Mar-a-Lago trio reviewed confidential $10 billion VA contract before its release: report

Three Mar-a-Lago club members friendly with President Trump were reportedly given access to review a $10 billion government contract to overhaul electronic health records for veterans even though they had no prior experience in the field.

The three men, Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter, West Palm Beach physician Bruce Moskowitz and lawyer Marc Sherman, were given unprecedented access to confidential documents and shaped policy at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), according to emails obtained by ProPublica through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The trio had no health information technology or federal contracting experience but were listed among more than 40 experts reviewing the government contract, including hospital executives and university health system administrators.

Records obtained by ProPublica show the men editing the budget and being placed on an “executive committee.”

Emails also show Moskowitz negotiating to get the VA and Apple to use a cellphone application he developed.

The findings from ProPublica come months after the publication discovered the Mar-a-Lago trio were shaping policy at the VA. The men reportedly spoke with VA officials daily and inquired about new programs, including the deal with Apple.

A liberal veterans group filed a lawsuit in federal court in August attempting to block the men from shaping policy at the VA.

All three men declined to comment to ProPublica, as did the White House.

The VA has been fraught with turnover over the past year following Trump’s firing of former secretary David Shulkin in March. New VA secretary Robert Wilkie was confirmed by the Senate in July.

Wilkie has distanced himself from the Mar-a-Lago trio, according to ProPublica. His spokesman appeared to blame Wilkie's predecessors for the access given to the three businessmen.

“Although his predecessors may have done things differently, Sec. Wilkie has been clear about how he does business,” Cashour said in a statement to ProPublica. “No one from outside the administration dictates VA policies or decisions — that’s up to Sec. Wilkie and President Trump. Period.”

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/419451-mar-a-lago-crowd-reviewed-confidential-10-billion-va-contract-before-its?__twitter_impression=true

Sri Lanka court bars Rajapaksa from office, disputed PM to appeal

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A Sri Lankan court issued an order preventing Mahinda Rajapaksa and his disputed cabinet from holding office on Monday, heightening the island’s political drama and drawing an immediate vow to appeal from the prime minister.

The South Asian nation has been in crisis since President Maithripala Sirisena replaced Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with Rajapaksa in October, then issued an order dissolving parliament and called for a general election.

Sirisena’s decisions have prompted legal challenges and on Friday the Appeal Court began hearing a petition by 122 legislators challenging Rajapaksa’s authority to hold office after he lost two no-confidence votes last month.

“The damage that will be posed by temporarily restraining a lawful cabinet of ministers from functioning would be…outweighed by the damage that would be caused by allowing a set of persons who are not entitled in law to function as the prime minister or the cabinet of ministers,” judge Preethipadhman Surasena said.

The judge issued the interim order against Rajapaksa and his cabinet, and asked them to appear in court on Dec. 12 to explain on what basis they hold office. The order will be in place until a final judgment, whose date has not been set.

Rajapaksa said in a statement his government would lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The decision puts a further brake on Rajapaksa’s disputed government after parliament voted last week to halt payment of ministers’ salaries and travel expenses…..

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-politics/sri-lanka-court-bars-rajapaksa-from-office-disputed-pm-to-appeal-idUSKBN1O20Y1?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29

https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1069634696315715586

mossad

Jerome Corsi Files ‘Criminal Complaint’ Against Mueller for Seeking ‘False Testimony’

A prominent conservative writer at the heart of Robert Mueller’s ongoing Russia probe filed a criminal complaint against the special counsel this week; accusing the federal investigator of seeking “false testimony.”

“Conservative author Jerome Corsi on Monday filed a ‘criminal and ethics complaint’ against Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, accusing investigators of trying to bully him into giving ‘false testimony’ against President Trump,” writes Fox News.

“The 78-page document, asserting the existence of a ‘slow-motion coup against the president,’ was filed to a range of top law enforcement officials including Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, D.C.’s U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu, and the Bar Disciplinary Counsel,” adds the article.

