RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
August 23 to August 29, 2020 Through the extensive coverage of Russiagate, one central figure has avoided the spotlight: Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer. Until now. Sifting a voluminous new Senate panel report and other evidence, Eric Felten of RealClearInvestigations finds Winer had close ties to Kremlin-connected companies and figures, including oligarch Oleg Deripaska, before using his position to disseminate Christopher Steele's now-debunked dossier within the U.S. government. This revelation, Felten writes, raises new questions about Russian efforts to influence American foreign policy - far afield from any Kremlin efforts to favor Donald Trump: - After initial denials, Winer told the Senate committee that as a lawyer he had advised Deripaska beginning in 2003.
- Steele, a friend of Winer, later also worked for Deripaska.
- While in the Obama State Department, Winer circulated to colleagues over 100 memos from the firm Steele started after leaving the British spy service in 2009.
- The memos sought to influence U.S. policy, but Steele's clients have not been revealed.
- Winer admitted to the panel that he destroyed as many copies of Steele's reports as he could before leaving State.
- Winer used his State email to pitch Steele to private companies, including a Clinton-connected lobbying firm.
- Winer also introduced Steele to executives at the big PR and government relations firm he worked for before and after his stint at State, APCO Worldwide.
- While at APCO, Winer represented a Russian nuclear power company owned by Kremlin-controlled Rosatom.
- After APCO secured that business, the U.S. approved Rosatom's controversial acquisition of Uranium One.
Trump-Russia/2020 Election News Hillary: Biden Should Concede ‘Under No Circumstances', Washington Free Beacon
Clinesmith's Plea Reveals Russia Probe's Rot, National Review
FBI Soft-Peddled Foreign Effort to Influence Clinton, Daily Caller
Trump Ally Ousted at National Enquirer's Parent Company, Associated Press
No Show Legislators Vote on Vacation, Washington Free Beacon Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Now Called 'Russian Spy,' Kilimnik Traded Info With Obama Administration
John Solomon
Perhaps the biggest news out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligences' final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election was that the man former Trump campaign advisor Paul Manafort had shared polling data with a verified Russian intelligence officer. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had only said the Ukrainian man, Konstantin Kilimnik, had ties to Russian intelligence. This article reports that Manafort wasn't the only American Kilimnik was also close to: He was also a "valuable political intelligence source" for the Obama State Department, and that "state officials often shared their private insights with Kilimnik." In other words, the article reports, "the State Department and its Kiev embassy were routinely trading information with a man the Senate report now portrays as an asset of a hostile foreign power during a time when Biden, now the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, oversaw Ukrainian policy for the Obama administration." U.S. Workplaces Fail to Report Injuries
Reveal
More than half of workplaces required to submit injury and illness records flouted that law in 2017 and 2018, failing to electronically submit their logs, keeping dangers cloaked in secrecy. Just a tiny fraction of employers that failed to submit these reports have been penalized. The poor compliance rate by employers surfaced in court documents filed by OSHA in response to a lawsuit brought by the public interest group Public Citizen after the agency refused to release electronic injury and illness records. Modern Slavery Trapped Nigerian Migrants in Italy
Guardian
Perhaps 80% of the Nigerian women and girls have arrived on Italian shores between 2015 and 2017 are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor as they struggle to repay those who arranged their passage, according to United Nations estimates. Italy has been the stage for a cruel cycle of exploitation in which survivors of trafficking, after years of forced prostitution, have become traffickers themselves, the so-called "madams." This article tells the stories of some of these women while also describing the sophisticated network of traffickers operating between Nigeria, Libya, Italy, France, Germany and the UK, which recruited young women and girls, and brought them to Europe. Online Sex Stings Often Entrap the Vulnerable
New York Times
This article reports that since 2015 nearly 300 men in cities and towns across Washington State have been arrested in online-predator stings, most of them run by the State Patrol and code-named Operation Net Nanny. The men range in age from 17 to 77, though about a quarter are 25 or younger. An analysis of court records in Washington State stings, as well as interviews with police and prosecutors, reveals that most of the men arrested have no felony record. A strong predictor of predatory behavior is an obsession with child pornography, but at the time of their arrest, according to the State Patrol, 89 percent had none in their possession and 92 percent had no history of violent crime. The men caught in these cases can wind up serving more time than men who are convicted of sexually assaulting and raping actual children. In a separate article, NPR reports sex offender registries created by states to keep tabs on offenders are rife with errors, such as wrong addresses or names of offenders who died as long as 20 years ago. After combing through the registries, NPR says it counted tens of thousands of offenders who are considered absconders or whose locations are unknown. Among them were men whom NPR found easily using public records. Coronavirus Investigations Experts Now Doubt Covid Lockdowns Worth the Price
Wall Street Journal
Five months into the pandemic, the evidence suggests lockdowns imposed by many state and local governments were an overly blunt and economically costly tool because, in part, they are politically difficult to keep in place for long enough to stamp out the virus. The evidence also points to alternative strategies that could slow the spread of the epidemic at much less cost. As cases flare up throughout the U.S., some experts are urging policy makers to pursue these more targeted restrictions and interventions rather than another crippling round of lockdowns. This article reports that social distancing policies, for example, can take into account widely varying risks by age - with stronger measures for older citizens who are especially vulnerable to the disease and weaker ones for school age children who are at less risk from the disease but may pay a steep long-term price for delays in their education. Scientists Puzzled by Virus's Retreat in Brazil
Washington Post
Many parts of Brazil seemed overwhelmed by COVID-19 in May, when hospitals were turning away sick patients because they often lacked beds, stretchers, oxygen and other basic supplies. People were dying at home. Gravediggers couldn't keep up. The government was blamed on many fronts including its failure to impose lockdowns. In August, hospitalizations of coronavirus patients have plummeted in some of the country's hardest hit areas. This article reports that "the reversal has stunned front-line doctors." Although they cannot precisely explain why the tide has turned - or whether it will last - some experts suspect that it may reveal gaps in their understanding of herd immunity. Also Coronavirus-Related COVID Testing Has Just Been Transformed, The Atlantic
Pandemic Imperils Nursing Home Ballots, ProPublica
The Story of America's First Covid Hotspot, California Sunday Magazine
Illinois Nursing Home Complaints Unheeded for Months, Illinois Policy |
