Defending spies in the Trump campaign is the height of liberal hypocrisy
https:// nypost.com/2018/05/22/defending-spies-in-the-trump-campaign-is-the-height-of-liberal-hypocrisy/
Defending spies in the Trump campaign is the height of liberal hypocrisy
President Trump dubbed his unsubstantiated claim that a shadowy FBI informant was embedded in his 2016 campaign “SPYGATE.”
“Look how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State. They go after Phony Collusion with Russia, a made up Scam, and end up getting caught in a major SPY scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before!,” he wrote on Twitter.
“What goes around, comes around!,” he said, adding: “SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!”
The president in his tweets continued pressing his claims that the FBI embedded an informant in his campaign during the Obama administration for political purposes — an allegation which he said Tuesday would “be a disgrace to the country” if it turned out to be true.
James Clapper, who was the director of national intelligence from 2010 to 2017, said the informant who wasn’t working for the campaign was trying to find out what the Russians were up to.
“They were spying on, a term I don’t particularly like, but on what the Russians were doing,” Clapper said on ABC’s “The View.” “Trying to understand were the Russians infiltrating, trying to gain access, trying to gain leverage or influence, which is what they do.”
Asked by host Joy Behar if Trump should be happy that the FBI was looking out for Russian involvement in the election, Clapper said, “He should be.”
Trump reacted to Clapper’s comments in a tweet on Wednesday, saying: “No, James Clapper, I am not happy.”
Some Republicans in the House are calling for another special counsel to be named to investigate special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and for the informant to be identified.
The person, Cambridge University professor Stefan Halper, has already been outed in multiple news reports.
Halper, 73, is a veteran of past Republican presidential administrations going back to President Richard Nixon and has had contracts with the Defense Department since 2012, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
The newspaper said Halper in the summer of 2016 reached out to three Trump campaign advisers for discussions about foreign policy.
Later that year, he began working for a secret informant for the FBI, which was probing Russian tampering in the campaign.
Halper did not comment for the article.
The Department of Justice said it would expand the probe already under way by the agency’s inspector general to examine the FBI’s involvement in the Trump campaign.
A number of GOP lawmakers and US intelligence officials will meet Thursday to review classified information about the source.
While the president and his allies in the Republican Party claim that the Obama administration’s FBI tried to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton, Trump did win the White House.
In March 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey first publicly announced the agency was investigating Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election and any connection to Trump campaign associates.
The FBI at the same time was carrying out a very public investigation of Clinton’s emails, leading Comey to announce just 11 days before election day that they were reopening the probe after emails were found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the now-estranged husband of longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
https:// nypost.com/2018/05/23/trump-criminal-deep-state-got-caught-in-major-spy-scandal/
North Korea reverts to angry tone as foreign media gathers for shutdown of nuclear test site
Pyongyang lashes out at the South over military drills with the US, sparking concerns about short-lived ‘peace’ between long-time rivals and whether Trump-Kim summit will go ahead.
fter weeks of flowery coverage of historic talks with South Korea and the United States, North Korea’s media returned to its trademark angry tone on Tuesday, just as foreign journalists arrived in the country to cover the demolition of its nuclear test site.
In a sign of how fragile cross-border ties are at a crucial time, Pyongyang newspapers savaged Seoul for carrying out war games with the US, while journalists from the South were refused visas and not allowed on the charter flight for foreign media from Beijing to Wonsan.
North Korea is allowing the small international group access to the site to publicise its promise to halt underground tests and launches of long-range missiles.
Leader Kim Jong-un promised to demolish the site during his landmark talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in last month, saying it would be done before the summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump on June 12 in Singapore.
But Pyongyang has cut off high-level contact with Seoul over the exercises with the US military.
“Dialogue and sabre-rattling can never go together,” said a commentary in Minju Joson, one of the North’s four main daily newspapers.
Another article lashed out at South Korean authorities for allowing defectors to send anti-North Korea leaflets across the border: “If the North-South relations face a grave difficulty again owing to the provocation of human scum, the blame for it will be entirely on the South Korean authorities,” the report said. “They must know what price they will be made to pay.”
The North’s abrupt sharpening of its words has raised concerns the Trump summit may prove to be a tricky one – or that it could even be in jeopardy.
North Korea allowing foreign media to conduct on-the-spot coverage of the facility’s shutdown is seen as a sign of goodwill from Kim, who has recently committed to denuclearization – but skepticism lingers that it may be only a “political show”.
Pyongyang has said it would hold a ceremony to mark the closure between Wednesday and Friday, depending on the weather, and that journalists from China, Russia, the US, Britain and initially South Korea would be allowed to watch.
Journalists from Associated Press, CNN, CBS, Russia Today and Chinese state media outlets were among those seen checking in at Beijing Capital International Airport to catch the Air Koryo flight. They were expected to go to a press centre set up in Wonsan, a city on the country’s east coast.
“We hope that North Korea is going to be transparent like they said,” Will Ripley, a CNN correspondent based in Hong Kong, told reporters before leaving from Beijing.
Kim’s pledged to shut down the test site is said to ensure transparency, according to Moon’s office. But North Korea has not invited any experts, such as those from the International Atomic Energy Agency, raising concern that the actual condition of the nuclear test site will not be known.
The Punggye-ri site is where North Korea carried out all six of its nuclear weapon tests, including the most powerful one last September. All the tunnels will be blown up and the surrounding area will be completely closed, according to North Korean media.
Sceptics warn that Pyongyang has yet to make a public commitment to give up its arsenal and has a history of going back on its word.
In 2008 the government blew up a cooling tower at its atomic reactor at Yongbyon, the facility that produced the plutonium that allowed North Korea to carry out its first successful nuclear test.
More here: http:// www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2147214/foreign-media-arrive-north-korea-sign-shutdown-punggye-ri
It does come off that way. Nothing in her camp either. Interesting is I just read an article in Politico, that works hard at justifying this action, by saying it happened to Barry Goldwater, then it goes so far to say if it did happen. So some real hard rubbing spin on the other side right now. I suspect it will last as long as it takes for the facts to become more mainstream or publicly aware.
I certainly am as well.