clinton State Department. Problem is, who else but Abedin would have bothered to configure Outlook to read Clinton’s emails?
Those ‘deleted’ 33,000 emails? Maybe not so much: Any email addressed to Abedin, whether “To:”, “From:”, “CC:”, or “BCC:”, would have been copied to Abedin’s Weiner PC. Those 33,000 emails that Clinton attempted to delete with BleachBit, hammers, and magnets? They are very likely to have survived Hillary’s purge.
The Clinton Foundation’s secrets exposed: The reason that Clinton nuked the infamous 33,000 emails almost certainly relate to the intersection of the Clinton Foundation, the State Department, and Teneo Corporation (that’s the super, happy, fun “company” that ties all of the Clinton syndicates togather, RICO-style). Weiner Foundation, anyone?
FBI Director James Comey’s hand was forced: When faced with these revelations — the replication of emails from the Clinton bathroom server to the Weiner-puter — Comey realized he was in a major jam. Which led to the latest Hillary debacle.

The implications of IMAP on the Abedin-Hillary-Weiner-puter scandal cannot be overstated. It means, simply, that the hammer of Thor is about to come down on the Clinton RICO syndicate, whether before the election or after.

Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News.

09/30/16

Was the Fix in on FBI Investigation of Hillary Clinton’s Emails?

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

The more that details about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices come to light, the more their efforts appear to have been a sham designed to exonerate her of wrongdoing from the very beginning. As we wrote, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) failure to indict Hillary, based on the recommendation of FBI Director James Comey, has moved the United States closer to banana republic status.

The Clinton family’s ongoing corruption and Hillary Clinton’s pay-to-play as secretary of state have also created a precedent which could encourage other politicians to enrich themselves at the expense of the integrity of their office. The FBI’s light touch also has created a double standard on national security, where high-profile figures such as Mrs. Clinton walk free while others lose their security clearance or are fined or jailed.

Yet some on the left are unhappy with Comey’s investigation because of the comments he made publicly characterizing Mrs. Clinton as “extremely careless” with classified information. “What Comey should have done…was handle the Clinton probe like any other routine inquiry: provide confidential recommendations to prosecutors, release a strictly factual statement noting that the investigation would be closed, and resist external pressures to inappropriately air the FBI’s findings outside a court of law,” argues Riley Roberts, former speechwriter for former Attorney General Eric Holder, in Politico Magazine.

Arguably, Clinton’s status as a presidential candidate under FBI investigation may have called for some public justification of the FBI’s decision. However, despite Comey’s open criticisms, the fact remains that he decided to recommend no indictment for Hillary Clinton. There will be no accountability for Clinton’s many lies about classified information on her private email server or the way she jeopardized national security as secretary of state.

Upon further review, it appears that Mr. Comey’s investigation was highly unusual, given the five immunity agreements that were handed out. According to Paul Sperry, writing for the New York Post, not only was Platte River Networks’ Paul Combetta granted immunity, the DOJ upheld this immunity despite the fact that he had lied to the investigators during an interview.

“Instead of asking Attorney General Loretta Lynch to revoke his immunity deal and squeezing him, Comey let [Combetta] go because he was a ‘low-level guy,’ he testified at the House hearing. It’s yet another action by Comey,” wrote Sperry, “that has left former prosecutors shaking their heads.”

At that September 28 House Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Director Comey as a witness, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) accused Combetta of “trying to cover-up the cover-up” by first using Reddit to solicit information on how to strip email address information and then trying to delete his posts. “The same guy later took Bleachbit and did delete emails,” continued Rep. Jordan.

But Comey insisted that the immunity agreement was necessary to ensure that the FBI got the facts.

“There’s no doubt Combetta was involved in deleting emails,” said Comey. “He had the ‘O-sh-t’ moment, as he told us, and that’s why it was very important for us to interview this guy to find out who told you to do that, why did you do that.”

According to Andy McCarthy, writing for National Review, Secretary Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills and Clinton aide Heather Samuelson also received immunity agreements meant to ensure that they gave the FBI access to their laptops. However, the FBI could have just subpoenaed the computers or obtained a search warrant instead.

Sperry makes it clear that Mills was lying to investigators, as well. She, apparently, “told agents she had no idea Clinton maintained a private email server,” he writes. However, the email record demonstrates that she emailed the server administrator to ask about the status of that very server.

