| Amy Coney Barrett: 5 things to know about the Supreme Court nominee Posted: 26 Sep 2020 02:33 PM PDT  President Trump announced Saturday that he is nominating Amy Coney Barrett, a respected jurist and conservative darling, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
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| An Irish tourist in Rome defaced the Colosseum by carving his initials into the walls of the ancient structure, according to a report Posted: 26 Sep 2020 07:34 AM PDT  The tourist was reported by security guards on Monday for defacing the inside of the historic site using a metal point, CNN reported.
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| A USPS under fire for slowdowns now reveals it has no reliable means of tracking mail theft Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Anecdotal accounts suggest mail theft is on the rise in parts of the country. Postal inspectors don't have a reliable internal system to track the crime.
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| Two People Injured After Driver Speeds Into Southern California Protest Posted: 27 Sep 2020 08:16 AM PDT  A man and a woman suffered "major injuries" after the car struck them and were transported to the hospital, but are expected to survive
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| 'Taiwan is Taiwan': China name dispute moves from birds to climate change Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:53 AM PDT  The dispute over international organisations referring to Taiwan as Chinese has moved from wild bird conservation to climate change, after a global alliance of mayors began listing Taiwanese cities as belonging to China on its website. China has ramped up pressure on international groups and companies to refer to democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as being part of China, to the anger of Taiwan's government and many of its people. This month a Taiwan bird conservation body said it had been expelled from a partnership with a British-based wildlife charity after it demanded the Taiwan group change its name and sign documents stating it did not support Taiwan's independence.
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| Pelosi expresses hope that deal can be made with White House on COVID-19 relief Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:30 PM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday that she thinks an agreement can be reached with the White House on a coronavirus relief package and that talks were continuing.
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| Republicans condemned for promoting ‘Notorious ACB’ shirts days after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death Posted: 27 Sep 2020 02:11 PM PDT  Democratic senator says the point of the shirt was 'to stick a finger in the eye of Ginsburg's grieving family and anyone mourning her loss'
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| Where Law Ends review: why Mueller failed to hold Trump to account Posted: 26 Sep 2020 10:00 PM PDT  Andrew Weissmann, a senior member of the special counsel's team, has written an alarming and necessary bookThe Mueller investigation ended a year and a half ago, but the aftershocks never stopped. A passel of books highlight the omissions and missteps of the special counsel's office. The Senate intelligence committee report fills in some of the gaps on Russian interference in the 2016 election.Although Robert Mueller found no basis for conspiracy charges, collusion remains a partisan buzzword, obstruction of justice a live concern. The harshest criticism leveled at Mueller is that he blinked.Specifically, the special counsel failed to issue a grand jury subpoena to Donald Trump, needlessly ceding the advantage to the White House. Then, his report went silent on whether grounds existed for charging the president with obstruction of justice, despite analysis that revealed such grounds. The weight of the presidency and fear of its occupant triumphed."Had we used all available tools to uncover the truth, undeterred by the onslaught of the president's unique powers to undermine our efforts?" asks Andrew Weissmann. "I know the hard answer to that simple question: we could have done more."That makes Where Law Ends unique among Trump-themed books. The author was a member of Mueller's team, supervisor of the prosecution of Paul Manafort. He is both admiring and critical of his former boss, which lends credibility and originality. Pathos is part of the package too.Weissman is a former federal prosecutor whose career intersected with Mueller's, FBI general counsel when Mueller was director. Before the FBI, Weissmann had a reputation for zealousness. In the Enron case, he successfully prosecuted Arthur Andersen, only to see the supreme court overturn the conviction and to watch the accounting firm close.As a younger government lawyer, Weissmann prosecuted Felix Sater. In 2015, according to the Mueller Report, Sater explored the "possibility of a Trump Tower project in Moscow while working with the Trump Organization".Under an apt subtitle, "Inside the Mueller Investigation", Weissmann offers a detailed look at why the special counsel reached the conclusions he did, and expands on how Bill Barr ambushed Mueller with his four-page summary of a 400-plus-page report."We had just been played by the attorney general," Weissmann writes.Weissman expresses anger toward Barr but points the finger at Mueller: "Part of the reason the president and his enablers were able to spin the report was that we had left the playing field open for them to do so."He is convinced of the substantive basis of an obstruction claim, even if justice department guidelines precluded the indictment of a sitting president. The "facts of the [James] Comey firing