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Clinton in Paramus for Murphy ,Judicial Watch releases Conflict-of-Interest Rulings that led to $48 Million in Income for Clinton Entities

Bill Clinton

October 24,2017

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Paramus NJ, Bill Clinton is coming to Paramus to campaign for Phil Murphy The Democratic front-runner in New Jersey’s governor’s race today . This coincides with the latest Judicial Watch announced of the release of more than 200 conflict-of-interest reviews by State Department ethics advisers of proposed Bill Clinton speaking and consulting engagements during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The documents were obtained as result of a federal court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department on May 28, 2013 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00772)). The lawsuit is ongoing.

June 2011 documents show that the State Department approved a consulting arrangement with a company, Teneo Strategy, led by controversial Clinton Foundation adviser Doug Band. The Clintons ended the deal after only eight months, as criticism mounted over Teneo’s ties to the failed investment firm, MF Global.

Mr. Clinton’s office proposed 215 speeches around the globe. And 215 times, the State Department stated that it had “no objection.”

Mr. Clinton’s speeches included appearances in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Central America, Europe, Turkey, Thailand, Taiwan, India and the Cayman Islands. Sponsors of the speeches included some of the world’s largest financial institutions—Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, American Express and others—as well as major players in technology, energy, health care and media. Other speech sponsors included a car dealership, casino groups, hotel operators, retailers, real estate brokers, a Panamanian air cargo company and a sushi restaurant.

“These documents are a bombshell and show how the Clintons turned the State Department into a racket to line their own pockets,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “How the Obama State Department waived hundreds of ethical conflicts that allowed the Clintons and their businesses to accept money from foreign entities and corporations seeking influence boggles the mind. That former President Clinton trotted the globe collecting huge speaking fees while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy is an outrage. No wonder it took a court order to get these documents. One can’t imagine what foreign policy issues were mishandled as top State Department officials spent so much time facilitating the Clinton money machine.”

Under established protocols of the State Department, and supplemented by a December 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between the Clinton Foundation and Obama Presidential Transition Team, a designated ethics official from the State Department’s legal office was assigned to review any “potential or actual conflict of interest” for Mrs. Clinton while she served as secretary of state. Copies of all decisions were sent to a top adviser to Secretary Clinton, Cheryl Mills, who served as counselor and chief of staff at the Department of State.

The Washington Examiner published a report today on the documents by Judicial Watch Chief Investigative Reporter Micah Morrison and Examiner Senior Watchdog Reporter Luke Rosiak. Morrison and Rosiak note that Mr. Clinton “earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.”

According to the State Department documents:

Mr. Clinton spoke before a UBS Wealth Management audience in Chicago in April, 2012. The State Department document notes that attendees would be “approximately 300-400 ultra-high net worth clients, prospective clients, and UBS Financial Advisers.”

Mr. Clinton spoke to an event hosted by Wells Fargo in San Francisco in October, 2011. The State Department document notes that the event is “being held for Wells Fargo Private Bank and Wells Fargo Family Wealth Group clients, which are clients that have at least $5 million and $50 million in assets respectively.”

At a “mutually agreeable date” in April 2010, Mr. Clinton was due to speak at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. “This would be a private speech of up to 350 friends and patrons on Mohegan Sun,” the State Department document noted. “The event will not be open to the public. The event will not be publicly advertised.”

For a speech in Moscow in June 2010 sponsored by the investment bank Renaissance Capital, Mr. Clinton would address the theme of “Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States: Going Global.” The document notes that “Renaissance Capital is an investment bank focused on the emerging markets of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and sub-Saharan Africa.”

At the Ritz Carlton in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, Mr. Clinton spoke at a March 2011 ticketed event targeting “the business community in Grand Cayman.”

