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To: lucky_limey who wrote (9126)	9/29/2019 9:23:17 AM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 11191

You mean been 100% right as the Ukraine events show. Kremlin Orders Trump White House Not to Release Trump/Putin Transcripts Jamie Ross Reporter Updated 09.27.19 9:54AM ET / Published 09.27.19 8:42AM ET thedailybeast.com Reuters / Mikhail Klimentyev Russia has urged the White House to show caution before it gets any ideas about releasing more transcripts of phone calls between presidents. The White House this week released a rough transcript of a call between Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is now the focus of an impeachment probe. That precedent seems to have rung alarm bells in the Kremlin. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked Friday if Moscow is worried the White House could publish transcripts of Trump’s calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He responded that “we would like to hope that it wouldn’t come to that in our relations, which are already troubled by a lot of problems.” Peskov added that he thought the publication of the Trump-Zelensky call was “quite unusual.” Read it at NBC News

To: lucky_limey who wrote (9126)	9/29/2019 9:25:47 AM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 11191

NRA Became ‘Foreign Asset’ To Russia Before 2016 Election, Senate Report Says (now tell me again why the NRA is tax exempt and the US taxpayers are footing the bill for a "foreign asset"?) huffpost.com Sep 27, 2019 An 18-month investigation from Senate Committee on Finance staff reveals how deeply connected the National Rifle Association was with Russian officials. By Sebastian Murdock The National Rifle Association worked as a “foreign asset” to advance the agenda of the Russian government before the 2016 presidential election, a new report by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee reveals. The 77-page report, titled “The NRA And Russia: How a Tax-Exempt Organization Became a Foreign Asset” and released Friday after an 18-month investigation, relies on documents obtained by the committee along with public documents released by the Department of Justice. The NRA “provided the Russian nationals direct access to the Republican Party leaders at events including its Annual Winter Board Meetings and NRA Annual Meetings, and facilitated additional access to conservative organizations like the Council for National Policy, National Prayer Breakfast,” and other events, according to the report. The report pulls back the curtain on the cozy relationship Russian agents had with the NRA by focusing in part on a 2015 trip gun group leaders took to Moscow. Russian agent Maria Butina, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison earlier this year after pleading guilty to conspiring against the U.S., worked in tandem with former Russian government official Alexander Torshin to get NRA officials to Russia. From the report: Specifically, the investigation documents the degree to which the NRA and its leadership were aware of, and cooperated with, Butina and Torshin to provide them access to the NRA and other domestic organizations. For example, NRA Board member and former NRA President David Keene and his wife, Donna Keene, played a major role in facilitating access by Butina and Torshin to the organization’s leadership. Donna Keene, who was instrumental in planning an NRA delegation’s 2015 travel to Russia, confirmed to participants that relationship building with Russian government officials was “NRA business” and that she and her husband had spent nearly a decade developing these relationships. In a January 2015 email to David Keene, Butina bragged that Torshin’s appointment to the Central Bank of Russia was “the result of a ‘big game’ in which he has a very important role,” and said the new role would allow Torshin to travel to the U.S. more often to meet with NRA leadership. Ron Wyden ?@RonWyden Replying to @RonWyden After returning from Moscow, the NRA gave the Russians free rein over the guest list for its 2016 Annual Meeting. It also provided access to other political organizations in 2015 and 2016 like the National Prayer Breakfast and the secretive right-wing Council for National Policy. 8,156 7:11 AM - Sep 27, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 4,922 people are talking about this “NRA resources appear to have been used to pay for membership and registration fees to third party events for the Russian nationals as well as to arrange for transit to and lodging for many of those events throughout 2015 and 2016,” the report says. “These activities, together with the organization’s travel to Moscow to demonstrate Torshin’s American influence to the Kremlin, indicate that the organization was engaged in a years-long effort to facilitate Butina and Torshin’s domestic activity.” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee who opened the investigation last year, said on Twitter that the reported self-dealing “raises serious questions about whether the NRA broke U.S. tax laws.” The NRA is currently being investigated by the attorneys general of both Washington, D.C. and New York. They ?have both served subpoenas demanding financial records from the group that could lead to the loss of its tax-exempt status. And as the group continues to face legal fees and infighting, six board members have resigned from their positions as the group’s popularity continues to plummet. Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Here’s how.