appeared to satisfy all the elements of … obstruction of justice", Weissmann writes. "There was simply no other credible conclusion one could reach."Where Law Ends also worries about the future of the US body politic."I now know that the death of our democracy is possible," Weissmann writes. "Fixing it is possible too."That is the book's last line. Weissmann's rhetoric is hot – but not overblown.Trump has publicly refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power. Take him literally and seriously, especially when polls show Biden up in Ohio, with Iowa and Georgia close."We're going to have to see what happens, you know that" is one for the ages. Whether it is a historic blip or a harbinger remains to be determined.Where Law Ends is also a guide to how the Mueller investigation divvied up its work. Sections on the case of Michael Cohen are particularly instructive. Trump's fixer was charged by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York – a strategic decision.Weissmann explains that the investigation of potential campaign finance violations fell outside Mueller's purview. He could have sought permission to charge Cohen from Rod Rosenstein, then deputy attorney general. Or he could hand the case to SDNY, where in Weissmann's words, "prosecutors have free rein to examine all potential federal crimes".Contrary to the hype surrounding the early days of the Mueller investigation, this was no "dream team". In Weissmann's telling, senior members did not possess supervisory experience, and in one instance a lawyer was hired simply because he had been a supreme court clerk. Those looking to work for Mueller were prone to both cockiness and hand-wringing, traits Mueller himself found distasteful.At one point, Mueller turned to Jeannie Rhee, a veteran prosecutor, and said she embodied the "pizazz" he wanted, but which appeared lacking in the applicant pool. Rhee, Weissmann writes, possessed "a kind of can-do, combustible energy" which is always in high demand and short supply.Weissmann upbraids Aaron Zebley, another Mueller deputy, for being overly cautious. Weissmann and Rhee concluded that the broad issue of Russian election interference was within their purview. For Zebley, the focus was limited to possible "links and coordination" between Russia and the Trump campaign.Weissmann hearkens back to the generals who served Abraham Lincoln, comparing Zebley to the "timorous" George McClellan, reluctant to fight the Confederates, and presenting himself and Rhee as approximations of Philip Sheridan and Ulysses S Grant. Sheridan helped defeat Robert E Lee at Appomattox Courthouse. Grant, who accepted Lee's surrender, would be elected president.Perhaps Weissmann overstates. William Barnett, the FBI agent assigned to the case, contends that the lawyers, not his bureau's investigators, drove most of the decisions. In a recent filing by the government in the Michael Flynn case, Barnett also says the special counsel's office was both permeated by groupthink and out to "get" the president. Either way, Where Law Ends is a dispiriting work. It is not simply about the Mueller investigation, or Trump. It is also an examination of where America stands.Weissmann contrasts Trump's inauguration with protest marches held the day after, and observes the country's changing demographics. Mindful of history, he ponders whether the civil war ever ended. Looking at the coming election, that is an open question. America's fissures are once again on display.
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| Remains of 117 Chinese soldiers killed in Korean War returned Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:19 PM PDT  The remains of 117 Chinese soldiers who died in the 1950-53 Korean War were returned to China on Sunday in an annual repatriation delayed this year by the coronavirus outbreak. South Korea handed over the remains at a ceremony at Incheon airport outside Seoul, and a Chinese military transport plane flew them to Shenyang, a northeastern Chinese city near the North Korean border. Chinese soldiers fought on the North Korean side against US-led forces in the South during the war on the Korean Peninsula. Most of the 117 remains were found in the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea. It was the seventh annual repatriation, and the largest since the 437 returned in the first one in 2014. In all, the remains of 716 Chinese soldiers have been sent back. This year's return, originally planned for the spring, was postponed for several months because of the spread of Covid-19.
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| Cars have hit demonstrators 104 times since George Floyd protests began Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:55 PM PDT  Amid thousands of racial justice protests nationwide since George Floyd's death, dozens of drivers have plowed into crowds marching in roadways.
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| Brain-eating microbe: US city warned over water supply Posted: 26 Sep 2020 10:08 PM PDT  People in Lake Jackson, Texas, are urged to take precautionary measures amid contamination concerns.
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| China's Xi says 'happiness' in Xinjiang on the rise, will keep teaching 'correct' outlook Posted: 27 Sep 2020 05:56 AM PDT  Chinese President Xi Jinping said levels of happiness among all ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang are rising and that China plans to keep teaching its residents a "correct" outlook on China, Xinhua news agency reported late on Saturday. China has come under scrutiny over its treatment of Uighur Muslims and claims of alleged forced-labour abuses in Xinjiang, where the United Nations cites credible reports as saying one million Muslims held in camps have been put to work.
