RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
March 3 to March 9 Just when you thought revelations about the FBI's behavior toward Donald Trump couldn't be any more startling, now there's this from Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations: Two days after then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe formally put the President under criminal investigation in May 2017, bureau officials reached out to the author of the largely discredited, Hillary Clinton-funded "Steele dossier" for more information - even though they had fired him for misconduct six months earlier. - Text messages and newly released congressional testimony reveal that just days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017, McCabe's "Russia team" re-established direct contact with ex-British spy Christopher Steele to build a case against the president for espionage and obstruction of justice.
- Former federal prosecutors and investigators said the revelation raises fresh questions about the evidentiary grounds on which the FBI opened an unprecedented probe targeting the president. They described the move as "desperate" and warned that if the nation's top police force can investigate and spy on a president without hard evidence of criminal behavior, they can do it to anyone.
- The sequence of events began with Comey's firing, when McCabe quickly assembled his investigators, led by anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok. This team quickly recommended a full investigation of the president, which McCabe says he approved on May 10. Two days later, the FBI sought to reconnect with its old informant Steele.
- The overture was made through Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm paid by the Clinton campaign, which got Steele to dig up dirt on Trump.
In a sidebar article, which the President tweeted about on Friday, Sperry has more: McCabe did not just investigate President Trump, but also his department boss: then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. A little-publicized part of McCabe's recent book says the Sessions probe began after Senate Democrats asked McCabe to look into allegations Sessions perjured himself during his confirmation hearings, when he denied meeting with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. In the book, McCabe slams the Alabaman as an unfocused manager and a bigot, while failing to mention at all McCabe's own role behind Steele or his lurid dossier sourced to Russian informants. Read Full Article The Trump Investigations: Top Articles Prosecutors Rebuffed by Light, No-Collusion Term for Manafort, The Hill
Before Testifying, Cohen Met With Schiff's Staff 10+ Hours, Fox News
Lobbyist Is Tied to Jerry Nadler, and Russian State Media, Daily Beast
Fusion GPS Contacted State Dept. During 2016 Campaign, Daily Caller
Trump's School Files Hidden as He Sought Obama's, Washington Post
How Fox News and the White House Are Intertwined, New Yorker Other Noteworthy Articles and Series During therecentgovernment shutdown over border wall funding, many news outlets aggressively challenged President Trump's claim of a crisis on the southern border."This is false,"the New York Timestold its readers in its State of the Union fact checkrecalled by Breitbartthis week. An array of publications, including theWashington Post,CNN,NPR, theBBCandVoxall echoed the Times claim. This week, with Trump's funding ultimatum defeated and opposition to his border agenda solidified by such negative coverage, many of these same news outlets discovered there's a crisis at the border. It's an about-face that refuses to look back; don't hold your breath for a correction, much less an editor's note. Instead, you get: "Border at ‘Breaking Point' as More Than 76,000 Migrants Cross in a Month," as one Times headline put it. The surge, the article said, illustrated the failure of the "Trump administration's aggressive policies" - rather than the result of opposition to those policies. "‘You Have to Pay With Your Body'": The Hidden Nightmare of Sexual Violence on the Border," said another Times headline. The article, about human smugglers, lent credence to Trump's much-vilified campaign claim that rapists were coming into the country. In the same week, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said young female migrants traveling north to the United States are raped with such regularity that Immigration and Customs Enforcement isgiving every girl over 10 a pregnancy testafter arriving. This sexual violencecould not have been surprising to news outlets that had dismissed the idea of a border crisis just a few weeks ago. It echoes a2017 Doctors Without Borders report on migrants, finding that "nearly one-third of the women surveyed had been sexually abused during their journey." Deadly Deliveries: U.S. Hospitals Don't Do Enough to Protect Mothers
USA Today
The vast majority of women in America give birth without incident. But each year, more than 50,000 are severely injured. About 700mothers die. The best estimates say that half of these deaths couldbe prevented and half the injuries reduced or eliminated with better care."Instead," USA Today reports, "the U.S. continues to watch other countries improve as it falls behind. Today, this is the most dangerous place in the developed world to give birth."To report this multi-part series, "Deadly Deliveries,"the paper drew on more thana half-million pages of internal hospital quality records;examined the cases of more than 150women whose deliveries went terribly wrong; and contacted75 birthing hospitals to track whether they follow recommended procedures."Together, these documents and interviews reveal a stunning lack of attention to safety recommendations and widespread failure to protect new mothers." Chinese Hackers Target Universities in Pursuit of Military Secrets