To: lucky_limey who wrote (9126)	9/29/2019 9:30:12 AM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 11191

US LIAR TRAITOR Trump Reportedly Said He Didn’t Care About Russian Interference In U.S. Elections huffpost.com Sep 27, 2019 The comments, first reported by The Washington Post, allegedly came during a 2017 Oval Office meeting with two Russian officials. By Jenavieve Hatch President Donald Trump in 2017 allegedly told two senior Russian officials that he wasn’t worried about Moscow interfering in the U.S. election, claiming the U.S. had interfered in other countries’ elections, The Washington Post reported Friday. The meeting between Trump and the two officials reportedly took place in the Oval Office on May 10, 2017, when Trump also celebrated the firing of FBI Director James Comey, calling him a “nut job.” “I faced great pressure because of Russia,” he said at the meeting. “That’s taken off.” The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Washington Post report was one of two on Friday night that showed how seriously the White House has attempted to keep mum on Trump’s conversations with world leaders. Another report from CNN exposed how official White House aides took “remarkable steps” to hide Trump’s phone calls with both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian leader Vladimir Putin from the public. According to CNN, the transcript of the Prince Mohammed phone call ? which took place after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 ? was never circulated to U.S. officials despite that being common practice. The transcript from the Putin call was also not made accessible. Los Angeles Times reporter Chris Megerian pointed out that the May 2017 meeting was included in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in March ? but included “no mention of Trump saying he was unbothered by Russian meddling.” Chris Megerian ?@ChrisMegerian Did the Washington Post learn something about Trump's meeting with the Russians that Robert Mueller did not? Here's the description of the meeting in the Mueller report — no mention of Trump saying he was unbothered by Russian meddling. 55 6:33 PM - Sep 27, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 54 people are talking about this The reports come just one day after the publication of the whistleblower complaint that’s currently rocking Washington and the Trump administration, and that prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to launch an impeachment inquiry Tuesday. The whistleblower alleges that in a July 25 phone call, Trump used “the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.” In the call, Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up information on former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The complaint also alleges that the Trump administration stored the president’s calls in an electronic system reserved for “especially sensitive” classified information ? despite basing much of his 2016 campaign on his opponent Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server. Biden, Trump’s potential rival in the 2020 election, said on Saturday that “Trump deserves to be investigated.” “He is violating every basic norm of a president.” House Democrats have almost unanimously agreed to move forward with impeachment proceedings, while the GOP remains largely insistent on Trump’s innocence, calling the whistleblower’s complaint “hearsay,” “nonsense” and “a joke.” RELATED COVERAGE

To: lucky_limey who wrote (9126)	9/29/2019 9:59:06 AM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 11191

Poll: 63% of voters say Trump asking Ukraine to probe a political rival is a "serious" problem Nearly two-thirds of the 504 voters polled in a new ABC News/Ipsos survey say that President Trump encouraging the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is a "serious" problem, including 43% of voters that think it's "very serious." axios.com

To: lucky_limey who wrote (9126)	9/29/2019 10:59:38 AM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 11191

BOMBSHELL: LIAR tRump White House concealed transcripts of calls with Putin and Saudi royal family on highly classified system by Caitlin Yilek September 28, 2019 10:47 AM washingtonexaminer.com The White House kept transcripts of President Trump’s calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Saudi royal family on a highly classified computer system to keep them from becoming public. The handling of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders has been highly scrutinized after a whistleblower complaint alleged the president pressured Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. A transcript released by the White House of the call showed Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who is a front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son Hunter. The White House’s decision to place the transcript of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky on a separate computer system that few had access to was part of a whistleblower complaint about the administration’s interactions with Ukraine. According to the New York Times, restrictions on some transcripts of Trump’s calls were imposed after leaks of details of his conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia were leaked. The White House implemented tighter restrictions after Trump’s Oval Office discussion with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak leaked to the media, bringing scrutiny over whether Trump had revealed classified information to the Russians. Current and former officials defended the decision to place the transcripts on a secure system, pointing to the number of leaks from the White House. The Trump administration said Friday that National Security Council lawyers made the decision to place the Ukraine phone call on a classified system. Russia said Friday it hopes the contents of Putin’s calls with Trump are kept private. “We would like to hope that we would not see such situations in our bilateral relations, which already have plenty of quite serious problems,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