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| New rule may strip pollution protections from popular lakes Posted: 27 Sep 2020 06:33 AM PDT |
| Democrats, not Republicans, are hypocrites on filling SCOTUS seat Posted: 27 Sep 2020 11:47 AM PDT  Democrats accuse Republicans of being hypocrites in the issue of the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, but it is Democrats who are full of hypocrisy.
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| New Battleground Tracker polls show tight races in North Carolina and Georgia Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:25 PM PDT  New CBS News Battleground Tracker polls reveal close races in North Carolina and in Georgia. Both President Trump and Joe Biden are pushing to turn out Black voters in Georgia. Mark Strassmann reports.
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| CDC Calls Off Minnesota COVID-19 Study After Reports of Racism and Intimidation Against Surveyors of Color Posted: 26 Sep 2020 10:08 AM PDT  The voluntary and in-person survey was developed by the CDC to examine the impact of public health emergencies
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| A white supremacist gang member was killed during a shootout with police in California Posted: 26 Sep 2020 05:57 AM PDT  Christopher Michael Straub hid and then ambushed deputies after fleeing from a traffic stop, according to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.
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| Army Leaders Want to Keep Pace with Diversity in Changing US Population Posted: 27 Sep 2020 07:44 AM PDT  The plan promotes diversity through 2025 in an attempt to adapt to the country's shifting demographics.
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| Three Florida police officers fall ill after 'potential poisoning' on night out Posted: 27 Sep 2020 09:54 AM PDT  Investigators await test results to show whether group was drugged
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| Lindsey Graham: We need a ninth Supreme Court justice, because "the courts will decide" the election Posted: 25 Sep 2020 08:38 PM PDT  "The courts will hear all of our complaints," the GOP senator says on "Fox & Friends." "The courts will decide"
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| Steele’s Dossier Source Was a Suspected Russian Spy Posted: 26 Sep 2020 03:30 AM PDT  See if you can follow this: In an effort to depict Donald Trump as if he were in an espionage conspiracy with the Kremlin, the Obama administration used bogus information, from a man the FBI suspected was an actual Russian spy, to brand as a suspected Russian spy a former U.S. naval intelligence officer who had actually been a CIA informant.Your head spinning? Mine too.And that's just the beginning. It turns out that Igor Danchenko, the man the FBI suspected of being an actual Russian spy, initially provided the bogus information about the American, Carter Page, through a former British spy, Christopher Steele. Through a couple of cut-outs, Steele had been retained by the Clinton campaign to dig up -- or, alas, to make up -- Russian dirt on Trump. Through his private intelligence business in London, Steele was known to be working for Russian oligarchs, while Danchenko was on Steele's payroll. That is, the Clinton campaign, and ultimately the Obama administration, colluded with Russians for the purpose of accusing Donald Trump of . . . yes . . . colluding with Russians.Danchenko, who in 2005 reportedly told a Russian intelligence officer that he hoped someday to work for the Russian government, became Steele's source on Trump. Even before October 2016, when the FBI and the Obama Justice Department first sought a surveillance warrant against Page based on the information Steele was compiling, it was obvious that the information was unreliable -- some of it laughably so.But the story was just too good. Nobody bothered to check the information or press Steele about its sourcing.For months, Steele had been logged on bureau records as an official FBI informant. Nevertheless, in the most significant investigation in its modern history, the FBI did not identify Steele's "primary sub-source," Danchenko, until December 2016 -- two months after the bureau, under oath, used the uncorroborated Steele/Danchenko information in what the FBI and Obama Justice Department labeled a "VERIFIED" application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).Wait, there's more. The FBI could easily have figured out Danchenko was Steele's source months earlier. So why do it in December 2016? Because by then, they had no choice. It had become necessary a few weeks earlier to boot Steele out of the investigation -- at least ostensibly. That's because he had been outed publicly as a media source for information about his investigation of Trump.The public outing of Steele (in a Mother Jones article by David Corn, shortly before the 2016 election) should have come as no surprise. It had been obvious since at least September, when information from Steele was published in a Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, that Steele had been leaking to the media in order to help the Clinton campaign. Yet, the bureau repeatedly represented under oath to the FISC -- four times between October 2016 through June 2017 -- that "the FBI does not believe that [Steele] directly provided