The potential for conflicts of interest between Hillary Clinton’s role as Secretary of State and Bill Clinton’s international ventures grew increasingly controversial in late 2008 when the former president released a list of donors to his library and foundation in what he termed “a deal between” Obama “and Hillary.” According to an AP wire story, “Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the foundation. Other government donors include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman …” CNN at the time warned that Clinton’s “complicated global business interests could present future conflicts of interest that result in unneeded headaches for the incoming commander-in-chief.”

The controversy deepened further when it was revealed that among those vetting Mrs. Clinton for the job of Secretary of State was Bill Clinton’s former deputy White House counsel Cheryl Mills, a longtime Clinton family confidant, who, the Washington Postwrote in 1999 “endeared herself to the Clintons with her never-back-down, share-nothing, don’t-give-an-inch approach …” After clearing Mrs. Clinton for the DOS job, Mills was named the incoming Secretary’s Chief of Staff. Ms. Mills was a featured speaker at Bill Clinton’s 2012 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting.

In an April 28, 2008, ruling relating to Ms. Mills conduct as a White House official in responding to concerns about lost White House email records, Judge Royce C. Lamberth called Cheryl Mills’ participation in the matter “loathsome.” He further stated Mills was responsible for “the most critical error made in this entire fiasco… Mills’ actions were totally inadequate to address the problem.” Ms. Mills is currently on the Board of Directors of BlackRock, a leading investment firm. BlackRock is run by Larry Fink who reportedly wanted to be Treasury Secretary for Barack Obama and now, according to another report, is “angling for the job” in a Hillary Clinton administration.

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Judicial Watch: Abedin Emails Show Clinton Donors Receiving Special Treatment

huma+abedin+weiner+presser

July 15,2017

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC , Judicial Watch continues their investigation on the “Clinton Email” scandal . In a statement released yesterday the group Judicial Watch said ,”Our understanding of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s State Department continues to expand as more of her illicit server’s emails are revealed.”

They went on with the following release

This week we released 448 pages of documents from the U.S. Department of State revealing new incidents of Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, providing special State Department treatment to major donors to the Clinton Foundation and political campaigns.

The heavily redacted documents from Abedin’s non-government account include an email from Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, to Abedin revealing that he acted as a go between for a Clinton Foundation donor, Richard Park. And they reveal Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band instructing Abedin to “show love” to Clinton donor Andrew Liveris.

The documents included six Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to at least 439 emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department, and further contradicting a statement by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails had been turned over to the State Department.

The documents are in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015, lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) for: “All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-‘state.gov’ email address.”

A number of emails show the free flow of information and requests for favors between Clinton’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation.

In July 2009, in reference to the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, Clinton Global Initiative head Doug Band told Abedin that she “Need[s] to show love” to Andrew Liveris, the CEO of Dow Chemical. Band also asked for Liveris to be introduced to Hillary, “and have her mention both me and wjc”.  Dow gave between  $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative.  Band also pushes for Clinton to do a favor for Karlheinz Koegel, a major Clinton Foundation contributor, who wanted Hillary Clinton to give the “honor speech” for his media prize to “Merkel.”

The emails reveal that on June 19, 2009, Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, passed a long a letter for Hillary Clinton for Clinton donor Richard Park.  Park donated $100,000 to Bill Clinton as far back as 1993 and is listed by the Clinton Foundation as a $100,000 to $250,000 donor.

The Washington Examiner reported:

In March 2012, Bill Clinton received an invitation to speak at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea…. Richard Park’s friendship with Tony Rodham earned him a direct line to Hillary Clinton while she served as secretary of state. In January 2013, the Korean businessman sent Rodham an email and asked him to “forward this to your sister.”

On November 14, 2009, Clinton donor Ben Ringel, who has appeared in numerous prior emails asking for favors, emailed Abedin to get help in getting an Iranian woman a visa to come to the United States. He writes: “We need to get her clearance even only temporary to be with her granddaughter.” Abedin forwarded the request to Lauren Jiloty, asking her “Can U help Monday with consular affairs?” Jiloty replies, “Sure. Will look into it.”  Ringel donated between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation.  In May, Band, working through Abedin, attempts to help Canadian concert promoter and Foundation donor Michael Cohl with the processing of a visa. Abedin passes the request to Monica Hanley, Clinton’s “confidential assistant.”

