Category: FBI
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Sunday News Notes:
Ukraine
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/01/putin-ally-challenges-russian-president-calling-zelensky-nice/
- Founder of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, challenges Putin.
- Prigozhin praised Ukrainian president, Zelensky, on his social media platform.
- “Although he is the president of a country that’s hostile to Russia right now, Zelensky is a strong, confident, pragmatic and nice guy,”
- In a second post, Prigozhin followed up with a warning: “Don’t underestimate him.” The second post was described by the Telegraph as “explaining why he was offering such a discordant view of” Zelensky.
- Prigozhin holds no formal role with the Russian government, but his position has increased in importance as he has funneled more and more soldiers into Ukraine fighting for Russia.
- His statement is not in line with the Kremlin presentation of Zelensky as a drug-addled Nazi. And, it is not the first time Prigozhin has challenged Putin. Earlier he questioned the military’s conduct of the war.
- The Washington Post reported that Prigozhin along with Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, has become more vocal in their criticisms of military leaders prosecuting Putin’s war.
- According to the Telegraph: “British lawyers McCue Jury and Partners on Tuesday announced they were bringing legal action against Wagner for “terrorism” in Ukraine, aiming to claim compensation for victims of the mercenary group”
- Prigozhin was filmed in September of 2022 recruiting soldiers in Russian prisons. He promised them they would be freed is they survived six months in Ukraine. He also promised they would be shot if they tried to desert.
- “In another public message, he defended recruiting rapists and murders on the basis that it meant “your sons” would not be sent to the front. Weeks later Putin announced a mobilisation that has sent around 300,000 extra men to war.”
- Telegraph: “The Institute for the Study of War in its latest report on Tuesday said that Mr Prigozhin was “establishing himself as a political force, using his popular status and his affiliation with Wagner to criticise his opponents within elite circles”.
- In testimony to British parliament on Tuesday, Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky confirmed reports of Mr Prigozhin’s special place in Putin’s court, describing him as a “significant tool for the Kremlin”.
- “The number of meetings with the dictator is the only currency that’s in demand in that regime, and Mr Prigozhin has got a lot of those meetings,” said Mr Khodorkovsky, who was released after a decade in Russian prison in 2013, and was formerly the country’s richest man.”
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FRIDAY 12 AUGUST 2022
TRUMP
- The line on Fox News at 5:00 is that the documents seized from Mara-la-go were photographs and unimportant documents. They are laughing and making jokes about the documents.
- (Note: “The Five” includes five of the most obnoxious people in the world.)
- Trump world has evidently released some document which includes the names of the FBI agents who participated in the raid. This was released to Brietbart and they published it.
- The Cincinnati shooter’s postings changed from generalized violence to “we have to shoot FBI agents on sight,” after the search at Mara-lago.
- After the Ohio attack, FOX news personality, Kilmeade, released a doctored photograph of Jeffrey Epstein having his feet massaged by that woman (whose name I cannot remember and try not to think about), with the face of the judge who signed off on the search warrant superimposed on Epstein’s body.
- Neal Kaytal pointed out that as important as what was found at Mara-la-go is what was not found and was presumably destroyed.
- The Espionage Act is cited in the warrant.
- The warrant was very broad in terms of what could be searched on the premises.
- They had to show fresh probable cause of concealment or destruction.
- (Note: Who is the person who helped Trump bring these documents out of the White House? Trump is not smart enough to have selected these documents. In addition, he does not have the mentality capacity to read through documents and understand their import.)
- There are documents he could not have declassified without Congress. Declassification is a request.
- Somebody went through and hand-picked these documents. (Clint Watts and Harry Litman.)
- Clint Watts talked about “nuclear positioning.” This is, where nuclear weapons are positioned. This has been a highly contested issue with Putin.
- Heilemann (who is filling in for Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC) is calling Garland “meticulous” AGAIN. Jesus, there is no limit to this faux hero adulation. It reminds me of the Mueller nonsense.