this information [in the Isikoff article] to the press."To the contrary, as the Justice Department Inspector General (IG) found, there was considerable FBI suspicion that Steele was Isikoff's source. Moreover, the FBI had continuous access to Steele. Note: I said (above) that Steele was ostensibly kicked out of the investigation. In reality, the bureau continued to get information from Steele through Justice Department official Bruce Ohr (though neither the FBI nor the Justice Department revealed that fact to the FISC). Still, as the IG concluded, no one at the FBI ever asked Steele if he was the source for the Isikoff article. Obviously, they didn't want to know the answer -- that way, they could just keep insisting to the court that they didn't believe he was the source.That doesn't even scratch the surface of deceit.When FBI agents interviewed Danchenko for three days in January 2017, they learned, undeniably, that Steele's story about his source "network" -- the story the bureau and the Justice Department told the FISC again and again -- was a risible distortion. Steele did not have a network of sources; he had Danchenko. In turn, Danchenko had a motley collection of drinking buddies, a grifter, a girlfriend, and an anonymous source Danchenko cannot identify. And, as Eric Felton recounts in infuriatingly hilarious detail, none of these sub-sources could actually vouch for anything they heard, or wildly speculated, about Trump and Russia.The "Well-Developed Conspiracy of Cooperation" On this score, we can't let pass the opportunity to describe what Steele and, ultimately, the FBI portentously describe as a "close associate" of Trump's who asserted that the candidate-turned-president was in a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation" with the regime of Vladimir Putin.Danchenko told FBI agents that a man he labeled "Source 6" was "this guy" whom he thinks -- but is not sure -- he once talked to on the phone for "about 10 minutes." In a Thai restaurant, you see, Danchenko ran into a U.S. journalist he managed to chat up about Trump and Russia. The journalist told Danchenko he was "skeptical" because "nothing substantive had turned up" tying the two together. But the journalist referred Danchenko to a "colleague," who advised Danchenko to talk to "this guy" via email. Danchenko took the email address and tried to reach "this guy" but didn't get a reply.Weeks later, though, Danchenko got a call from an anonymous Russian who never identified himself. Danchenko assumed it was "this guy" . . . but he can't say for sure. So, Danchenko simply labeled the presumed "this guy" as "Source 6," with whom he had a brief "general discussion about Trump and the Kremlin" supposedly having "an ongoing relationship."It was left to Steele, the old intel pro, to turn this sow's ear into a silk purse. By the time the craftsman was done "summarizing" Danchenko's unverifiable, anonymously sourced gossip, "this guy" had evolved from Danchenko's "Source 6" to Steele's "Source E," depicted as "an ethnic Russian and close associate of . . . Donald TRUMP," who had "admitted" that "there was a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation" between the Trump campaign and Russian leadership (emphasis added). Indeed, according to Steele, "Source E" had even "acknowledged" that Russia was "behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee [DNC], to the WikiLeaks platform" -- a storyline that just happened to be all over the media at that point.As the IG has found, Steele's allegation that Page was part of a "well-developed conspiracy" of cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, as well as the claim that Russia released the DNC emails in an effort to swing the 2016 election to Trump, were central to the surveillance application by the FBI and Obama Justice Department, and to the FISC's issuance of surveillance warrants.And now we know, the liberal inflation of unsubstantiated -- indeed, unattributable -- rumor into purported probable cause that the now-president of the United States was a Kremlin mole is not the half of it.Why Are We Just Hearing This Now? Once the FBI identified Danchenko as Steele's source, agents soon realized he was the same man the FBI had investigated as a suspected Russian spy six years earlier. You can't even make this up, so I'm not -- it is in a letter and accompanying FBI report, transmitted on Thursday from Attorney General Bill Barr to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.).It is mind-boggling that this information has been withheld from the public for years, despite congressional efforts to pry it from the FBI and Justice Department since 2017 (when Republicans controlled the House). In December 2019, when the IG's report on FBI FISA abuse was released, many critical parts of it were redacted. These included Footnote 334 on page 186, which tantalizingly stated, "When interviewed by the FBI, the Primary Sub-source [i.e., Danchenko] stated that" -- with remaining lines blacked out.After some complaints from Capitol Hill about the redactions, the Justice Department showed a bit more leg. As to Footnote 334, we were now told that Danchenko had "stated that [he] did not view [his] contacts as a network of sources, but rather as friends with whom [he] has conversations about current events and government relations." That was vital information, but it wasn't