Wall Street Journal
Chinese hackers have targeted more than two dozen universities in the U.S. and around the globe as part of an elaborate efforts to steal research about maritime technology being developed for military use. The Chinese hacking group, which multiple security firms and officials have linked to Beijing, is the same one that has been linked to breaches of Navy contractors and subcontractors. Those breaches have resulted in the theft of sensitive military information, such as submarine missile plans and ship-maintenance data. The newly reported cyberattacks appeared to leverage trust between academics at different research institutions to craft spear-phishing emails. They looked like legitimate messages from one university but instead came loaded with malicious software. Pharma Bro Shkreli Calls Shots From Jail by Phone
Wall Street Journal
A prediction: After you read this article's zowie opening, you will click on the link above to read the rest of the article; if you don't, what's wrong with you? "From a top bunk in a 12-person prison cell in Fort Dix, N.J., Martin Shkreli is at work on a big second act.Wielding little more than a contraband smartphone,the disgraced pharmaceutical executiveremains the shadow power at Phoenixus AG, the drug company that became a national lightning rod forjacking up the prices of rare drugsunderits former name, Turing Pharmaceuticals AG. Mr. Shkreli still helps call the shots. A few weeks ago he rang up his handpicked chief executive during a safari vacation-t o fire him, according to a person familiar with the exchange.This is the secret life of inmate 87850-053, 16 months into a seven-year sentence for securities fraud." Warner Bros. CEO Allegedly Promised Work for Sex
Hollywood Reporter
It's a story as old as Hollywood. Old, powerful man meets beautiful young thespian. She offers up the quid but then there's no quo. Trouble follows.This article reports the affair between a young actress struggling to break into Hollywood, Charlotte Kirk, and Warner Bros. chairman and CEO KevinTsujiha.It draws on hundreds of texts including this one reportedly sent by Kirk to Tsujiha: "You're very busy I know but when we were in that motel having sex u said u would help me and when u just ignore me like you're doing now it makes me feel used. Are u going to help me like u said u would?" The three-year entanglement, revealed here for the first time, follows a familiar script in the unseemly, transactional industry famous for the casting couch. The Girl Scouts' Ties to Abortion-Rights Advocates
Breitbart
The Girl Scouts aren't only about imparting leadership skills and selling cookies - they also appear intent on promoting abortion rights, despite claims to the contrary. The organization's website states that it "does not take a position or develop materials on" issues including human sexuality, birth control, and abortion and denies having "a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood." This article challenges those claims by detailing links between the Scouts and groups that advocate for abortion rights. For example, the Scouts participated in the Teen Vogue Summit last year, which focused on "reproductive justice"; it featured speakers such as former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards and the manager of YouthOrganizingfor Planned Parenthood,Sharim Hossain. Girl Scouts USA is also a member of the Coalition for Adolescent Girls (CAG), which advocates for abortion, contraception and comprehensive sex education forgirls. AOC's Millionaire Chief of Staff May Have Broken Finance Laws
New York Post
Let the investigations begin.Next up, freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).Seems her campaign paid Justice Democrats, a Tennessee-based PAC founded by thetechmillionaire who nowserves as her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, a total of $41,108.59 for "campaign services" and "strategic consulting" in 2017 and 2018, Federal Election Commission filings show. But PACs are not vendors and cannot provide more than $5,000 a year worth of services for any single candidate, according to FEC regulations. This article also reports that Chakrabarti is being paid $52,000 annually — far below the Capitol Hill average of $145,000 for the job — so that Ocasio-Cortez can pay her entry-level staffers the same $52,000 salary. While Ocasio-Cortez has framed this as an issue of equality, the New York Post notes thatunder congressional ethics rules, staffers who earn less than $126,148 are not required to report assets and other income. The Secrets of the World's Greatest Art Thief
GQ
About 50,000 artworks are stolen each year around the world and, it is estimated that more than 99 percent of art thieves are motivated by profit rather than aesthetics. This is why art crimes are typically solved when the thieves try to sell the work. In contrast, Stéphane Breitwieser, kept his plunder from nearly 200 museums at home: a collection of treasures worth more than $1.4 billion. This article recounts the exploits of the Frenchman, one of the most prolific art thiefs in history. Massachusetts: Stoner Dogs a Problem on Cape and Martha's Vineyard
Cape Cod Times
Dogs will eat anything, which is becoming a problem in the era of pot edibles. As states including Massachusetts legalize the medical and recreational use of marijuana - inspiring a wide-range of tasty cannabis creations including pot cookies, chocolates and butter - veterinarians across the country are reporting a rising caseload of emergencies involving dogs sickened by cannabis toxicity. Within the past week, five dogs at the Eastham Veterinary Hospital on Cape Cod have been treated for poisoning caused by marijuana ingestion, according to a nurse at the hospital. |
