02/14/17

Kellyanne Conway Reveals The Reason That Michael Flynn Finally Had To Go [VIDEO]

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Right Wing News

I am sure you have heard that Michael Flynn resigned as National Security Adviser last night amidst allegations that he spoke of sanctions with the Russians before Trump took office. I have never cared for Michael Flynn. I gave him a clean slate when he came in. But after hearing what transpired, resigning was the right thing to do. I don’t know whether he resigned of his own volition or at the behest of President Trump, but he had to go. He spoke to the Russian ambassador five separate times. You can bet the intelligence agencies have that on tape. When Mike Pence asked him if he had discussed sanctions, he lied to him and Pence went forth and looked like a fool over it. The word out there is Pence was furious. Kellyanne Conway came right out and said that lying to Pence was the deciding factor here.

Michael Flynn was originally fired by Obama after serving a couple of months under him. He only lasted a couple of weeks with Trump and he probably would have been gone sooner, but Trump remained loyal to him. As recently as 2014, Flynn had gone to Russia before Trump came into the picture. The Department of Justice warned the White House that Flynn was susceptible to blackmail from the Russians. Just before Trump came into office, Obama levied sanctions on Russia. Normally, the Russians would have struck back, but did not, saying they would wait for the Trump presidency. That was after calls from Flynn, who most likely assured them that sanctions would be lifted. This whole mess is complicated. You have nine leakers involved that went to the media. These are probably a mix of White House insiders (leftovers from the Obama administration) and intelligence people.

From NBC’s Today Show:

“In the end, it was misleading the vice president that made the situation unsustainable,” Conway told TODAY’s Matt Lauer.

The incomplete information or the inability to completely recall what did or did not happen as reflected in his debriefing of particular phone calls — that really is what happened here,” she said.

Flynn’s departure comes less than a month into the job and follows revelations about information he shared with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak over American sanctions against Russia in late December, weeks before Trump took office.

“He knew he had become a lightening rod and he made that decision,” Conway said.

On TODAY, Conway was asked repeatedly why, despite reports that the Justice Department told the White House last month that Flynn had misled them and even put himself at risk for blackmail, he continued to retain the president’s full trust.

Conway said Flynn continued to be a part of daily presidential briefings as recently as Monday but “as time wore on, obviously, the situation had become unsustainable.”

She said that the president accepted Flynn’s resignation and “wishes him well, and we’re moving on,” noting three “very strong candidates” the administration is considering to replace him.

Arguably, Flynn was the worst pick of those chosen for Trump’s cabinet. I am not sad to see him go as I feel he was compromised by the Russians. I’m also not happy about it as it hurts the Trump administration deeply and exposes a very dangerous rift between Trump and the intelligence agencies. The left will also use this to accuse Trump of further connections with Russia. Trump needs to aggressively clean house in the White House and intel agencies and get rid of everyone who was ever even remotely connected to Obama. If I were him, I’d have Pompeo in my office this morning, reaming him a new one over this.

There appears to be chaos in the People’s House right now and that just can’t be allowed. The Democrats won’t care about the truth, just nailing Trump every way they can. They also don’t care that it hurts the country and puts us at risk. The media is celebrating this today and that is just despicable. Thankfully, Trump has three solid contenders to replace Flynn. Kellogg would be my choice at this point. It doesn’t matter how I feel about Flynn personally… this is a massively bad thing to happen so shortly after Trump takes office. Time to get serious and perhaps try some of that extreme vetting within our own leadership.

01/25/17

Will Trump’s CIA Investigate Itself?

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

When President Trump was greeted with cheers and strong applause at CIA headquarters, you knew that Obama’s CIA director John Brennan would decide to strike back. The liberal media were quick to quote Brennan as saying that he was “saddened” and “angered” by Trump’s remarks. But where did these quotes come from? Who provided them to the media?

The rest of the story sheds light on how politically partisan the CIA became under Brennan, and how rank-and-file CIA officers who want to “Make America Great Again” seem so happy that he is gone.

Nick Shapiro, the source of the Brennan quotes, is a “former CIA Deputy Chief of Staff,” which sounds impressive until you learn that Shapiro was a partisan mouthpiece not only for Brennan but for President Obama and, before that, John Kerry.