McCarthy calls the granting of these immunity agreements “very strange” behavior by the FBI. “The Justice Department could have required the production of the computer by simply issuing a grand jury subpoena,” he writes. “And had there been any concern that Mills would not cooperate, would destroy the computer, or would ‘misplace’ it (as Team Clinton claims to have misplaced so many Hillary devices), investigators could have applied for a search warrant and seized the computer.”

To add insult to injury, the FBI allowed Samuelson and Mills to sit in on Hillary Clinton’s interview with the bureau.

Former U.S. attorney Solomon Wisenberg, who conducted the grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton, argues that the FBI should never have allowed Cheryl Mills to sit in on Mrs. Clinton’s interview. “Competent prosecutors do not allow a key witness to participate as an attorney in an FBI interview of the main subject,” he writes. “It just isn’t done.” He writes that “if Clinton insisted on Mills’s attendance, the interview would be conducted under the auspices of the federal grand jury.”

In addition, it was inappropriate that the only interview of such a high profile subject wasn’t recorded. It is preposterous that nine people were allowed to sit in during the interview. Comey acknowledged that this was unusual, but he said it was not unprecedented, though he didn’t cite any precedents.

The FBI should have convened a grand jury instead of just conducting light touch interviews, argued former U.S. attorney Joe DiGenova, speaking at a recent Judicial Watch event. “Now, it is evident to me…what Mr. Comey should have done at the beginning of this investigation was empanel a grand jury,” said DiGenova. “When you want to investigate crimes involving national security information, classified information, you don’t do interviews. You issue subpoenas to witnesses, third parties for documents. You make people come into court and fight them in front of a federal judge…”

The left continues to claim that Mrs. Clinton is held to a different standard, a double standard when compared to other candidates. However, it is clear that the FBI did hold Mrs. Clinton and her aides to a different standard—one which gives a free pass to lies and corruption.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

09/19/16

THE CLINTON LIE RATCHET

Hat Tip: Craig Miller

09/13/16

Why Hillary Continues to Lie

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

Why does Hillary Clinton continue lying and covering up her various activities, whether it is her pneumonia, or the fact that she regularly sent and received classified information on a private, unsecured server, or that she traded favors, influence and access as secretary of state for large payments to her husband or her family’s foundation? It is because if she told the truth, she would never be elected president, and would almost certainly end up behind bars.

When asked why she decided to keep secret the medical diagnosis she received on Friday, she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night that “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal. It’s just the kind of thing that if it happens to you and you’re a busy, active person, you keep moving forward.” If Hillary hadn’t been caught by a bystander’s cell-phone camera nearly collapsing as she was being helped into her limousine, we probably still wouldn’t know about her pneumonia. Her lack of transparency on this matter has forced the liberal media to acknowledge Hillary’s health issues, which have fueled much speculation about other possible ailments she may be hiding.

With the release of the notes on the FBI investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s handling of classified material, and the Bureau’s interview with her, it becomes more and more apparent that she is trying to run out the campaign clock without admitting to her many lies. When Hillary first explained the use of her private server, she said it was a matter of convenience, so that she could use just one device. But the FBI summary reveals that there were actually 13 mobile devices she used, plus several iPads. At least one, maybe two, of the phones were destroyed by a hammer.

CNN reports that Mrs. Clinton told the FBI she could not recall, or did not remember, at least 39 times during her interview. Alex Griswold, writing for Mediaite, gives more details into 40 examples of Mrs. Clinton’s unbelievable memory hole, based on what she told the FBI.

Apparently, according to Griswold, the FBI interview indicates that Mrs. Clinton “could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information.” She also claimed that she didn’t remember what the “(C)” represented on many documents she handled, even though it is regularly used by the State Department to denote information classified at the confidential level. “Clinton stated that she did not know what the ‘(C)’ meant at the beginning of the paragraphs and speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order,” states the FBI notes.