“Dr. Corsi has been criminally threatened and coerced to tell a lie and call it the truth,” the complaint adds.

https://saraacarter.com/jerome-corsi-files-criminal-complaint-against-mueller-for-seeking-false-testimony/

Secretary Mattis: "[Putin] tried again to muck around in our elections last month and we are seeing a continued effort along those lines."

https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1069637581091016710

moar France

BREAKING: Thread:

1. Mueller’s plea deal with Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen offers further evidence that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russians during the 2016 election, according to congressional investigators and former prosecutors.

1. Cohen pleaded guilty to making false Statements to the Senate as discussions about the so-called Moscow Project continued 5 months longer in 2016 than Cohen had initially stated under oath….

A 9-page charging document filed with the plea deal shows Mueller is using the Moscow tower talks to connect Trump to Russia. But congressional investigators with House & Senate committees involved say Mueller withheld from the court details that would exonerate the president….

On page 7 of the statement of criminal information filed against Cohen, Mueller mentions that Cohen tried to email Putin’s office two times in 2016. But Mueller omitted the fact that Cohen did not have any direct points of contact at the Kremlin….

Sources who have seen these additional emails point out that this omitted information undercuts the idea of a “back channel” and thus the special counsel's collusion case.

Page 2 holds additional exculpatory evidence for Trump, sources say. It quotes an August 2017 letter from Cohen to the Senate intelligence committee in which he states that Trump “was never in contact with anyone about this [Moscow Project] proposal other than me.”

This section of Cohen’s written testimony, unlike other parts, is not disputed as false by Mueller, which sources say means prosecutors have tested its veracity through corroborating sources and found it to be accurate.

Mueller did also not challenge Cohen’s statement that he “ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia.”

“Though Cohen may have lied to Congress about the dates, it's clear from personal messages he sent in 2015 & 2016 that the Trump Org did not have formal lines of communication set up with Putin’s office/Kremlin during the campaign. There was no secret ‘back channel” - Investagtor

Via RealClearPolitics. Mueller refused to comment on this information.

https://twitter.com/BreakingNLive/status/1069609175192428557

>>4129741

Florida Man Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Surreptitiously Producing and Distributing Pornographic Audio and Video Recordings of Himself Engaged in Sexual Activity with at Least 80 Others

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/florida-man-sentenced-three-years-prison-surreptitiously-producing-and-distributing

Mueller Withheld "Details That Would Exonerate The President" Of Having Kremlin Backchannel

It appears that special counsel Robert Mueller withheld key information in its plea deal with Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, which would exonerate Trump and undermine the entire purpose of the special counsel, according to Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations.

Cohen pleaded guilty last week to lying to the Senate intelligence committee in 2017 about the Trump Organization's plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow - telling them under oath that negotiations he was conducting ended five months sooner than they actually did.

Mueller, however, in his nine-page charging document filed with the court seen by Capitol Hill sources, failed to include the fact that Cohen had no direct contacts at the Kremlin - which undercuts any notion that the Trump campaign had a "backchannel" to Putin.

On page 7 of the statement of criminal information filed against Cohen, which is separate from but related to the plea agreement, Mueller mentions that Cohen tried to email Russian President Vladimir Putin’s office on Jan. 14, 2016, and again on Jan. 16, 2016. But Mueller, who personally signed the document, omitted the fact that Cohen did not have any direct points of contact at the Kremlin, and had resorted to sending the emails to a general press mailbox. Sources who have seen these additional emails point out that this omitted information undercuts the idea of a “back channel” and thus the special counsel's collusion case. -RCI

Page 2 of the same charging document offers further evidence that there was no connection between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin; an August 2017 letter from Cohn to the Senate intelligence committee states that Trump "was never in contact with anyone about this [Moscow Project] proposal other than me," an assertion which Mueller does not contest as false - which means that "prosecutors have tested its veracity through corroborating sources" and found it to be truthful, according to Sperry's sources. Also unchallenged by Mueller is Cohen's statement that he "ultimately determined that the proposal was not feasible and never agreed to make a trip to Russia."