The controversial Brennan admittedly voted communist before joining the CIA and reportedly converted to Islam when he was in Saudi Arabia as CIA station chief. He was in charge of President Obama’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood policy that decimated the Middle East with endless wars that have produced millions of refugees.

“Ex-CIA chief Brennan bashes Trump over speech during CIA visit” was the headline over the predictably partisan CNN story. “Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump’s despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes,” Shapiro said in a statement. “Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself.”

Shapiro’s quotes, attributed to Brennan, were picked up by many other media outlets as well.

In his speech, Trump talked about winning the war against radical Islamic terrorism with the help of the CIA. He discussed his battles with the “dishonest media,” comments that were also greeted enthusiastically.

In contrast to employing a winning strategy against radical Islam, Brennan said it was “regrettable” that Obama’s policy in Syria was a failure, a remark that generated little media interest even though the number of dead in Syria is now estimated as high as 500,000.

It was clear to any objective observer with a set of eyes and ears that Trump’s speech at CIA headquarters was a tremendous success. He was interrupted by applause 11 times.

Brennan, on the defensive for Obama’s policies that have left Europe in a refugee crisis that shows no sign of ending, decided to use Shapiro, a public relations operative, to bash the President.

Despite his CIA affiliation, Shapiro graduated from Tulane University in 2002 with no background in intelligence matters or foreign affairs. He had a Bachelor’s degree in communications and went to work for a public relations agency. He worked on Democrat John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and then as Deputy Press Secretary on Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign. He went to work for President Obama, handling “national reporters on a 24/7 basis,” according to one account. It looks like he was then dispatched to the CIA to help Brennan with the national media.

Those kinds of media manipulation skills were on display when the media lapped up the anti-Trump allegations from Brennan’s CIA, packaged in the form of anonymous sources. They were designed to depict Trump as winning the presidential election unfairly with the help of the Russians.

During the current controversy, Shapiro put Brennan’s comments on his Twitter feed and then promoted a CNN story attacking Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Trump’s nominee to run the CIA.

In other words, this is more politics from those who were running the CIA under Obama. They seem to be afraid that Trump and Pompeo will shake up the agency and get to the bottom of the damage that Brennan has inflicted on the CIA.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, was absolutely correct on ABC News’ “This Week” when she called Brennan a “partisan political hack” for criticizing the President’s speech. She noted that Trump got a standing ovation.

On “Fox News Sunday,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus indicated that Brennan was “bitter” over being replaced. He also said that Brennan “has a lot of things that he should answer for in regards to these leaked documents,” a reference to the unverified sexual charges made against Trump that were leaked to CNN and BuzzFeed. Priebus added that “I find the whole thing despicable. I think that it’s unprofessional.”

Rather than quote Brennan, shouldn’t the media investigate the former CIA director? If that’s not possible because of past media collusion with Brennan’s CIA, the job will have to fall on the shoulders of Trump’s new CIA Director Pompeo, and the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

08/17/16

Manafort Caught Secretly Routing at Least $2.2 Million in Payments to Lobbyists

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

After documents surfaced implicating Paul Manafort in corrupt dealings in the Ukraine with ties to not only Vladimir Putin, but the Russian mob, now comes a new bombshell. It turns out that Manafort probably broke the law, secretly routing at least $2.2 million to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012 from the pro-Russian governing party in the Ukraine. He did it in a way that hid those connections to influence foreign policy. Bad Russian plant… bad, bad.

Per the AP, under federal law, US lobbyists must declare publicly if they represent foreign leaders or their political parties and provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department. A violation is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Manafort has some ‘splainin’ to do and federal charges may be forthcoming.

The Trump campaign, now in panic mode, shuffled the deck quickly last night, saying that Trump doesn’t like to be ‘constrained’. I guess he’s not into handcuffs much. Go figure. Manafort is still on his team as campaign manager… wouldn’t want to sever that life or death connection to Putin, now would we?

