Unfortunately, no…
Trump: ‘It’s Very Sad What They’ve Done To Paul Manafort’
By Nicole Lafond | August 17, 2018 11:04 am
President Donald Trump on Friday expressed sympathy for his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort while a jury at a federal court in Virginia deliberates the case.
“I don’t talk about that now,” Trump said from the South Lawn when asked an inaudible question about Manafort. “I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad. When you look at what’s going on there, I think it’s a very sad day for our country. He worked for me for a very short period of time. And you know what? He happens to be a very good person. I think it’s very sad what they’ve done to Paul Manafort.”
The jury is currently deliberating whether Manafort is guilty of financial fraud crimes related to his use of foreign bank accounts.
https://
talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-very-sad-manafort
THESE FUCKING WANGDOODLES!
Federal investigators are now examining the Ohio State University sexual abuse scandal.
Trump loyalist Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) wants to be the next Speaker of the House. But first, federal investigators are going to want to know what Jordan knew, as an Ohio State University wrestling coach, about complaints surrounding a university doctor who is accused of sexual abusing athletes.
On Thursday, the Department of Education announced that its Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into the OSU abuse scandal.
And it’s not just top ranking university officials who will be the target of the Department of Education probe. Federal investigators want to find out how all OSU staffers dealt with Strauss and the real-time complaints about his behavior.
“The Department’s Office for Civil Rights will investigate the university’s response to ‘allegations that employees knew or should have known about the sexual misconduct and allowed the abuse to continue,'” NBC News reported.
https://
shareblue.com/jim-jordan-sex-abuse-cover-up-federal-investigation/
More than a dozen top intel officials slam Trump for threatening clearances
BY OLIVIA BEAVERS
08/17/18 01:33 PM EDT
A source familiar with the matter told The Hill on Friday that another letter is circulating among former officials who held agency positions below the role of deputy director, another sign of push-back.
Two of the signatories of the statement, Hayden and Clapper, are among those whose security clearances are under review by the White House, according to a list read by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday. Like Brennan, both men have fiercely criticized the president.
Hayden, who served as the head of the CIA under during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, has become a prominent opponent of the Trump White House.
From warning officials not to work for the Trump administration, to questions about the president’s mental stability, Hayden’s caustic remarks appear to have captured the attention of the White House.
Clapper, who served during the Obama administration as the head of the national intelligence agency, has similarly emerged as one Trump’s vocal detractors on cable news.
Clapper became a target of the president’s ire earlier this year over the controversy that Trump has dubbed as “Spygate.” The president and his allies were seeking to learn more information about an FBI informant who reportedly met with a handful of Trump campaign aides during the 2016 election.
Clapper maintained that the source did not infiltrate Trump’s campaign for political purposes. Clapper said the FBI was “spying” on the Russians, but the president twisted his words to claim the government was spying on his campaign.
“Clapper has now admitted that there was Spying in my campaign. Large dollars were paid to the Spy, far beyond normal. Starting to look like one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE - a terrible thing!” Trump tweeted in late May.
Gates, who served as the CIA director under former President George H.W. Bush and secretary of Defense to both to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, signed on as well. His criticism against the White House has been neither as frequent nor as fiery as some of the other former officials, but he hasn’t been afraid to take a few public punches.
During the 2016 election, Gates wrote a scathing opinion piece where he hit Trump as “being beyond” repair, but he also criticized Hillary Clinton for her “much-discussed credibility” issues.
“A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander-in-chief is too great a risk for America,” Gates wrote in The Wall Street Journal in September 2016, weeks before Election Day.
Gates’s career in the national security apparatus spans multiple decades, first joining the CIA as a analyst in 1966.
Like Gates, several officials on the statement also worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations as agency heads, including Tenet, who formerly lead the CIA during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
Panetta served as President Clinton's chief of staff before becoming the CIA director in the Obama administration.
Gen. David Petraeus, the latest CIA director to sign onto the statement, served during the Obama administration after an extensive career in the U.S. army. He resigned after about a year into his role as CIA chief, citing personal reasons and admitting to an extramarital affair.
Webster served as the director of the CIA during part of the Reagan administration. He is the predecessor to all the other CIA chiefs who signed onto the remarks.
“Decisions on security clearances should be based on national security concerns and not political views,” the statement reads.
Trump, however, pushed back on this notion on Friday, claiming he is actually giving his critics a bigger platform.
“I'm giving them a bigger voice … And that's OK with me because I like taking on voices like that,” the president said, adding he has “never respected” Brennan.
The president's comments come two days after he revoked Brennan’s security clearance, a move he says is tied to the CIA chief’s involvement in the Russia probe.
“I say it, I say it again: That whole situation is a rigged witch hunt,” Trump told reporters, referring to the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. “It's a totally rigged deal. They should be looking at the other side.”
While the administration faced powerful blowback from the intelligence community and Democrats for his Brennan move, Trump appears undeterred.
He told reporters Friday that he is expecting to revoke the security clearance of Bruce Ohr, a current Justice Department official who has come under increasing GOP fire for his ties to the controversial Steele dossier.
https://
thehill.com/policy/national-security/402358-former-top-intel-officials-slam-trumps-brennan-move
CNN Just Sued The Government To Get The Names And Addresses Of Manafort Jurors
The anti-Trump cable news network has a long history of doxxing threats and harassment.
AUGUST 17, 2018
By Bre Payton
‘Generally, there is a policy against publishing juror names,’ Tompkins said. ‘Among journalists, there genuinely is the feeling that there is no good, compelling reason to identify these people.’
This isn’t the first time CNN has tried to doxx private individuals whose political views or statements offend the network. Last July, the news network threatened to identify a Reddit user who created a GIF of Trump wrestling another man with CNN’s logo superimposed on his face.
http:/
/thefederalist.com/2018/08/17/cnn-just-sued-government-get-names-addresses-manafort-jurors/#.W3cKaWelfFU.twitter
Preliminary report on Aug. 10 crash of De Havilland DHC8 in Steilacoom, WA:
https://
app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20180812X92421&AKey=1&RType=Prelim&IType=FA&utm_source=Media%20Relations&utm_campaign=Social&utm_term=Tweet&utm_content=Aviation%20prelim