“Though Cohen may have lied to Congress about the dates,” one Hill investigator said, “it's clear from personal messages he sent in 2015 and 2016 that the Trump Organization did not have formal lines of communication set up with Putin’s office or the Kremlin during the campaign. There was no secret ‘back channel.’”

“So as far as collusion goes,” the source added, "the project is actually more exculpatory than incriminating for Trump and his campaign.” -RCI

The Trump Tower Moscow meeting - spearheaded by New York real estate developer and longtime FBI and CIA asset, Felix Sater, bears a passing resemblance to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between members of the Trump campaign and a Russian attorney (who hated Trump), and which was set up by a British concert promotor tied to Fusion GPS - the firm Hillary Clinton's campaign paid to write the salacious and unverified "Trump-Russia Dossier."

“Specifically, we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS, a firm which according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the president and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier" -Washington Post

In both the Trump Tower meeting and the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, it is clear that nobody in the Trump campaign had any sort of special access to the Kremlin, while Cohen's emails and text messages reveal that he failed to establish contact with Putin's spokesman. He did, however, reach a desk secretary in the spokesman's office.

What's more, it was Sater - a Russian immigrant with a dubious past who was representing the Bayrock Group (and not the Trump Organization), who cooked up the Moscow Trump Tower project in 2015 - suggesting that Trump would license his name to the project and share in the profits, but not actually commit capital or build the project…

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-03/mueller-withheld-details-would-exonerate-president-over-trump-tower-moscow

Russia deploys S-400 surface-to-air missile battery in Crimea, seen in new satellite images

Satellite images shot Sunday and exclusively obtained by Fox News show a newly deployed Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile battery in the Dzhankoy airbase in Crimea.

The intelligence report by ImageSat International indicates that the infrastructure for the S-400 battery was prepared in recent months, a long time before last weekend’s naval encounters that sparked new tension between Russia and Ukraine.

The images showed a bare ground in April 2018, and construction by November 10 – two weeks before the recent escalation.

https://truepundit.com/russia-deploys-s-400-surface-to-air-missile-battery-in-crimea-seen-in-new-satellite-images/

Supreme Court rejects environmental challenge to border wall

Dec. 3 (UPI) – The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday that challenged construction of the Trump administration's planned border wall, on environmental grounds.

The justices left intact a prior court ruling that clears the way for the Trump administration to build two segments of replacement fence and several wall prototypes.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife and Center for Biological Diversity argued the federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act violates the constitutional separation of powers established by the Constitution.

The 1996 law gives the Homeland Security Department sweeping authority to waive all legal requirements slowing construction of a border wall, and restricts judicial review of such determinations.

The plaintiffs argued the department's authority was so vast that it violates the separation of powers. In denying the petition, the high court refused Monday to hear the groups' appeal.

The groups had argued habitats of rare plant and animal species would be harmed by the proximity of a wall.

Legal waivers allowed work to proceed on a 14-mile stretch of fencing, as high as 30 feet in some places, from the Pacific Ocean eastward to Calexico, Calif.

The original ruling left intact was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who wrote that the waiver authority is a legitimate way to "avoid delays caused by lawsuits challenging the construction of barriers."

During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump attacked Curiel, who was born and raised in Indiana, as a "Mexican" and a "hater" incapable of impartiality in presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/12/03/Supreme-Court-rejects-environmental-challenge-to-border-wall/9651543855530/

Tumblr is permanently banning adult content from its platform as of December 17th in a move that will eradicate porn-related communities on the platform and fundamentally alter how the service is used. The ban includes explicit sexual content and nudity with some exceptions, the company tells The Verge. It also completely eliminates Tumblr’s Safe Mode.

Banned content includes photos, videos, and GIFs of human genitalia, female-presenting nipples, and any media involving sex acts, including illustrations. The exceptions include nude classical statues and political protests that feature nudity. The new guidelines exclude text, so erotica remains permitted. Illustrations and art that feature nudity are still okay — so long as sex acts aren’t depicted — and so are breast-feeding and after birth photos.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/3/18123752/tumblr-adult-content-porn-ban-date-explicit-changes-why-safe-mode?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter