| President Trump took to Twitter Monday morning to slam his former adviser Omarosa Manigault-Newman, hours after she ignited a new controversy by releasing an audio tape that appears to be a recording of the president commiserating about her firing last year. “Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time,” Trump wrote Monday. “She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. I would rarely see her but heard....” In his subsequent tweet, he added “...really bad things. Nasty to people & would constantly miss meetings & work. When Gen. Kelly came on board he told me she was a loser & nothing but problems. I told him to try working it out, if possible, because she only said GREAT things about me - until she got fired!” On Monday morning, NBC’s Today show aired a recording in which it appears that Trump did not actually know that she had been fired by his chief of staff, John Kelly, until she informed him. In the tape, the voice seeming to be Trump said “I didn’t know that. Goddamn it. I don’t love you leaving at all.” This most recent flare-up in the war between Manigault-Newman and Team Trump comes the day before her book, Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House, is scheduled for release. |
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| The FBI has fired Agent Peter Strzok, who was axed from the bureau’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election after his anti-Trump texts surfaced, The Washington Post reports. Strzok’s attorney Aitan Goelman said FBI Deputy Director David L. Bowdich ordered Strzok fired even though the FBI’s disciplinary office decided he should be suspended for 60 days and demoted. “The discussion to fire [Strzok] is not only a departure from typical bureau practice, but it also contradicts Director Wray’s testimony to Congress and his and his assurance that the FBI intended to follow its regular practice in this and all personnel matters,” Goelman said in a statement. “This decision should be deeply troubling to all Americans... It is a decision that only produces one winner—those who seek to harm our country and weaken our democracy. The FBI and the American people deserve better.” The FBI declined to comment to the Post. Strzok defended himself last month, saying that he took no part in “conspiratorial bias” during a tense congressional testimony about his private texts to FBI lawyer Lisa Page. |
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| In the midst of railing against ex-aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman after she dropped a recording of a private conversation with him, President Trump on Monday resorted to retweeting Michael Cohen, who also secretly recorded the president, as a means to attack Omarosa. “I saw NO such thing and am shocked anyone would take this seriously,” Cohen wrote of Omarosa’s claim to have witnessed Trump eat a note written by Cohen. That tweet was then retweetd by the president, despite the fact that Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis recently provided CNN with a recording of Trump and Cohen discussing payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claims she had an affair with the president. Omarosa, on the other hand, released a tape of a phone call between her and the president after she gave Meet the Press a recording of John Kelly firing her in the White House’s Situation Room. The Daily Beast was first to report at Omarosa had secret audio recordings of the president in her possession. View this cheat in a browser to see this embedded tweet. |
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| The Department of Homeland Security has created a grant to train high school students to respond to mass casualty events. The “School-Age Trauma Training” program created by the $1.8 million grant will give children “the knowledge necessary to stabilize the injured and control severe bleeding until first responders arrive on the scene,” according to procurement documents. The documents do not specify what type of mass casualty events students will be trained for, but the grant follows several high-profile school shootings. “Similar to how students learn health education and driver’s education, they must learn proper bleeding control techniques using commonly available materials; including how to use their hands, dressings and tourniquets,” the records said. Students will also be given “information on how to use one’s hands to apply pressure to a wound when nothing else is immediately available.” The documents also outline a “Strategic Business Plan” to get donations to keep the program going. |
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| It only took a few years for a tiny, picturesque Kentucky town to go from the “Most Beautiful Small Town in America” to a place where residents felt they had to barricade their doors at night, a natural response to five unsolved murders. And in the most brutal killing of them all, it only took about 15 minutes for some faceless monster to savagely beat 16-year-old high school student Samantha Netherland to death and fatally shoot her mother, special-ed teacher Kathy Netherland, and slash both their throats. Who would want to kill such harmless residents of Bardstown, a town of only 13,000 people? The loved ones of the Netherlands want answers, as do plenty of other Bardstown residents still shell-shocked by the four other murders that came in rapid succession from 2013 to 2016. Jason Ellis, a well-respected police officer, trapped and ambushed on a highway exit ramp in May 2013. Crystal Rogers, a mother of five, presumed dead in the summer of 2015 after vanishing without a trace. And her father, Tommy Ballard, blown away by gunfire in late 2016 after apparently getting closer to finding answers in his daughter’s death. Sign up for Beast Inside and join us as we try to make sense of these harrowing murders in our special Beast Files series. |