the whole story -- a passage in the footnote remained blacked out.Finally on Thursday, we were told the rest of the astonishing story. The now-unredacted portion states that Danchenko "was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 that assessed [his] documented contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers" (emphasis added).Apparently, the information has been concealed from the public for the sake of the Durham investigation. (When information becomes public, that complicates the ability of investigators to question people about what they know and how they know it.) But John Durham, the Connecticut U.S. attorney who is investigating "Russiagate" irregularities, informed Barr that disclosure of the information would not interfere with his investigation at this point.2005-2010: Danchenko's Suspected Spying for Russia In any event, what remarkable irony. Recall (from my recent three-part series regarding the guilty plea of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith) that the period between 2009 and 2011 is part of the time-frame during which Carter Page was an official CIA informant. He was providing the agency with intelligence about Russians with whom he was in contact -- a fact the FBI did not disclose to the FISC when it framed those contacts as evidence that Page was a spy for Russia, even though the FBI had been told, by both Page and the CIA, that Page had in fact been a CIA informant.Well, now we know that, in framing Page as a Russian spy, the FBI relied on nonsense provided by Danchenko, a man the bureau actually believed was a Russian spy, though this inconvenient detail, too, was concealed from the FISC.As has been publicly reported, Danchenko worked for the Brookings Institution, a prominent center-left Washington think-tank, specializing in foreign affairs. Brookings feeds experts, mainly to Democratic administrations when they are in power, and serves as a Democratic administration in waiting when they are not.When Danchenko worked at Brookings from 2005 through 2010, it was directed by Strobe Talbot, a close friend of, and later deputy secretary of state under, President Bill Clinton. Susan Rice worked at Brookings during the Bush years before becoming Obama's national-security adviser, and career diplomat Victoria Nuland, who became a prominent assistant secretary in the Obama State Department, also worked at Brookings (she is married to Robert Kagan, a top Brookings scholar). Small world that it is, Nuland green-lighted Steele's provision of intelligence to the State Department, was briefed on the Steele dossier during the 2016 campaign, and has acknowledged that Steele was invited to the State Department to give a personal briefing about his anti-Trump research (though she says she did not attend it). While at Brookings, Danchenko worked closely with Fiona Hill, with whom he co-wrote a research paper in 2010, shortly before leaving the country. Hill, of course, gained notoriety as an important Trump impeachment witness, owing to her time at the Trump National Security Council, to which she came from Brookings, after a stint on the National Intelligence Council under Bush-43 and Obama.The Brookings angle is relevant because of events in late 2008 that triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation of Danchenko.At that time, it was clear that there would soon be new Obama administration. The FBI received a tip that, at a Brookings function, Danchenko approached two of his co-workers. One was a research fellow for a person the bureau describes as "an influential foreign policy advisor in the Obama Administration." Danchenko expressed interest in whether the research fellow would join this influential principal in the new administration. Danchenko was said to have made an offer to the two Brookings employees: If they "did get a job in the government and had access to classified information," and wanted "to make extra money," he could put them in touch with the right people for that sort of thing. There is no indication that the Brookings employees acted on the offer, but at least one of them suspected that Danchenko was a Russian spy.Naturally, this tip caused the FBI to do more digging. Agents quickly realized that Danchenko was associated with two other subjects of counterintelligence investigations. In 2005, he had been in contact with a Washington-based Russian officer, with whom Danchenko seemed "very familiar." In 2006, he been in contact "with the Russian embassy and known Russian intelligence officers."In fact, the FBI learned that Danchenko had visited one of these intelligence officers in his Russian embassy office. He allegedly told the officer that he hoped one day to enter the Russian diplomatic service. They went so far as to discuss future plans and Danchenko's completing some documents for the Russian government -- which, in October 2006, the intelligence officer discussed transmitting via diplomatic pouch, presumably to Moscow. The FBI also interviewed associates of Danchenko's, who described him as pro-Russian and hopeful to return to Russia. One person recalled being pressed by Danchenko for information about "a particular military vessel."The bureau was sufficiently alarmed that, in July 2010, agents began the process of seeking a FISA surveillance warrant for Danchenko. But he left the country two months later, so the investigation