U.S. sanctions against Iran are not legitimate: Russia's Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that U.S. sanctions on Iran were not legitimate, in Moscow’s first official comment since Washington restored sanctions on Tehran. Lavrov said Moscow, itself a target of separate U.S. sanctions, expected there would be ways to pursue economic cooperation with Iran despite the reimposition of sanctions on Monday on the country’s oil, banking and transport sectors.

Speaking in Madrid, Lavrov said Washington had used “unacceptable methods” to pressure operators of the SWIFT global financial network into cutting off Iranian banks. Russia and its European partners were looking for ways to maintain economic ties with Tehran, he said after meeting his Spanish counterpart Josep Borrell, but provided no details. Tehran said on Tuesday it had so far been able to sell as much oil as it needs despite U.S. pressure, but urged European countries that oppose the sanctions to do more to shield Iran.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-russia/u-s-sanctions-against-iran-are-not-legitimate-russias-lavrov-idUSKCN1NB1VP

Iran says it is selling the oil it needs to, despite U.S. pressure

ran said on Tuesday it had so far been able to sell as much oil as it needs despite U.S. pressure, but it urged European countries opposed to U.S. sanctions to do more to shield Iran, as Russia and Turkey also voiced their objections. The United States on Monday restored sanctions targeting Iran’s oil, banking and transport sectors and threatened more action to stop what Washington called its “outlaw” policies - steps that Tehran called economic warfare and vowed to defy.

The measures are part of a wider effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to curb Tehran’s missile and nuclear programs and diminish the Islamic Republic’s influence in the Middle East, notably its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. Trump is targeting Iran’s main source of revenue - its oil exports - as well as its financial sector, essentially making 50 Iranian banks and their subsidiaries off-limits to foreign banks, on pain of losing access to the U.S. financial system. “The Americans constantly said they would reduce the sale of Iran’s oil to zero but I have to say that, so far, we have been able to sell our required amounts of oil,” Tasnim news agency quoted Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri as saying. “The Americans, with the help of propaganda, don’t see the realities.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-sanctions/iran-says-it-is-selling-the-oil-it-needs-to-despite-u-s-pressure-idUSKCN1NB0YW

>>3760660

I never liked or trusted this creep…now it's confirmed why! Look who his daddy's are.

Roger Stone’s Attorney Recently Testified Before Mueller Grand Jury

An attorney for President Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone appeared before Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury on Friday, the lawyer told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Tyler Nixon’s encounter with the FBI and Mueller’s team happened in just a matter of weeks, an indication he said suggests that the probe may be wrapping up. Nixon said he was present during a conversation that Stone had in November 2017 with Randy Credico, the comedian who Stone claims was his backchannel to Julian Assange. Credico has denied being Stone’s link to the WikiLeaks founder.

An attorney for Roger Stone testified on Friday before the grand jury being used in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the lawyer told The Daily Caller News Foundation. FBI agents contacted the President Donald Trump confidant’s attorney, Tyler Nixon, for the first time less than two weeks earlier, seeking an interview about his comments in an Oct. 21 Washington Post article.

Nixon was cited in that story saying that he could provide information to Mueller’s grand jury that would back up Stone’s claim that he learned about WikiLeaks’ plans to release information on the Clinton campaign through Randy Credico, a left-wing comedian and radio host. Stone, 66, told the House Intelligence Committee that Credico was his WikiLeaks contact. Credico has touted his links to Julian Assange and has interviewed the WikiLeaks founder on his radio show, but has denied being Stone’s conduit to WikiLeaks. He told CNN that he testified the same to Mueller’s grand jury on Sept. 7. But in addition to Nixon, another Stone associate, filmmaker David Lugo, told The Post that he had evidence showing that Credico acknowledged being Stone’s backchannel.

Credico appears to have contradicted himself at other points. A video flagged by Nixon on his YouTube channel shows Credico at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner on April 28 calling himself “the guy that was the in-between guy between Assange and Roger Stone.”Credico’s attorney, Martin Stolar, declined to comment except to say that “Mr. Credico’s publicly available statements tend to refute these guys.”

Nixon said that two FBI agents showed up at his apartment in Denver just after the Post article appeared. The lawyer, who recently advised Stone on a defamation case, was in Las Vegas at the time and offered to meet with the agents after returning home. But the agents insisted on a prompt interview, and hopped a plane to Las Vegas on Friday, Oct. 26. A week later, Nixon was sitting in front of Mueller’s grand jury to testify about a conversation he witnessed at a dinner at the Harlem Tavern between Stone and Credico in mid-November 2017. On Oct. 13, 2017, a month before the dinner, Stone had informed the House Intelligence Committee that Credico was his link to WikiLeaks.

Nixon said he mostly observed the conversation between Credico and Stone, who have known each other for more than 20 years and have had a tumultuous relationship. “It was clear from the conversation,” Nixon said, that “Stone had not invented this or thrown Credico in this as a decoy.” Nixon said he recalled to the grand jury that Credico was upset that he would be revealed as Stone’s source, partially out of fear of upsetting his liberal friends. “I can’t admit this. I can’t say this,” Nixon recalled Credico saying. Credico was revealed to be Stone’s alleged source in a CNN article published two weeks after the dinner, on Nov. 30.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/11/06/roger-stone-mueller-grand-jury/