Yet Mrs. Clinton’s signature can be found on a classified information non-disclosure agreement that she signed upon taking the position of secretary of state. The agreement states, “Classified information is marked or unmarked classified information, including oral communication. I understand and accept that by being granted access to classified information, special confidence and trust shall be placed in me by the United States Government.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if there were headers or other markings. It’s her job to recognize classified information, in whatever form. Former prosecutor Andy McCarthy pointed out that this signed document indicates that Mrs. Clinton did, in fact, receive training on the use of classified information. “The simple fact, so familiar in Mrs. Clinton’s case, is that she’s lying,” writes McCarthy.

“Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system,” states the FBI file. This shows the light touch treatment that FBI Director James Comey’s department gave Hillary Clinton during the investigation. It was not enough to simply state publicly to the nation that Mrs. Clinton was “extremely careless” with classified information—an indictment was clearly warranted. And it seems suspicious that the FBI interviewed Mrs. Clinton last, not first—and only about72 hours before announcing the FBI’s decision not to indict. The fix was clearly in.

Breitbart News investigated potential conflicts of interest between Comey and the Clintons, and found some very intriguing connections. For example, they report that Comey made more than $6 million in compensation from Lockheed Martin during the last year he worked for them, which was 2010. That is the year that Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor, and also “won 17 approvals for private contracts from the Hillary Clinton State Department.” There were other such situations that qualified as, at the very least, the appearance of conflicts of interest.

Comey’s brother, Peter, was a senior director for DLA Piper, “the firm that performed the independent audit of the Clinton Foundation in November during Clinton-World’s first big push to put the email scandal behind them.”

Comey, a deputy attorney general for two years during the George W. Bush administration who was appointed FBI Director by President Obama in 2013, had not disclosed these personal or professional relationships when he announced that Mrs. Clinton should not be prosecuted for her mishandling of classified materials.

The Democrats, and the media, are asking citizens to accept, on blind faith, the many lies of Hillary Clinton—including the gigantic cover-up that is the Benghazi scandal. Voters are supposed to accept Hillary’s lie that she didn’t send or receive classified information with headers or markings, and that she only deleted her emails related to yoga or her personal life. As McCarthy points out, “A great deal of classified information is not marked at all.”

The latter lie—that she had turned over all of her work related emails—has been blown apart by the news that the FBI has handed over 14,900 Hillary Clinton emails that it salvaged during its investigation into Hillary’s server. “Actually, the FBI recovered tens of thousands,” said Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “This first batch of 14,900 that we’ll be getting in the next couple of weeks is only one disc of seven cds full of emails. There are thousands still out there. We’re going to get every single one of them, I assure you.” He said that the 14,900 deal directly with Mrs. Clinton.

It is impossible to know what information these many emails contain until they are released, but until then the existence of Clinton emails that may have been work-related yet deleted calls into question Mrs. Clinton’s honesty and integrity.

Mrs. Clinton and her faithful media supporters are working together to cover up the malfeasance of Hillary Clinton and downplay her many lies. It is difficult and frustrating for them at times. Despite the media’s complicity in covering for Hillary, the truth continues to shine through.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

09/8/16

Where is the justice we have been promised in this country?

By: Sridhar “Sri” Rangaswamy

With Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and the enormous amounts of foreign donations of money to The Clinton Foundation, we have reached the highest point of corruption in the country!

We’ve all read, reviewed and heard several email news stories about Clinton’s scandal. Even now, The White House and President Obama have yet to take action. They have yet to serve justice. Instead, they are supporting and endorsing this kind of person to run for president, including Joe Biden who claims he is honest.

President Obama doesn’t even stand up for our values or our principles. Doesn’t he hold the highest office? He’s supposed to be one with the highest integrity, right? Yes, he does not take action. What do you call this?

This country definitely changed after Abraham Lincoln left this world. This was a place people come to for honesty, fairness, truth and a new approach to the world. People migrate here to get to a higher level of livelihood and education, through honest and fair means.

In today’s world, as we’ve seen, no one has taken action or seems to care about Hillary and her email scandal and the fact that she was sending emails to foreign countries. If this was done by our Donald Trump, all media, including CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc., would have spread the word across the globe. Liberal news only showed the killer’s dad who was present in the Clinton’s rally in Kissimmee, FL for only about 48 seconds. This is so sad.

Reporters need to be fair. Fair in all things they need to show. Fairness in reporting is key to true knowledge and information.

Hillary Clinton could pretty much do whatever she wanted. They all treat her as if she is “above the law”.

We have a constitution. We are free people. We are fair and gives everyone equal opportunity. We also have rules. Rules that everyone must abide by. No one should be given special treatment. We shall re-evaluate and bring forth justice, truths and facts to the world. According to Clinton’s email case, Hillary and her foundation can get away with anything.

As history will tell it, Mrs. Hillary Clinton can get away with anything:

Email Server
Money Laundering
Benghazi – She has no answer to those deaths.
Clinton Foundation – All the donors were from the Middle East, who does not let women drive or have liberty. They also oppress the LGBT community and supporters.

Does anyone have the courage to hold her accountable? Or will our country go downhill as it has for the past 8 years?

08/28/16

AP Story on Conflicts of Interest Puts Hillary on the Defensive

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

The Clinton family’s history of pay-for-play while Hillary was secretary of state is blatant, willful, and indisputable. The latest chapter in the Clintons’ quid pro quo scheme was brought to light by the Associated Press. But many in the media have quickly moved past this story, even insisting that the AP was cherry-picking their data to make Mrs. Clinton look bad. Some news organizations, such as CNN, reported the latest revelations as being pounced on by the Trump campaign—rather than the product of excellent investigative reporting by the AP, a solid, member-in-good-standing of the liberal media establishment that apparently stepped out of line, just a little bit.

The media also have dwelled on, and repeatedly mentioned, the story that Trump might be waffling on his immigration policy. Where is the similar passion given to a legitimate story of Clinton corruption?

“Clinton critics have not proven that Clinton or the State Department materially granted any favors to possible donors, but the report and other emerging information is reigniting the firestorm over the foundation,” writes Theodore Schleifer in, “Trump, RNC Seize on new report to attack Clinton Foundation” for CNN. “Trump’s campaign and Republicans have sought to cast suspicion over Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and argued that foreign donors’ contributions to the foundation created inevitable conflict-of-interest questions,” he continues.

Other media organizations, such as US News & World Report, did stories that limited their reporting largely to repeating the Clinton campaign’s defensive arguments. This is all part of the mainstream media’s plan to sow division by, essentially, getting viewers to judge new information by asking themselves whether they are on the side of Trump or Clinton. But the merits of the AP story outweigh Trump’s actions; it serves as one more indisputable example of how the Clintons put a price tag on access to and favors from the State Department.

“More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money—either personally or through companies or groups—to the Clinton Foundation,” opens the AP article. “At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press.”

The donors contributed up to $156 million to the Clinton Foundation, reports the AP. Some government representatives who met with Mrs. Clinton came from 16 countries that had donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity. The Clinton Foundation, the Federalist has reported, only spent approximately 10 percent of its 2013 budget on charitable grants.

The Washington Examiner also documented back in 2014 the money flowing to Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation while his wife was secretary of state.

“According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch and released Wednesday in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case, State Department officials charged with reviewing Bill Clinton’s proposed speeches did not object to a single one,” reported the Examiner in 2014. The Obama administration’s State Department simply rubber-stamped them.

The AP story “just plain looks bad,” writes Chris Cillizza for The Washington Post. “Really bad.” He writes that, as with Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails, the Clinton campaign response boils down to “trust us”—even though polling shows that Mrs. Clinton isn’t considered trustworthy at all.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper deserves credit for some tough questions that he asked of Hillary on Wednesday evening. He asked her to explain why the foundation would stop taking foreign donations if she becomes president, but didn’t stop while she was secretary of state. She dodged the question, saying that if she becomes president there would be “unique circumstances,” and when pressed how that was different—why there weren’t “unique circumstances” when she was secretary of state—she answered, “I know there’s a lot of smoke and there’s no fire.” But she never explained the difference.

When Cooper cited former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s repudiation of Mrs. Clinton’s claim that Powell had advised her at the start of her term as secretary to use a personal email account, she again didn’t answer the question, but instead said, “I’m not going to relitigate in public my private conversations with him.” She then added, “I want people to know that the decision to have a single e-mail account was mine. I take responsibility for it. I’ve apologized for it. I would certainly do differently if I could.” But that’s not the issue. The issue was knowingly sending and receiving classified—including Top Secret—information on her private, unsecured server. If she apologized for that, she would have to face a jury of her peers, so she’ll just keep lying instead.