The emails show that the Clinton Foundation operative Band was involved in personnel matters at the Clinton State Department.  In a May 2009 email exchange between Band and Abedin, a “career post” to East Timor for someone is discussed. Abedin explains to Band that Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton’s then-chief of staff, was working on the situation “under the radar.”

In August 2009, Band tells Abedin of someone who wants to be the ambassador to Barbados. Abedin replies: “I know, he’s emailed a few times. But she wants to give to someone else.”

The emails also show that Abedin received advice from her mother, Saleha Abedin (a controversial Islamistactivist), on whom the Obama administration should appoint as the US Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.   She notes that she has obtained a recommendation from “Hassan” (NFI), and that she’d reached out to “Ishanoglu”. This is presumably Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a Turkish academic and the former Secretary-General of the OIC. Ihsanoglu famously called on the West to enact anti-Islamic blasphemy laws.

On Monday, June 8, Clinton emails her aide Lona Valmoro and Abedin asking to attend a cabinet meeting: “I heard on the radio that there is a Cabinet mtg this am. Is there? Can I go? If not, who are you sending?” Valmoro answers: “It is actually not a full cabinet meeting today – those agencies that received recovery money were invited to attend/participate. We were welcome to send a representative though, not sure if we have anyone going.”

Other emails found in Abedin’s unsecure email account appear to show additional instances of the Clinton State Department’s lax approach to protecting national security.

On July 4, 2009, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Jonathan “Scott” Gration sent Abedin an email that the State Department has classified in part and redacted because the information deals with “foreign governments” and “national defense or foreign policy.” Abedin forwarded Gration’s email to her personal, unsecure email account.  In his email, Gration related his meeting with Libyan president Muammar Qadafi, saying: “I conveyed our appreciation for Libya’s role to improve relations between Chad and Sudan … Leader al-Qadafi promised to continue his nation’s close collaboration with the United States … and is eager to meet you and President Obama.…” Gration would later be fired for, among other things, using personal email accounts to send government information.

A document titled “HRC PRIVATE LINE BLOCK” gives the planned whereabouts for President Obama for Thursday, June 4, 2009: “Attend POTUS Foreign Policy Speech at Cairo University.” In another example of lax concern for security, Valmoro forwarded Clinton’s detailed daily schedule for July 15, 2009, to officers of the Clinton Foundation, including Doug Band and Justin Cooper. Again, on July 26 Valmoro forwarded Hillary’s detailed, sensitive daily schedule to numerous Clinton Foundation officials.

In other examples of lax concern for security, on June 11, there is a reference to testing the “Federal preparedness and response for an international terrorist threat to the United States. [Principal-Level Exercise] will be a scenario-driven discussion for Cabinet Secretaries, agency Directors and Administrators, senior officials in the Executive Office of the President, or their approved representatives.” A document in Abedin’s unsecure email account dated May 2009 is titled “The Secretary’s Phone Call with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang” is marked sensitive but unclassified and fully redacted, as is a document titled “The Secretary’s Phone Call with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.”

I’m not sure how much more evidence of pay for play, classified information mishandling, and influence peddling from Clinton’s email server one would need to show for a serious criminal investigation is required.

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Is The Clinton Foundation Doomed?

bill-and-hillary-clinton-foundation-global-initiative-AFP-640x480

Clinton Scandal: Is the Clinton Foundation, after being rocked by a series of scandals, going down for the count? Reports suggest that may be the case, as donations to the once-popular “charity” plummet.

It’s unlikely anyone was as disappointed as Bill Clinton at the defeat of Hillary Clinton for the presidency. Her election would have ensured that the scandals now swirling around the Clinton Family Foundation would have disappeared with nary a peep. Now, Congress is likely to look into accusations that the Clinton Foundation, far from being a charity, was in fact a giant scam to make the Clintons rich and to help finance Chelsea Clinton’s lifestyle and political ambitions.