Look carefully at who Trump brought up the ranks. Kellyanne Conway joined the Donald Trump campaign three weeks ago and she has appeared on television an average of three times daily, projecting titanic optimism: Trump will win over America’s women as his new campaign manager. That’s just laughable. But even more hilarious is the selection of Breitbart’s Steve Bannon as CEO… a vicious and predatory media hit man with leanings toward racist nationalism. He’s literally turned Breitbart into Pravda for Donald Trump. Which is apropos considering that BuzzFeed put out that he was accepting $500 per story at Breitbart in 2014 to favor Russia over the Ukraine. Think about that and then think about all of Trump’s nefarious Russian connections. Once again, Bannon sought Trump out just as Manafort did. Last but not least, former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes has been hired to prepare Trump for the debates. Yeah, that ought to be great for PR and women love men who have sexually accosted other women. What a winner.

And don’t forget Donald Trump’s daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, who spent some time on billionaire Democrat David Geffen’s yacht off the coast of Croatia on Friday. The couple were photographed jet skiing and sunbathing on the $200 million boat, named the Rising Sun. Geffen, a Hollywood executive and close friend of President Barack Obama, donated large sums of money to both Bernie Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns during the primaries, according to the Daily Mail.

Ivanka is said to be vacationing with Wendi Deng Murdoch – Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife and Vladimir Putin’s current rumored girlfriend. Cozy with Russia AND Progressive Marxists. It’s a twofer and all in the elite family, don’t ya know.

Wendi Deng Murdoch, left, is shown with Ivanka Trump in Dubrovnik, Croatia. (Ivanka Trump / Instagram)

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner are seen riding jet skis and sunbathing while enjoying a vacation on the Rising Sun yacht with a friend on the Adriatic Coast in Croatia.
Featuring: Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner
Where: Adriatic Coast, Croatia
When: 12 Aug 2016
Credit: WENN.com
**Only available for publication in UK, USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland**

And we come back to Manafort, because he is key in all this. Manafort and business associate Rick Gates, another top strategist in Trump’s campaign, were working in 2012 on behalf of the political party of Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych. During the period when Gates and Manafort were consultants to the Ukraine president’s political party, Gates was also helping steer the advocacy work done by a pro-Yanukovych nonprofit that hired a pair of Washington lobbying firms, Podesta Group Inc. and Mercury LLC. That’s right… the freaking Podesta Group.

From the AP:

Gates told the AP that he and Manafort introduced the lobbying firms to the European Centre nonprofit and occasionally consulted with the firms on Ukrainian politics. He called the actions lawful, and said there was no attempt to circumvent the reporting requirements of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The heads of both lobbying firms told AP they concluded there was no obligation to disclose their activities to the Justice Department. Manafort did not directly respond to AP’s requests to discuss the work, but he was copied on the AP’s questions and Gates said he spoke to Manafort before providing answers to them.

Political consultants are generally leery of registering under the foreign agents law, because their reputations can suffer once they are on record as accepting money to advocate the interests of foreign governments — especially if those interests conflict with America’s.

Ironically, one of the lobbying firms Manafort and Gates worked with has strong Democratic ties.

The founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, Tony Podesta, is the brother of longtime Democratic strategist John Podesta, who now is campaign chairman for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The head of Mercury, Vin Weber, is an influential Republican, former congressman and former special policy adviser to Mitt Romney. Weber announced earlier this month that he will not support Trump.

Whether Manafort and Gates will be prosecuted for this is unclear, but it would not surprise me. Prosecutions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act are generally rare, but they do happen. This looks extremely corrupt to me and it appears that Manafort was covering up where the money was coming from and why.

Then you add Carter Paige, who is heavily invested with Gazprom and living in Putin’s lap and Michael Flynn ― a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who was paid by a Russian state-funded television network to speak at its 10th-anniversary gala ― who Trump brought to his first national security briefing on Wednesday. Flynn is strongly connected to Russia. And did I mention he’s a Democrat? All of these people might as well be living in the Kremlin and if they tried harder they couldn’t more obviously be plants.

They are all certainly national security threats, but here we go… bringing our biggest enemy into our election and possibly into the White House. SMH. With Hillary Clinton you get the Middle Eastern Islamists, the Russians and the Chinese. With Trump, you get the same, only more Russian seasoning with a hint of mob. #WorstElectionEver #NeitherOne2016