The reason Mrs. Clinton is considered untrustworthy is, in part, because of her foundation’s shady dealings and quid pro quo. Another reason is that she just can’t stop lying about her emails, or Benghazi, or anything that might embarrass her as a candidate.

“And while nothing in the AP story is proof of any wrongdoing, it is proof of bad judgment,” writes Cillizza. The Clintons’ blatant pay-for-play scheme may have no smoking gun. However, many people have been jailed for less than what has been described here.

But let’s not forget the Laureate Education deal, where, as we’ve cited, “More than $16 million was paid to Bill Clinton through a shell corporation after which more than $55 million American taxpayer dollars flowed out of Hillary Clinton’s State Department to a non-profit run by Laureate CEO Douglas Becker.”

“Bill Clinton resigned from his position as ‘honorary chancellor’ of Laureate in April of 2015, right after the disclosure of the information from Clinton Cash was made public,” we wrote, and asked why Trump University was garnering so much more coverage than the Laureate Education scandal.

While the Clinton campaign and their allies in the media maintain that the AP cherry-picked its information, examples of quid pro quo by the Clintons extend to Russia’sSkolkovo project and the Uranium One deal, to name two more. The AP has pushed backon its critics, pointing out that they stand by their story, and that this was reported by the same team of investigative reporters who broke the story that led to Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s departure.

“The idea that this many people on the private citizen side as opposed to all officials were connected to the foundation and meeting with her at the State Department smells bad,”said Chris Cuomo on CNN. “You say nefarious. I’m not saying it’s illegal. I’m not saying it’s a felony. That shouldn’t be the bar for wrongdoing either. It seems wrong and inappropriate. Isn’t that enough to draw criticism?”

The relationship between the Clinton Foundation and her State Department is proving to be a significant problem for Hillary Clinton—but it will only become and stay an election issue if the media allow it to do so. Questions about Hillary’s corruption will only take center stage if the news media stop disingenuously casting real investigative reporting as part of Trump’s reaction rather than discussing the facts uncovered.

Roger Aronoff

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff.

08/15/16

Paul Manafort Gets Caught With His Paw In The Russian Till

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: Renee Nal – New Zeal

If anyone dares to tell me they are shocked by this, I may have to trout smack them into oblivion. Just sayin’.

Donald Trump’s #1 guy, Paul Manafort seems to have got caught with his paw in the Russian till. Secret ledgers have been discovered that show him receiving millions of bucks from the Russkies. Wonder if corruption was a prerequisite for being Trump’s campaign manager?

And you know who tweeted this first? Corey Lewandowski.

Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief https://t.co/7bh7iIHHaY

— Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) August 15, 2016

I would have sworn that Lewandowski was a plant for Trump, but this wasn’t very Trumpesque. Unless of course the point was to get back at Manafort and create an opening so he could return to the fold and give Paul the boot. Who knows?

From The National Review:

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials…

Anti-corruption officials there say the payments earmarked for Mr. Manafort, previously unreported, are a focus of their investigation, though they have yet to determine if he actually received the cash. While Mr. Manafort is not a target in the separate inquiry of offshore activities, prosecutors say he must have realized the implications of his financial dealings.

Gee, Manafort denied that any of this happened. Imagine that. Looks like he lied… so not surprised. It also appears that he was not only taking legitimate payments from political parties in the Ukraine, he was getting paid under the table clandestinely. One wonders why Manafort would be getting paid off the books… exactly what did he do to warrant this secretive payment of funds?

He came unglued over The New York Times exposing his income streams: “I have never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia.” Right. I have seen far more than enough evidence to know that denial is utter bullcrap. This guy is a political consultant and a lobbyist. He’s parsing his words there. Notice how he chose them carefully… that doesn’t mean he didn’t work for an oligarch or a political party… or even Putin himself. It means he didn’t ‘directly’ work for one of those governments. Words matter, especially when dealing with sleazy shadowy political figures.

As previously noted at National Review:

Manafort’s friends describe his relationship with Yanukovych as a political love connection, born out of Yanukovych’s first downfall when he was driven from power by the 2004 Orange Revolution. Feeling that his domestic political advisers had failed him, Yanukovych turned to a foreign company, Davis Manafort, which was already doing work for the Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. The former Ukrainian PM and Manafort, the Georgetown-educated son of a Connecticut politician, hit it off.