THE MEDIA
- Stories that are not receiving the coverage they deserve: 1) the attack on the FBI office in Cincinnati, 2) the attack on Salman Rushdie. Can they seriously not cover more than one story at the time?
- John Heilemann, in for Nicolle Wallace, desperately needs a verbal editor. My God, he asks a question, and it takes 5 minutes. Listening to him, my mind is filled with red pen marks through phrases and sentences. Ari Melber is the same way. He has guests on and talks endlessly so that they don’t have a chance to say anything.
Sunday News Notes:
Ukraine
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/01/putin-ally-challenges-russian-president-calling-zelensky-nice/
- Founder of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, challenges Putin.
- Prigozhin praised Ukrainian president, Zelensky, on his social media platform.
- “Although he is the president of a country that’s hostile to Russia right now, Zelensky is a strong, confident, pragmatic and nice guy,”
- In a second post, Prigozhin followed up with a warning: “Don’t underestimate him.” The second post was described by the Telegraph as “explaining why he was offering such a discordant view of” Zelensky.
- Prigozhin holds no formal role with the Russian government, but his position has increased in importance as he has funneled more and more soldiers into Ukraine fighting for Russia.
- His statement is not in line with the Kremlin presentation of Zelensky as a drug-addled Nazi. And, it is not the first time Prigozhin has challenged Putin. Earlier he questioned the military’s conduct of the war.
- The Washington Post reported that Prigozhin along with Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, has become more vocal in their criticisms of military leaders prosecuting Putin’s war.
- According to the Telegraph: “British lawyers McCue Jury and Partners on Tuesday announced they were bringing legal action against Wagner for “terrorism” in Ukraine, aiming to claim compensation for victims of the mercenary group”
- Prigozhin was filmed in September of 2022 recruiting soldiers in Russian prisons. He promised them they would be freed is they survived six months in Ukraine. He also promised they would be shot if they tried to desert.
- “In another public message, he defended recruiting rapists and murders on the basis that it meant “your sons” would not be sent to the front. Weeks later Putin announced a mobilisation that has sent around 300,000 extra men to war.”
- Telegraph: “The Institute for the Study of War in its latest report on Tuesday said that Mr Prigozhin was “establishing himself as a political force, using his popular status and his affiliation with Wagner to criticise his opponents within elite circles”.
- In testimony to British parliament on Tuesday, Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky confirmed reports of Mr Prigozhin’s special place in Putin’s court, describing him as a “significant tool for the Kremlin”.
- “The number of meetings with the dictator is the only currency that’s in demand in that regime, and Mr Prigozhin has got a lot of those meetings,” said Mr Khodorkovsky, who was released after a decade in Russian prison in 2013, and was formerly the country’s richest man.”
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Blog: Christopher Wray
For reasons inexplicable to me, the corporate media has always tried to make a hero out of Christopher Wray. Most of the Democratic establishment has refused to criticize him and Biden has decided to allow him to remain as FBI Director.
But, in a giant departure from the way Wray is talked about by the corporate news media and the Democratic party, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, last night on MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, told the truth. It was a breath of fresh air. Democrats ought to try it more often.
Whitehouse told Hayes that in Wray’s testimony before the Senate, he was “less clear” than Merrick Garland that the Justice Department would follow the investigation of the January 6, insurrection wherever it may lead.
Whitehouse was particularly concerned that the investigation would be dumped on the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Were this to happen, Whitehouse argued, there would be real questions of whether the investigation would go further than low level participants to “upstream investigations” of people who were actually driving the crime. Whitehouse seemed to feel confident that Garland would pursue these “upstream” investigations.
When asked directly by Hayes if he thought Wray was a “straight shooter,” Whitehouse issued a scoffing laugh. “If so, that would be a new phenomenon.”