As we noted back in August, the FBI and a handful of U.S. attorneys have been conducting a joint investigation into the Clinton Foundation for possible financial crimes and influence peddling. Even so, few thought that much would happen, since everyone knew it was a given that Hillary would win the presidency and immediately quash any investigation.

We now know that high-level Justice Department officials tried to halt all of the investigations into the foundation last summer, but the FBI defied the order and continued looking into the matter. This was not some kind of desperate campaign stunt by Hillary’s foes: The signs of corruption have been in evidence for years, but were largely ignored by the Clinton-besotted Big Media.

But while the Big Media failed to do their job, others began digging. In a devastating 2015 book, “Clinton Cash,” Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, detailed how decisions by the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to systematically benefit organizations and individuals that gave millions to the Clinton Foundation and paid former President Bill Clinton millions to give speeches. The appearance of a pay-for-play system and even outright graft during Hillary’s six years at State couldn’t be ignored.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/after-trumps-win-is-the-clinton-foundation-doomed/

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The Billionaire Whose Clinton Foundation Ties Could Be Trouble for Hillary Clinton

Frank Giustra

Frank Giustra is the latest plutocrat to fall under the ex-president’s spell.

Like countless people before him, Frank Giustra’s first meeting with Bill Clinton was a life-altering event indelibly etched in his memory. “We hit it off right away,” Giustra recalls. “We hit it off for a whole number of reasons. We had a very similar upbringing. We had similar interests in books. Pretty soon, we were having a great conversation. I think he liked me.”

Giustra was experiencing the famous Clinton connection, the tractor beam of personal magnetism that Clinton has deployed to pull people into his orbit since his earliest days in Arkansas. Back then, they were people like Mack McLarty, the well-to-do kindergarten classmate who became Clinton’s first White House chief of staff, and Jim McDougal, the local banker and real estate investor who was the Clintons’ partner in the Whitewater land deal and eventually wound up in jail. In Arkansas the stakes were comparatively small. Clinton had little money, and his admirers didn’t have a whole lot more. Today, in his post-presidency, Clinton has built up a multibillion-dollar family foundation with a global reach. He may soon be back in the White House. The people he solicits are the sort who gravitate to Davos, not Little Rock—people like Frank Giustra.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-07/the-billionaire-whose-clinton-foundation-ties-could-be-trouble-for-hillary-clinton

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Report: Indictment ‘likely’ in FBI’s Clinton Foundation probe

hillary-clinton-what-difference-does-it-make

By Nikita Vladimirov

Two sources within the FBI told Fox News on Wednesday that the investigation of the Clinton Foundation is likely to lead to an indictment.

Fox News’s Bret Baier said Wednesday that the FBI probe into a possible pay-to-play scheme between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation has been going on for over a year.

Sources told the news network that the investigation, which is conducted by the White Collar Crime division of the FBI, is a “very high priority.”

One source further stated that the bureau collected “a lot of” evidence, adding that “there is an avalanche of new information coming every day.”

Baier also said that the Clinton Foundation probe is more expansive than previously thought, and that many individuals have been interviewed several times throughout the course of the investigation.

https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/fbi-investigation-clinton-foundation-hillary-indictment-likely

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Influence peddling, acting for Putin’s ally, hiding classified secrets and sexting – how FIVE separate FBI cases are probing virtually every one of Clinton’s inner circle and their families

hillary-clinton-what-difference-does-it-make

Scale of FBI investigations into Clinton’s closest aides and friends is becoming clear
Besides Huma Abedin,  a swathe of long-time loyalists are at the center of investigations including Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe
John Podesta ran the Clinton Foundation which is under investigation while his brother Tony is also focus of a probe about foreign corruption
Cheryl Mills already received limited FBI immunity during Clinton email investigation – and is key Clinton fixer
String of other names are being looked at or have been caught up in earlier scandals

By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTERS

PUBLISHED: 09:32 EDT, 1 November 2016 | UPDATED: 14:56 EDT, 1 November 2016

The extent to which Hillary Clinton’s key advisers are now the focus of major FBI investigations is becoming clear.