was closed without an application to the FISC having been made, but with the understanding that the investigation could be re-opened if Danchenko ever came back to the U.S.2017: Danchenko Is Interviewed by the FBI as Steele's Source He did eventually come back, and sat for those three days of interviews in January 2017. During this questioning, he utterly discredited the Steele dossier, the underlying basis for the FBI court-authorized surveillance of Page. Yet, there is no indication in the extensive FBI report of these interviews that the bureau grilled Danchenko about the 2005 to 2010 activities that had sprouted suspicion that Danchenko was a Russian spy. Subsequently, the FBI did not tell the FISC that Danchenko had been the subject of a counterintelligence probe on suspicion that he was a clandestine agent of Russia. To the contrary, the bureau told the FISC that Danchenko seemed credible -- which would be funny if it were not so outrageous, since what Danchenko was supposedly credible about was the fact that the Steele dossier was incredible.Despite Danchenko's testimony, the bureau continued standing behind the dossier. Far from correcting the deceptive claims made to the FISC, and notwithstanding all they knew about Steele and Danchenko, the FBI doubled and tripled down: In January, April and June 2017, the Justice Department submitted 90-day renewal applications, representing to the FISC that the FBI believed Steele and his information were credible. On that basis, the court kept reauthorizing the warrants, enabling the FBI to continue monitoring Page . . . even though the investigation was turning up nothing.Conclusion Let's summarize, shall we? At the very time Carter Page, a former U.S. naval intelligence officer, was an informant providing the CIA with information about Russians who might be a threat to U.S. interests, the FBI was investigating Igor Danchenko, a Russian national, on suspicion that he was a Russian agent potentially threatening to U.S. interests.Danchenko became a contractor for Christopher Steele's intelligence firm, whose clients included Russian oligarchs. That fact, the IG report explains, raised concerns about Steele in the FBI's Transnational Organized Crime Unit -- concerns which, Eric Felten has reported, were shared by State Department intelligence officials.In 2016, Steele accepted a Clinton campaign-commissioned assignment to dig up Russian dirt on Clinton's opponent for the presidency, Donald Trump. To carry out this work, Steele relied on Danchenko to gather the information. Danchenko used what he now says was a group of dubious social acquaintances, and at least one source he never identified, to provide unsubstantiated and salacious rumors and innuendo about Trump.Steele took this information, portrayed it as sensitive intelligence from reliable sources, and presented it to the FBI -- vouching that it had come from an intelligence "network."The FBI, several of whose investigators were found by the IG to be overtly anti-Trump, failed to corroborate Steele's information. Yet, the bureau represented that it was "verified" to the FISC, which thus proceeded to issue warrants against Page on the theory that the Trump campaign -- even, perhaps, the nascent Trump administration -- was in a corrupt conspiracy with the Kremlin.That is, a suspected Russian spy was used by our government to frame an American as a suspected Russian spy. A good friend of mine likes to say, "It's always worse than you think." That's a fine epitaph for the Trump-Russia investigation.
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| Russian dissident Navalny recovering faster than expected Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:23 PM PDT  Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is recovering from the suspected assassination attempt last month faster than expected, one of his aides said Sunday. Navalny, who collapsed on a plane from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20 and spent nearly three weeks in a coma, was discharged last week from the Berlin hospital where he was being treated. "He is doing much better, I would say unexpectedly better," Leonid Volkov, Navalny's chief of staff, told German broadcaster RTL.
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| Niagara Falls: Free admission and other things you may not know about this tourist spot Posted: 27 Sep 2020 02:31 PM PDT  Did you know that Niagara Falls actually consists of three falls and that it's a state park that doesn't charge an admission fee?
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| 100 Arrested During Unauthorized and 'Unruly' Car Rally in Maryland Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:43 PM PDT  People at the event shared videos of confrontations that erupted between police officers and rally attendees
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| Man convicted of collecting urine from boys now faces child porn charges, Ohio cops say Posted: 27 Sep 2020 09:59 AM PDT  Officials say the man liked to drink the urine he collected.
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| Firefighters battling a Brooklyn blaze discovered up to $1 million cash when bundles started falling on their heads Posted: 26 Sep 2020 06:46 PM PDT  According to local news, firefighters had to cut through a ceiling to extinguish the fire when cash started falling out.