Manafort’s firm had a set of international clients and produced an analysis of the Orange Revolution that Yanukovych found instructive, according to one operative involved in Yanukovych’s political rehabilitation. Manafort became, in effect, a general consultant to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, shaping big-picture messaging, coaching Yanukovych to speak in punchy, American-style sound bites and managing teams of consultants and attorneys in both Ukraine and the United States ahead of an anticipated Yanukovych comeback. While it’s difficult to track payments in foreign elections, a former associate familiar with Manafort’s earnings say they ran into the seven figures over several years.

After Yanukovych’s 2010 victory, Manafort stayed on as an adviser to the Russia-friendly president and became involved in other business projects in Eastern Europe.

Russian-friendly doesn’t quite get it here. It went much deeper than that and I’m sure that Manafort was well aware of that fact. Manafort claims: “My work in Ukraine ceased following the country’s parliamentary elections in October 2014.” Well duh. Yanukovych was overthrown and that tends to put a damper on your corrupt connections. In February 2014, Yanukovych was whisked away by Russian special forces to a safe haven in Russia. And I sincerely believe the relationship with Manafort did not end there.

Criminal prosecutors are also looking into a group of offshore shell companies that helped members of Yanukovych’s inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles, including a palatial presidential residence with a private zoo, golf course and tennis court. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin. Very, very interesting.

As for Manafort saying that he quit working for Yanukovych in 2014, I find it curious that he had an office in Kiev until May of this year with furniture and personal items that were still there. Tie to that the documents just uncovered that suggest he was involved in looting Ukrainian assets and influencing elections and Manafort starts to look like a thug, if not an asset for the Russians.

The US has always viewed Russia as a threat and an enemy. Especially during the Reagan Administration. And they still should be viewed as such. But during the Republican Convention this year, things went sideways in an alarming way. Donald Trump and Paul Manafort did not oppose anything in the GOP plank… except for one item. They changed the platform to not call for arming the Ukrainians against the Russians. What does that tell you? Does it speak of Russian interests when the one thing that Trump focused on was a plank that supports the Russians directly? Hmmm? His campaign manager worked for those against the Ukraine and for Russia. Gee… usually the answer is the most obvious one and that one puts Trump and Manafort squarely in Putin’s camp. Since the convention there have been statements by Trump saying that he actually favors Russia annexing Crimea.

The Ukrainians are bluntly stating that Manafort had to know of the corruption. I’m sure he did… in fact, I’m certain he was in the middle of it waist deep. More and more of this will be uncovered as time goes by trust me. Manafort has his attorneys aggressively denying any of this, but it looks to me like they have found concrete proof of corruption.

I’m just wondering if Trump approached Manafort, or did Manafort approach Trump? That’s important. Manafort’s biggest clients have been Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Yanukovych… both deposed in popular uprisings. Exactly what does that tell you about Donald Trump?

What has surfaced now is the “black ledger.” Basically a book that has about 400 pages of scribbled entries that are combined from books once kept at the Party of Regions headquarters in Kiev. In that headquarters were two safes that were stuffed with $100 bills, said Taras V. Chornovil, a former party leader who was also a recipient of the money at times. He said in an interview that he had once received $10,000 in a “wad of cash” for a trip to Europe.

“This was our cash,” he said, adding that he had left the party in part over concerns about off-the-books activity. “They had it on the table, stacks of money, and they had lists of who to pay.”

Manafort’s name appeared 22 times in those documents over a five year period. He allegedly received $12.7 million in payments. Since the entries are pretty much chicken scratch, there is no way to tie them to a bank. He covered his tracks very well. There’s also no way to know what he did to earn that money. Not yet anyway. These accounting records just surfaced this year. Bad timing for Manafort.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau, whose government funding is mandated under American and European Union aid programs and which has an evidence-sharing agreement with the FBI, has investigatory powers, but cannot indict suspects. No documents have been sent to prosecutors on Manafort, so he’s not part of a criminal case just yet. Make no mistake… this is corruption and that money is dirty.

Manafort also benefited and profited from business deals and connections through political consulting. One of those involved a network of offshore companies that government investigators and independent journalists in the Ukraine have said was used to launder public money and assets purportedly stolen by cronies of the government. These shell companies had owners who were shielded by the secrecy laws of the offshore jurisdictions where they were registered, including the British Virgin Islands, Belize and the Seychelles.