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| Well this should be an interesting Thanksgiving dinner table. Bobby Goodlatte, the son of retiring Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)—the chairman the House Judiciary Committee and a harsh critic of FBI investigations of the Trump campaign—announced on Twitter late Sunday that he will be donating to the Democrat running to replace his father and hopes to “flip” Virginia’s Sixth District. “I just gave the maximum allowed donation to Jennifer Lewis, a democrat running for my father’s congressional seat. I’ve also gotten 5 other folks to commit to donate the max. 2018 is the year to flip districts — let’s do this!” Rep. Goodlatte announced his retirement in November 2017. Lewis supports Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage, and marijuana legalization, HuffPost reports. She is running against Republican Ben Cline. View this cheat in a browser to see this embedded tweet. |
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| Peter Beinhart, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, was detained in Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport due to an “administrative mistake,” according to a press release from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. According to the statement, Netanyahu “immediately spoke with forces to inquire” why Beinhart was detained and questioned at the airport. The prime minister was then told it was an “administrative mistake.” “Israel is an open society that welcomes all–critics and supporters alike,” the statement read. In a column for The Forward, Beinhart said he was on his way to his niece’s Bat Mitzvah in Israel on Sunday when he was pulled aside for an extra screening. His account describes how an interrogator asked him “political questions” about groups he was involved with and how he “participated in a protest” on Israeli soil in the past. “[The interrogator] established no consistent or objective standard for my detention,” Beinhart wrote. “His standard was whether I planned to cause trouble—trouble meaning whatever he and his superiors wanted it to mean.” |
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| Prosecutors have charged a white man who fatally shot a black man outside a Florida convenience store with manslaughter. Michael Drejka, 47, was booked into Pinellas County jail Monday, weeks after Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri declined to arrest him, citing Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. The law states that a person can use deadly force if they “reasonably” believe it’s necessary to prevent “imminent death or great bodily harm.” State Attorney Bernie McCabe’s decision to charge Drejka shows prosecutors believe they can prove “Stand Your Ground” does not apply to the case. Drejka can been seen on surveillance video shooting Markeis McGlockton, 28, outside the Circle A convenience store after McGlockton shoves him to the ground. The incident began when Drejka confronted McGlockton’s girlfriend, Britany Jacobs, because she was parked in a handicap spot. Drejka “appeared to be irate” when he approached Jacobs, according to his arrest warrant, obtained by the Tampa Bay Times. McGlockton backed up about 12 feet before Drejka shot him, the warrant said. |
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| A 2,000-year-old Juniper tree is in the direct path of one of the California wildfires, The Mercury News reports. The 82-year-old Bennett Juniper is in the direct path of the Donnell Fire’s southern edge in the Sierra Nevadas, and firefighters are working to stop the blaze’s growth before it hits the tree and “nearby structures in the Stanislaus National Forest.” According to the Save the Redwoods League, some botanists believe the Bennett Juniper may be as much as 6,000 years old, which would make it the oldest living tree in the world. The fire has consumed 44 square miles thus far, and it is only 20 percent contained. The news comes as California’s Mendocino Complex Fire was named the largest in the state’s history, burning 513 square miles thus far and destroying 139 homes. |
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| Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims she had an affair with President Donald Trump in 2006, will appear in the upcoming season of the United Kingdom’s Celebrity Big Brother, according to The Sun. A source told The Sun that “Stormy is the biggest signing for this year’s show and she’ll make headlines around the world.” But Daniels won’t be the only notable cast member: She’ll reportedly be joined by Kirstie Alley, the “human Ken Doll,” and Nick Leeson—the British trader who shuttered his employer, Barings Bank, after making $800 million worth of fraudulent trades in the mid ‘90s. One more celebrity guest, whose identity has not yet been revealed, will join the cast during Thursday’s premiere. |
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