The Clintons’ long-term inner-circle – some of whom stretch back in service to the very first days of Bill’s White House – are being examined in at least five separate investigations.

The scale of the FBI’s interest in some of America’s most powerful political fixers – one of them a sitting governor – underlines just how difficult it will be for Clinton to shake off the taint of scandal if she enters the White House.

There are, in fact, not one but five separate FBI investigations which involve members of Clinton’s inner circle or their closest relatives – the people at the center of what has come to be known as Clintonworld.

The five known investigations are into: Anthony Weiner, Huma Abedin’s estranged husband sexting a 15-year-old; the handling of classified material by Clinton and her staff on her private email server; questions over whether the Clinton Foundation was used as a front for influence-peddling; whether the Virginia governor broke laws about foreign donations; and whether Hillary’s campaign chairman’s brother did the same.

The progress of the Clinton Foundation investigation and that into McAuliffe was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The FBI does not generally comment on investigations, so it is entirely possible there are more under way.

Here are the advisers and consiglieri – and how the FBI is looking at them

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3889994/Influence-peddling-acting-Putin-s-ally-hiding-classified-secrets-sexting-FIVE-separate-FBI-cases-probing-virtually-one-Clinton-s-inner-circle-families.html#ixzz4Oo0hDHbN

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Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run

money_theridgewoodblog

Thomas Frank

The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. They are last week’s scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance goes far beyond mere scandal: they are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts of the class to whom the party answers.

The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied, pretty contented. Nobody takes road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the ones for whom such stories are written. This bunch doesn’t have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this class, the choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it

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There have been a lot of firsts in this Election, but a Presidential candidate under active F.B.I. investigation?

hillary-clinton-what-difference-does-it-make

October 30,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, With just over a week , left to Election Day, the F.B.I. delivered a bombshell and heavy blow to Hillary Clinton, announcing that they are re-opening their investigation into her reckless use of a private e-mail server. New information unearthed from the investigation into Anthony Weiner’s under-age sexting scandal prompted the F.B.I. to inform Congress that Clinton is the target of a renewed probe.

To many observers, it has become obvious the American political system is breaking down. It’s been crumbling for some time now, and the establishment knows it and they are terrified of Donald Trump presidency. Trump the so-called  “vulgarian at the gate”, is a symptom of a broken system , and the agent of change .

Perhaps the public has had it’s fill of Clinton Inc and it’s decades of lies and cynicism . Friday’s FBI announcement that it had reopened an investigation of her emails while secretary of state may be a sign that enough is enough and decades of cottuption are coming to an end .

Democrats like DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile & Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, who have sung the praise of F.B.I. Director Comey in the past, are now lashing out as the Clinton campaign begins its tail-spin in the wake of this stunning development.

There have been a lot of firsts in this Election, but a Presidential candidate under active F.B.I. investigation? Gravely concerning for the future of our country and immediately qualifying Clinton as our next Commander-in-Chief.

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Josh Gottheimer’s $2 billion conflict of interest that is the Clinton Foundation

Josh Gottheimer

October 29,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, News has just broken that the FBI is reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Will Josh Gottheimer FINALLY denounce Clinton’s unscrupulous actions and the Clinton Foundation improprieties?

If Josh Gottheimer refuses to denounce Hillary Clinton, it shows that he is beholden to the Clinton network as a result of their efforts – documented in the Wikileaks email releases – to help him buy a seat in Congress. It also shows that he accepts their belief that some people are “above the law,” as shown by Josh’s own actions in refusing to pay his taxes and his lack of transparency relating to the settlement after his assault of a woman.

Josh Gottheimer cannot honestly say he is running to represent the interests of the Fifth District, when he still supports the Clintons and the $2 billion conflict of interest that is the Clinton Foundation.

