RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
March 17 to March 23 Featured Investigation:
As Mueller Probe Ends,
Continuing Anti-Trump Oppo Research
Comes Into Focus It might be "salacious" and "unverified," but the Steele dossier is also one of the most effective pieces of opposition research in political history, inspiring numerous Russia probes while casting a shadow of collusion and treason over Donald Trump's presidency. Now, with the completion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe recommending no further indictments -- the "end of the begining," as some are calling it -- we are learning how that oppo research continues to the present day, with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele still in the thick of it. As Paul Sperry reports for RealClearInvestigations, the two have been hired by The Democracy Integrity Project, a multi-million-dollar effort still pushing Trump-Russia conspiracy stories daily to major media outlets, the FBI and Congress. Funded by billionaire George Soros and other wealthy Democrats including Hollywood activist Rob Reiner, TDIP is led by Daniel J. Jones, a former FBI investigator, Clinton volunteer and Senate intelligence staffer. Sperry reports that Jones, Simpson and TDIP have pushed several questionable stories published in major news outlets - including claims that Russia was funneling campaign donations to Trump through the National Rifle Association, and that Mueller had evidence that Michael Cohen's phone pinged a cell tower near Prague around the time the Steele dossier reported he was meeting with Russian agents. Jones' close connection to Senator Dianne Feinstein may also help explain why she unilaterally released a 300-page transcript of the closed-door testimony of Jones' partner Simpson, over the objections of then-chairman Chuck Grassley. He accused Feinstein of violating committee precedent and trying to undermine the panel's investigation of the dossier by tainting the testimony of future witnesses. Sperry also reports that TDIP has partnered with New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, which was implicated in Russian-style election meddling in Alabama's U.S. Senate race in 2017. Read Full Story The Trump Investigations: Top Articles Mueller Files Russia Report Backing No New Charges, New York Times
Mueller Is Done. Trump Still Isn't Safe. Daily Beast
With Mueller Probe Over, 5 Things That Didn't Happen, Washington Examiner
New FBI Texts, New Evidence of FBI Bias, Fox News
New Release of Classified Emails Clinton Tried to Destroy, Judicial Watch
Steele Says He UsedUnvettedCNN User Site to Back Dossier, FoxNews
McCain's Key Role in Fueling Trump-Russia Hysteria, American Greatness Other Noteworthy Articles and Series Are Unrecorded FBI Interviews a G-Man's License to Lie?
RealClearInvestigations
Many were shocked to learn that Hillary Clinton's interview with the FBI about her handling of classified emails was not tape-recorded. They may be more shocked to learn that is standard FBI procedure. As Eric Felten reports for RealClearInvestigations, the bureau has insisted for more than half a century on summarizing - rather than recording - its interrogations, in a type of memo designated an FD-302 or just "302." Those memos - rather than transcripts of the interviews - have been used in recent high-profile investigations into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, among others. In a 2006 policy memo, the FBI offered several reasons why it resisted recording, including the telling admission that, when people get a look at FBI interrogations in action, they don't like what they see: As "all experienced investigators and prosecutors know, perfectly lawful and acceptable interviewing techniques do not always come across in recorded fashion to lay persons as proper means of obtaining information from defendants," the memo states. "Initial resistance may be interpreted as involuntariness, and misleading a defendant as to the quality of the evidence against him may appear to be unfair deceit." Why Ballot Fraud Is as Big as Texas, Despite Local Enforcers
RealClearInvestigations
Election fraud may seem rare only because nobody is actually looking for it. Consider Texas. It leads the nation in prosecutions of election fraud; since January 2018, at least 33 people have been convicted of election crimes. But, like most other states, it does not have a well-financed bureaucracy responsible for safeguarding ballot integrity. Instead, as Steve Miller reports forRealClearInvestigations, this duty largely falls to - and is jealously guarded by - local officials in each of the state's 254 counties. As a result, even in Texas, exposing election fraud relies on a disorganized, ad hoc group of aggrieved candidates and political partisans who suspect foul play. They must hope to find local officials willing to perform the painstaking, time-consuming work identifying and investigating potentially fraudulent ballots. Most but not all of the people focused on exposing voter fraud in Texas are Republicans. Miller reports that this has led some Democrats to criticize their efforts as voter suppression aimed at minorities. How Maduro Used Cuban Doctors to Coerce Venezuela Voters
New York Times
Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro and his supporters in the Cuban government used medical care as a political tool during last year's election - including denying treatment for opposition supporters with life-threatening ailments. This article draws on interviews with 16 members of Cuba's medical missions to Venezuela to describe a system of deliberate political manipulation in which their services were wielded to secure votes for the governing Socialist Party, often through coercion. The Cuban doctors said they were ordered to go door-to-door in impoverished neighborhoods, offering medicine and warning residents that they would be cut off from medical services if they did not vote for Mr. Maduro or his candidates. 'Pimped' by Her Lawyer: Sex for Sale in Opioid-Wasted Town
Cincinnati Enquirer
The federal wiretap affidavit alleged in 2015 that MichaelMearan, an ex-city councilman and prominent lawyer in opioid-ravaged Portsmouth, Ohio, had at least 27 women working for as prostitutes, in a drug and sex trafficking ring operating throughout the Midwest. The Drug Enforcement Adminisration appears to have closed the investigation in 2016, convicting eight people but not chargingMearan. With many locals puzzled by that decision, Cincinnati Enquirer decided to investigate, interviewing more than 65 people and reviewing hundreds of documents: "Among those interviewed were 10 women who separately shared accounts of working forMearanas a prostitute at various times over the last two decades. Records show thatMearanhad represented six of the women facing drug charges." Media FOIA Requests to EPA Spiked After Trump Election
Washington Free Beacon
Donald Trump has transformed many major media outlets from lapdogs into watchdogs - though mad dogs may be a better description in some cases. The evidence can be foundin the Free Beacon's analysis of Freedom of Information Act requests made to the Environmental Protection Agency since 2013: Reporters at the New York Times have made 100 FOIA requests since Trump took office just over two years ago, a 669 percent increase of the number of FOIA requests it made during the four years of Obama's second term - which was when the EPA released major proposals such as the Clean Power Plan and its new Waters of the United States rule. Reporters at the Washington Post sent just a single FOIA request to the EPA during Obama's entire second term, and have sent 43 FOIA requests to the agency since Trump took office. The sharp increase in FOIA requests to the EPA was also apparent at Politico (15 requests in Obama's second term, 198 since Trump took office), The Hill (20 requests in Obama's second term, 67 since Trump took office), CNN (25 requests in Obama's second term, 47 since Trump took office), Buzzfeed (18 requests in Obama's second term, 38 since Trump took office), and ABC News (4 requests in Obama's second term, 32 since Trump took office). China Convinced the U.S. That Uighurs Were Waging Jihad
The Atlantic
Calling out China for its often brutal repression of its Uighur minority - a Muslim ethnic group it accuses of links to terror- has been part of the Trump administration's toughening stand against the country. This article recalls the period just after the 9/11 attacks when the United States viewed China as less a rising foe than partner in trade and diplomacy; the Bush administration cooperated in Uighur repression by holding 22 of them in Guantánamo Bay. None of the men, arrested in Afghanistan and Pakistan, appeared to have fought on any of the past jihadist battlegrounds—not in Afghanistan itself during the Soviet invasion, norirBosnia or Chechnya. And yet, despite the lack of evidence against them, the United States for years resisted legal efforts to free these Uighur prisoners, some of them remaining among "the worst of the worst" for 12 years until they were finally released. Cannabis Cash Being Used to Grease California Palms
Los Angeles Times
In the more than two years since California voters approved the licensed growing and sale of recreational marijuana, the state has seen a half-dozen government corruption cases. In many cases, the officials have been bribed to protect licensed businesses or to fast-trackpermits. Ironically, the legalization of marijuana has led to a thriving black market- pot sold outside official channels,including out of state-was estimated to be worth $3.7 billion last year, more than four times the size of the legal market, creating more opportunities for corruption. Americans Are Going Bankrupt From Getting Sick
The Atlantic
Nearly 60 percent of people who have filed for bankruptcy said a medical expense "very much" or "somewhat" contributed to their bankruptcy, a new survey reports. That was more than the percentage who cited home foreclosure or student loans. The finding aligns with a 2016 study, which found that a third of cancer survivors had gone into debt as a result of their medical expenses, and 3 percent had filed for bankruptcy. Emergency-room visits and planned surgical procedures are the most common causes of large medical bills that patients simply can't afford to pay. When Musk Tried to Destroy Tesla Whistleblower
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Elon Musk was not happy with a June 4, 2018 article in Business Insider reporting miscalculations at Tesla's battery plant that may have cost the tech entrepreneur's electric-car company $150 million. Musk wanted to know who leaked the story. The answer was Martin Tripp, a slight man of 40 who'd spent his career in a series of low-level manufacturing jobs before finding his way to the assembly line. Tripp later claimed to be an idealist trying to get Tesla to tighten its operations; Musk saw him as a dangerous foe who engaged in "extensive and damaging sabotage." This article details Musk's efforts to punish Tripp, In addition to suing Tripp for $167 million, "Tesla's PR department spread rumors that Tripp was possibly homicidal and had been part of a grand conspiracy." |