“I’ve spent three years trying to get him to answer questions and he has hidden behind every conceivable dodge” continued Whitehouse. “We have unanswered questions from 2017.”
According to Whitehouse, in hearing after hearing during the Trump administration, Wray failed to answer questions not only submitted by Democrats, but those submitted by Republicans. In seven of nine hearings Wray participated in, the committee got no answers.
“He (Wray) participated in or ran a massive traffic jam that stopped answers to huge numbers of QFRs (questions for the record)…and to all of our letters. At the same time, he set up this side road where they could run” lots of documents into the Republicans to do the Cross Fire Hurricane investigation.
Whitehouse said he still wanted to know why questions got “jammed into the traffic jam” while “Trump friendly” questions got high speed treatment. He wanted to know “why were we stonewalled all those years…what was the method, on whose instruction was that done, what was the scheme, what was the plan, why did it happen, all that.”
And Whitehouse, quite rightly, pointed out that the FBI under Wray engaged in an absurd exercise characterized as an “investigation” of the charges against Brett Kavanaugh.
Whitehouse said it was necessary to go back to “the FBI investigation of Bret Kavanaugh and whether that was real or fake and what happened with that so called tip line FBI ran, because as best as I can tell…all the information (from the tip line)…got dumped straight into the bin.” None of it got reviewed “pursuant to standard FBI procedures for reviewing the information that comes in through a tip line. It was more a tip dump than a tip line. And understanding if that happened, why that happened on whose direction, presumably from the White House.”
Whitehouse concluded: “If this guy (Wray) presided over a fake FBI investigation, we need to know that.”
I would like to point out that Sen. Chris Coons, Democrat, helped set up that FBI investigation. He and Christopher Wray need to be held to account.
Sunday News Notes:
Ukraine
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/01/putin-ally-challenges-russian-president-calling-zelensky-nice/
- Founder of Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, challenges Putin.
- Prigozhin praised Ukrainian president, Zelensky, on his social media platform.
- “Although he is the president of a country that’s hostile to Russia right now, Zelensky is a strong, confident, pragmatic and nice guy,”
- In a second post, Prigozhin followed up with a warning: “Don’t underestimate him.” The second post was described by the Telegraph as “explaining why he was offering such a discordant view of” Zelensky.
- Prigozhin holds no formal role with the Russian government, but his position has increased in importance as he has funneled more and more soldiers into Ukraine fighting for Russia.
- His statement is not in line with the Kremlin presentation of Zelensky as a drug-addled Nazi. And, it is not the first time Prigozhin has challenged Putin. Earlier he questioned the military’s conduct of the war.
- The Washington Post reported that Prigozhin along with Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, has become more vocal in their criticisms of military leaders prosecuting Putin’s war.
- According to the Telegraph: “British lawyers McCue Jury and Partners on Tuesday announced they were bringing legal action against Wagner for “terrorism” in Ukraine, aiming to claim compensation for victims of the mercenary group”
- Prigozhin was filmed in September of 2022 recruiting soldiers in Russian prisons. He promised them they would be freed is they survived six months in Ukraine. He also promised they would be shot if they tried to desert.
- “In another public message, he defended recruiting rapists and murders on the basis that it meant “your sons” would not be sent to the front. Weeks later Putin announced a mobilisation that has sent around 300,000 extra men to war.”
- Telegraph: “The Institute for the Study of War in its latest report on Tuesday said that Mr Prigozhin was “establishing himself as a political force, using his popular status and his affiliation with Wagner to criticise his opponents within elite circles”.
- In testimony to British parliament on Tuesday, Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky confirmed reports of Mr Prigozhin’s special place in Putin’s court, describing him as a “significant tool for the Kremlin”.
- “The number of meetings with the dictator is the only currency that’s in demand in that regime, and Mr Prigozhin has got a lot of those meetings,” said Mr Khodorkovsky, who was released after a decade in Russian prison in 2013, and was formerly the country’s richest man.”