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| Meng Wanzhou: The PowerPoint that sparked an international row Posted: 27 Sep 2020 04:56 PM PDT  The top Huawei executive's closely watched extradition case returns to court on Monday.
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| 40 years after Oktoberfest attack, survivor's wounds still healing Posted: 25 Sep 2020 07:35 PM PDT  That evening on September 26, 1980, Robert Platzer, then 12, was having a great night out. He had been on fairground rides, eaten bags of sweets and even bought a helium balloon -- all that a child dreams of at the Munich Oktoberfest.
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| Police clash with Portland protesters and press; more than 20 arrested Posted: 27 Sep 2020 02:44 AM PDT  Police clashed with anti-racism protesters and pushed back members of the press in downtown Portland, Oregon into early Sunday morning, making more than 20 arrests. The violence followed a relatively peaceful rally by the right-wing Proud Boys group and counter protests by anti-fascist and Black Lives Matter activists on Saturday. Videos published online showed police pushing protesters and photographers to the ground and jabbing them with batons as officers drove them out of an area near Portland's federal courthouse.
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| Pelosi begins mustering Democrats for possible House decision on presidency Posted: 27 Sep 2020 04:17 PM PDT  The speaker sent a letter emphasizing local races, in case a tie in the Electoral College requires state delegations to vote.
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| New Fort Hood Commander Orders Training Pause to Rebuild Soldiers' Trust Posted: 26 Sep 2020 04:39 AM PDT  Maj. Gen. John Richardson IV has launched a yearlong effort to heal the base's deeply scarred image.
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| No more temperature checks? CDC changing COVID-19 screenings for international air passengers Posted: 27 Sep 2020 10:38 AM PDT  Starting Sept. 14, the U.S. will replace its current system of temperature and symptom checks with one that focuses on where travelers have been.
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| Salt Lake City airport just opened a massive new terminal with canyon-themed art as Delta relies on the hub as a gateway to the west – see inside Posted: 27 Sep 2020 05:43 AM PDT  The brand-new terminal comes at a $4.1 billion cost and uses immersive artwork to welcome passengers to Salt Lake City and the Mountain West.
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| A Miami-Dade teacher gave her $425K life savings to a pilot. Here’s where he is today Posted: 27 Sep 2020 07:38 AM PDT  A Miami-Dade County Public Schools teacher spent a career building a $425,447 retirement nest egg. Licensed pilot Michael Atkins spent three years convincing her to loan it to him.
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| Australia begins disposal of over 350 dead whales after mass stranding Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:29 AM PDT  Officials were able to rescue 108 whales from the nation's largest-ever mass beaching.
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| Trump's SCOTUS nomination will 'motivate voters on the left in a way we haven't seen:' Laura Fink Posted: 26 Sep 2020 10:56 AM PDT  Rebelle Communications CEO Laura Fink joins 'America's News HQ' to discuss President Trump's nomination for the Supreme Court.
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| Thousands of protesters gather to call for Netanyahu's resignation, despite a strict second lockdown Posted: 27 Sep 2020 06:43 AM PDT  Thousands of Israelis protested outside the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, demanding his resignation over how the government has handled the coronavirus pandemic. The protests continue weeks of anti-Netanyahu demonstrations despite a strict lockdown order and one of the worst infection rates in the world. Draconian new lockdown measures came into force on Friday that closed many businesses, banned large gatherings and ordered people to stay close to their homes. Protesters say Mr Netanyahu's government is bungling the response to the pandemic. The Knesset, Israel's parliament, failed to pass a measure that would ban the right to protest more than a kilometre away from home which would have seen an end to the weekly demonstrations outside Mr Netanyahu's official residence. Mr Netanyahu rejected allegations that tougher lockdown rules were in part intended to quash the protests, which he has often called "anarchist" and "ludicrous".
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| Letters to the Editor: Black voters and everyone else have more than enough reasons to support Joe Biden Posted: 27 Sep 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Trump says the Democrats play "plantation politics." To that, one reader says Trump and the Republicans are playing "genocidal politics."
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| Greece warms to EU asylum pact but refugee groups rage Posted: 26 Sep 2020 07:51 PM PDT  Greece's government has cautiously welcomed a plan from Brussels to reform the EU's shaky asylum system, but charity groups working with refugees on the ground have blasted a continued "outrageous containment policy".
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| Greece calls on Turkey to condemn flag incident on Greek island Posted: 27 Sep 2020 04:48 AM PDT |