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Hacked memo offers an angry glimpse inside ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’

Bill Clinton

A remarkable 12-page document revealed by WikiLeaks bristles with a longtime Clinton aide’s resentment of his boss.

By JOSH GERSTEIN

As a longtime Bill Clinton adviser came under fire several years ago for alleged conflicts of interest involving a private consulting firm and the Clinton Foundation, he mounted an audacious defense: Bill Clinton’s doing it, too.

The unusual and brash rejoinder from veteran Clinton aide and Teneo Consulting co-founder Doug Band is scattered across the thousands of hacked emails published by WikiLeaks, but a memo released Wednesday provides the most detailed look to date at the intertwined worlds of nonprofit, for-profit, official and political activities involving Clinton and many of his top aides.

The memo at one point refers bluntly to the money-making part of Clinton’s life as “Bill Clinton Inc.” and notes that in at least one case a company — global education firm Laureate International Universities — began paying Clinton personally after first being a donor to the Clinton Foundation.

The 12-page document, prepared in November 2011 by Band with input from Clinton adviser John Podesta, came as Chelsea Clinton was pressing for changes to the foundation’s governance and complaining that Band, Teneo co-founder Declan Kelly and others were profiting from their ties to her father and the foundation.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hacked-memo-offers-an-angry-glimpse-inside-bill-clinton-inc-230364#ixzz4OOLCHluH

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Trump Statement on FBI Reopening Clinton Email Investigation

wicked-witch

DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT:

“I need to open with a very critical breaking news announcement. The FBI has just sent a letter to Congress informing them that they have discovered new emails pertaining to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s investigation, and they are reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct that threatens the security of the United States of America.

“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.

“I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the DOJ are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made. This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand. It is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.”Donald J. Trump

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The Clintons and the sordid UBS affair

bill-and-hillary-clinton-foundation-global-initiative-AFP-640x480

By Ernest A. Canning

The story, as originally recounted by James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus of The Wall Street Journal, was, of itself, deeply troubling.  In March 2009, after meeting with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intervened with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on behalf of Switzerland’s most powerful banking institution, UBS.  The IRS, which at that time was seeking the identity of wealthy Americans who had stashed some $20 billion in 52,000 tax evading UBS accounts, then agreed that the Swiss bank need only turn over information on 4,450 accounts.  Afterwards, UBS increased its previous $60,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation ten-fold.  By the end of 2014, UBS donations to the Clinton Foundation totaled $600,000.  UBS also “paid former President Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.”

Those facts, of themselves, raise disturbing questions.  Did a bank that still ranks as “the world’s biggest wealth manager” and has at its disposal a bevy of economists and law firms have a legitimate reason for paying Bill Clinton $1.5 million in speaking fees? Or was the $1.5 million and the tenfold increase in Clinton Foundation donations a reward for the former secretary of State’s intervention?  If the latter, that reward would have, under federal law (18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(1)(A)), amounted to an illicit bribe.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/presidential-campaign/272396-the-clintons-and-the-sordid-ubs-affair

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Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official’s Wife

Virginia Gov

Group linked to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe donated nearly half a million dollars to 2015 state Senate candidate

By
DEVLIN BARRETT
Updated Oct. 24, 2016 4:41 p.m. ET

The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.

Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe’s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.

The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts considerable control, donated an additional $207,788 worth of support to Dr. McCabe’s campaign in the form of mailers, according to the records. That adds up to slightly more than $675,000 to her candidacy from entities either directly under Mr. McAuliffe’s control or strongly influenced by him. The figure represents more than a third of all the campaign funds Dr. McCabe raised in the effort.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-ally-aids-campaign-of-fbi-officials-wife-1477266114

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Media Pile-On Tries to Discredit, Unseat NJ Republican by Smearing Oath Keepers as Terrorists

Oath Keepers

Media Pile-On Tries to Discredit, Unseat NJ Republican by Smearing Oath Keepers as The Democrats and their media amplifiers get their cover from a New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness “analysis,” claiming: The militia movement is decentralized, but it has two large followings—the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. Both have members who justify the use of violence to counter perceived threats or violations to the US Constitution.

