RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week Dec. 2 to Dec. 8 Featured Investigation Contrary to media speculation that Robert Mueller is closing in on President Trump, the special prosecutor's plea deal with Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen offers further evidence that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russians during the 2016 election, congressional investigators and former prosecutors tell Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations. Sources tell Sperry that Mueller apparently withheld exculpatory evidence in the statement of charges he filed against Cohen for lying about the duration of talks over a never-realized Moscow Trump Tower.Sperry reports: Mueller omitted the fact that Cohen did not have any direct points of contact at the Kremlin, and had resorted to sending the emails to Vladimir Putin's general press mailbox. Sources who have seen this omitted information say it undercuts the idea of a "back channel" and thus the special counsel's collusion case. The same criminal information document holds additional exculpatory evidence for Trump, sources say. It quotes an August 2017 letter from Cohen to the Senate intelligence committee in which he states that Trump "was never in contact with anyone about this [Moscow Project] proposal other than me." This section of Cohen's written testimony, unlike other parts, is not disputed as false by Mueller. Also notable: Mueller did not challenge Cohen's statement that he "ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia." The Moscow tower project never went anywhere because Cohen's contact, Felix Sater, a Russian immigrant with a checkered past who was a Cohen associate in New York real estate, didn't have the pull with Putin he claimed to have. Read Full Article The Trump Investigations: Top Articles Pre-Mueller, FBI Saw Trump as Needing Reining In, CNN 'No Controlling Bill Clinton': Foundation Whistleblower Evidence, The Hill 3 Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers, Fox News Mueller: Russian Offered Cohen 'Synergy,' Washington Post Manafort Lied in Breach of Deal, Mueller Says, Daily Beast Mueller Favors No Jail for Flynn, Washington Examiner Secret FBI Emails Said to Show Advance Doubts of FISA Case,TheHill
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series In 4 Years, Nearly 4,000 Migrants Dead or Missing on Way to U.S. Associated Press In the past four years alone, almost 4,000 migrants have died or gone missing en route to the United States, the Associated Press has found in an exclusive tally. That's 1,573 more than the previously known number, calculated by the United Nations. And even the AP's number is likely low — bodies may be lost in the desert, and families may not report missing loved ones who were migrating illegally.These migrants are among about 56,800 worldwide who died or disappeared over the same period, the AP found. Louisiana: 80% Getting Obamacare Medicaid Found Ineligible Washington Times Louisiana's legislative auditor wanted to know how the state's expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare was doing, so he picked 100 people who were deemed eligible under the rules. He found that 82 of them made so much money that they shouldn't have qualified for the benefits they received. In California, a federal inspector general's report this year found 38 out of a sample of 150 Medicaid beneficiaries were potentially ineligible. Extrapolated statewide, that would mean more than 350,000 questionable customers. Another report estimated nearly 50,000 questionable beneficiaries in New York. Report: 63 Percent of 'Non-Citizens' on Welfare Washington Examiner Amajority of "non-citizens," including those with legal green card rights, are tapping into welfare programs set up to help poor and ailing Americans. A new analysis of 2014 census data by the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports limits on immigration, found that 63 percent of non-citizens are using a welfare program, and it grows to 70 percent for those here 10 years or more, confirming another concern that once immigrants tap intowelfare, they don't get off it. The report said that there are 4,684,784 million non-citizen households receiving welfare. Making Trump's Bed at NJ Club: Illegal Maid Who Faked Papers New York Times An illegalimmigrantwho has made Donald J. Trump's bed, cleaned his toilet and dusted his crystal golf trophies while working as a maid at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., is stepping out of the shadows to complain about the president's rhetoric regarding other illegal immigrants. The woman - who still works for the Trump property -claims her employersknew about her status and that the documents she used to get hired in 2013 were fraudulent.The interactions she describes with Trump were friendly and respectful. Wall St. #MeToo Credo: Strictly Avoid Women Bloomberg No more dinners with female colleagues. Don't sit next to them on flights. Book hotel rooms on different floors. Avoid one-on-one meetings. These are some of the controversial strategies many men on Wall Street are adopting in the #MeToo era - practices that may protect them, but make life even harder for women. In fact, as a wealth adviser put it, just hiring a woman these days is "an unknown risk." What if she took something the boss said the wrong way? Facebook Used Data to Reward and Punish, Emails Show Bloomberg Dangerous misuse of power or normal business practice?That's the unresolved question after British lawmakers published a trove of internal correspondence that suggests Facebook treated information posted by users like a commodity that could be harnessed in service of business goals. Apps were invited to use Facebook's network to grow, as long as that increased usage of Facebook. Certain competitors, in a list reviewed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, were not allowed to use Facebook's tools and data without his personal signoff. "We're trying to enable people to share everything they want, and to do it on Facebook," Zuckerberg wrote in a November 2012 email. Google Manipulates Search Results Based on Personal Data Spread Privacy Blog Despite Google's claims, it has not reduced its "filter bubble" problem, which refers to the manipulation of search results based on data. This story reports on a series of tests that showed the filter bubble is at play even when users were logged out of Google or were performing incognito searches. The story implies that Google also puts its finger on the scale, privileging stories and websites that align more with the left than the right. Disgruntled Undercover Informant Decides to Blab USA Today This man says he parlayed his experience as a drug dealer into nearly two decades as a federal informant, during which, he boasts, he helped lock up 168 criminal targets in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government. He says he played a role in an elaborate 2017 FBI sting in which he lured a target into making a purported bomb to be used in a drug world murder. Now he's talking to the press, he says, to force the government to pay him the $80,000 he says it owes for work in that case. This is his story. California: How 150 Survived State's Deadliest Fire Los Angeles Times Surrounded by fuel and barred from escape by roaring flames and roads choked with traffic, then abandoned vehicles, then burned-out hulks of charred metal, about 150Californians fleeing the ferocious Camp Fire in Paradise found life-saving refuge in an unlikely place: a parking lot.This article recounts their terrifyingordeal. |