To: lucky_limey who wrote (9126)	9/29/2019 11:33:55 AM
From: sylvester80	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11191

NEW POLL: MAJORITY of Americans APPROVE of Trump impeachment inquiry BY JENNIFER DE PINTO, ANTHONY SALVANTO, FRED BACKUS AND KABIR KHANNA SEPTEMBER 29, 2019 / 10:30 AM / CBS NEWS cbsnews.com More than half of Americans — and an overwhelming number of Democrats — say they approve of the fact that Congress has opened an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. But as the inquiry begins, there is no national consensus on how to assess the president's actions. Partisans have immediately and predictably split: most Democrats call the president's handling of matters with Ukraine illegal, and deserving of impeachment. Most Republicans call his actions proper — or, even if improper, then still legal — and feel they're an example of things that past presidents typically did, too. Most Americans think that because Congress is now taking up the matter, it will be unable to work on other issues. Almost nine in 10 Democrats approve of the inquiry, and two-thirds strongly approve. Prior to the inquiry, some had wondered if taking up impeachment proceedings might divide a Democratic rank-and-file that has been long concerned with other policies like health care and guns. However, these findings suggest that it this is not the case: most moderate Democrats side with liberal Democrats in supporting impeachment proceedings. Of those who say they voted for a Democratic House candidate in 2018, nine in 10 feel this inquiry is necessary. Characterizing the president's actions in particular, just under one-third of Americans say the president's handling of matters with Ukraine may have been improper but were nonetheless still legal. Just over a quarter, including most Republicans, says the president acted properly. Another four in 10, including most Democrats, feel he has acted illegally. There is division over whether the president's deserves to be impeached. Just slightly more feel he does than he doesn't, and almost a quarter feel it's too soon to say — most of them say they want to wait to see what the facts show. Most Republicans believe that the president's aims in the matter were to protect U.S. interests and stop corruption. Seven in 10 Republicans feel that his dealings with Ukraine are typical of what most past presidents have probably done in dealing with foreign countries. What's next?Most Democrats say they were glad when they heard an impeachment inquiry had been launched, and another three in 10 described themselves feeling satisfied. Just over half of Republicans said they felt angry about it. And six in 10 Republicans said it made them want to defend the president. Under a quarter of Republicans said they do think the inquiry is necessary, but most of those who do still think his actions were proper or legal. A majority of Americans have heard at least something about Mr. Trump's assertions concerning Joe Biden and his son and Ukraine. Almost two-thirds of Republicans feel these assertions warrant further investigation; just a quarter of Democrats feel the same. Most of each partisan side thinks this will work out to their political advantage. A slight majority of Democrats think holding an impeachment inquiry in 2020 is better for them; just over half of Republicans think it's better for their side. A slim majority feel the Democrats are trying to politically damage the president with the inquiry. Most Americans think Congress will be too distracted by an impeachment inquiry to work on other legislation and issues. It's mostly those who disapprove of starting the inquiry in the first place who hold this view, but a third of Democrats also feel this way. However, when Democrats choose from a list of things Congress can spend time on, more say they'd like Congress to focus its attention on impeachment now than health care or gun policy, in particular. Trending News Call summary shows Trump prodded Ukraine to probe Biden Whistleblower says White House tried to "lock down" Ukraine records Read the unclassified whistleblower complaint against Trump White House concealed potentially damaging calls with foreign leaders The CBS News survey is conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 2,059 U.S. residents interviewed between September 26-27, 2019. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as well as 2016 presidential vote and registration status. The margin of error is +/- 2.3 points. Full results First published on September 29, 2019 / 10:30 AM