Manafort is tied to a now defunct investment fund called Pericles Emerging Markets. He started the fund with several partners back in 2007. Here’s the kicker. The major backer was Deripaska, a Russian mogul who has supposed ties to organized crime… the Russian mob. See where this is going?

Deripaska agreed to commit as much as $100 million to Pericles, so it could buy assets in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe, including a regional cable television and communications company called Black Sea Cable. But corporate records and court filings show that it was hardly a straightforward transaction. The Black Sea Cable assets were controlled by offshore companies that led back to the Yanukovych network, including, at various times, Milltown Corporate Services and two other companies well known to law enforcement officials, Monohold A.G. and Intrahold A.G.

From The New York Times:

Mr. Deripaska would later say he invested $18.9 million in Pericles in 2008 to complete the acquisition of Black Sea Cable. But the planned purchase — including the question of who ended up with the Black Sea assets — has since become the subject of a dispute between Mr. Deripaska and Mr. Manafort.

In 2014, Mr. Deripaska filed a legal action in a Cayman Islands court seeking to recover his investment in Pericles, which is now defunct. He also said he had paid about $7.3 million in management fees to the fund over two years. Mr. Deripaska did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Manafort’s lawyer, Mr. Hibey, disputed the account of the Black Sea Cable deal contained in Mr. Deripaska’s Cayman filings, and said the Russian oligarch had overseen details of the final transaction involving the acquisition. He denied that Mr. Manafort had received management fees from Pericles during its operation, but said that one of Mr. Manafort’s partners, Rick Gates, who is also working on the Trump campaign, had received a “nominal” sum.

Court papers indicate that Pericles’ only deal involved Black Sea Cable.

Manafort has not dissolved his company in the Ukraine and his aids have been there this year. Does that sound like he is not involved with the Russians anymore? Nyet.

There is far too much Russian influence around Donald Trump and Paul Manafort is the most prominent one and closest to him. His actions speak of a close relationship with Russian interests no matter what they claim. Does it matter if Manafort took dirty money from the Russians? Hell yeah, it does. And does it matter who Trump surrounds himself with? Even more so.

07/6/16

The Rule of Law is Dead in America

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

I have lost all faith in both parties and our government. Yesterday, the rule of law in America officially died. There was no fanfare or pretense… only corruption. As Ayn Rand said: “When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.” That just about sums it up. Time to go to Galt’s Gulch.

FBI Director James Comey pronounced Hillary Clinton innocent of all wrong doing in the email scandal that has engulfed her now for well over a year. A man who was thought to be ethical and had integrity proved beyond a shadow of a doubt he was anything but. I have said from the beginning, when you lose the unbiased nature of our military and intelligence agencies, you are toast and he has unfortunately proven me exceedingly right.

Noah Rothman at Commentary wrote:

No amount of cynicism could have prepared Americans for what they witnessed on Tuesday morning, and 2016 has not been short on cynicism.

That has bite and screams truth from the rooftops. But if you want even more truth, ask someone who lived under communism what this means. In response to the Comey verdict, Karo. Markowicz tweeted out a statement as to how others who came from the USSR expected no other result: “Guys, the ex-president’s wife was never going to get indicted.” – all my USSR-born friends.” We now live under a manipulated, de facto dictatorship, regardless of party, that pretends Americans are free, while ruling corruptly for and by the elite. Sounds a lot like communist Russia or China to me.

History repeats itself and this particular chapter has Russian overtones – EdgeOfTheSandbox had this to say:

In the waning days of the Soviet Union, the goings on of the nomenclatura were shrouded in mystery. We gossiped about the families of Politburo members, but didn’t know who they were for sure. The only thing certain was that they were above the law, or whatever pretense at law the USSR managed to stage. This produced a culture of cynicism and hopelessness and an epidemic of alcoholism.

Feels oh so familiar, now doesn’t it? Andrew McCarthy nailed it in his first paragraph over at National Review:

There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.

And yet, here we are. Hillary Clinton walks away unscathed after committing blatant violations of the Espionage Act and what I consider to be treason. The fix was in, she was never going to answer for any of this. Ever.