Media Pile-On Tries to Discredit, Unseat NJ Republican by Smearing Oath Keepers as Terrorists

“The truth?” a political attack ad for Democrat New Jersey Congressional challenger  and former Bill Clinton speechwriter Josh Gottheimer against incumbent Republican Scott Garrett asks. “Newspapers just caught Garrett at a fund-raiser with the leader of a home-grown terrorist militia group.”

A Clinton-backer promising truth should be all the red flags we need.

The “terrorist militia group”?  That would be Oath Keepers, assuming you can believe those newspapers, which appear to be doing everything they can to sway the electorate into accepting a political narrative that folds under minimal scrutiny. Witness recent headlines:

“Republican Chairman of Wall Street Committee Held Fundraiser with Official from ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Group,” Joshua Green of Bloomberg Business Week “reports.” (Yes, that Bloomberg.)

“Garrett event promoter tied to extremists,” NorthJersey.com weighs in. “Forget Wall Street banksters. Scott Garrett has new friends, on a terror list,” NJ.com echoes and embellishes.

Sensing political opportunity and more headlines, Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg has called on Gov. Chris Christie to “denounce Garrett for his ties to the domestic terror organization” and on New Jersey’s attorney general to investigate if “Garrett violated New Jersey law, adding “In the wake of homegrown terror attacks – like the ones in Elizabeth, New York, and Seaside Park – the citizens of New Jersey deserve to know the full extent of Congressman Garrett’s connections to this terrorist organization.”

Yes, that’s Loretta Weinberg of “Confiscate, confiscate, confiscate” notoriety.

As an aside, it’s curious that Weinberg was referring to Islamist “domestic terror” acts with the principle suspect being one of those “refugees” Democrats are bound and determined to seed and embed throughout the Republic. Any connection to Oath Keepers was left (purposely) unstated, because there is none, and because the agenda here is to destroy them.

Which makes it fair to ask what the Democrat politicians and their “news media” publicists are talking about, and what else they’ve gotten wrong in their ceaseless, agenda-driven mission to conflate, smear, misinform and confuse. The answer is pretty much everything.

https://www.oathkeepers.org/media-pile-tries-discredit-unseat-nj-republican-smearing-oath-keepers-terrorists/

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Newsgate 2016

Bergen record Newspaper-vending-machine2

Note: This story has been updated with additional information

The following is a news media analysis and commentary

Regardless of who is your chosen – or least favorite – presidential candidate, independent minds should be concerned about the latest revelations in the news media’s unseemly relationships with government and political actors. While there are many responsible journalists working today, inside documents and leaks have exposed serious lapses constituting the most far-reaching scandal our industry has known. It’s our very own Newsgate.

Compromised reporting has always existed as a result of covert collaborations between reporters and political officials—Democrats and Republicans alike. For example, in my new book out next year, The Smear, I’ll report on instances of improper collusion that surfaced during the Bush administration. The most recent available evidence is heavy on Democrat-ties due to the nature of the available documents and leaks.

It can be argued that some individual accounts can be rationalized and are not serious breaches of ethics. But taken as a whole, it’s easy to see how we as journalists have done a poor job protecting ourselves from being co-opted by organized interests, often ones that are paid and politically-motivated. Whether we realize it or not, they’ve figured out how to exploit the media and use us to publish their propaganda. It implies a broad and growing trend that has seriously undermined the credibility of the news industry.

Opinion reporters and those who work for obviously ideological news groups are entitled to publish party propaganda. It’s one matter to provide viewpoint journalism. But it’s quite another for us to act as a tool of any interest, publishing narratives or talking points upon suggestion or demand, without disclosing we’ve done just that.

https://sharylattkisson.com/newsgate-2016/