https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article226226615.html

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico's Department of Education said Wednesday that a U.S. judge issued an arrest warrant for the agency's boss but later withdrew it after officials pledged to submit documents related to a federal investigation.

The department said the unidentified documents sought by the court are from 2011 to 2013, before Julia Keleher was appointed education secretary in December 2016. The documents are being sought as part of an investigation into a school tutoring program, officials said.

The department's statement contradicted an earlier interview published by the newspaper Primera Hora that quoted Pedro Fortier of the U.S. Marshals Service as saying an arrest warrant was not issued. Fortier did not return messages for comment.

Lymarie Llovet, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office, also had said that an arrest warrant was issued. She added that the documents in the case are sealed and that she had no further details.

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/invtreports/pr092015.html

The indictment alleges twenty six-counts of mail fraud, a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1341, related to payments caused to be made via the U.S. Mail to Rocket Learning, Inc., for twenty six fraudulent invoices submitted from 2011 – 2013 to the Puerto Rico Department of Education

“Supplemental Education Services program funds provide critical resources for deserving students who seek to improve their academic performance. Today’s actions allege that these 31 individuals and the corporation they worked for, billed and retained SES payments for students who did not receive the tutoring services. That is unacceptable,” said Yessyka Santana, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General’s Southeastern Regional Office. “Tracking down those who would cheat this important program is a priority of our office.”

My Guess sounds like they were covering someones ass, until the arrest warrants came out. KEK

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article226229980.html

President Donald Trump is headed to Miami on Monday to speak about the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela, a move that could embolden interim president Juan Guaidó and put further pressure on Nicolás Maduro to flee the country.

Trump is scheduled to speak at Florida International University, where he’ll reaffirm his support for Guaidó and, according to the White House, hammer socialism as a scourge. The president will deliver his address at the university’s Modesto A. Maidique campus in Sweetwater, which is immediately south of Doral, home to the largest concentration of Venezuelans in the U.S.

Trump, who is expected to travel to Mar-a-Lago ahead of the Presidents’ Day weekend, is looking to increase pressure on Maduro to leave Venezuela, while extending an opportunity to military leaders if they will disobey the Venezuelan leader and allow aid into the country. The timing is crucial as Trump and the administration seek to keep momentum building against Maduro.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/13/federal-judge-finds-manafort-lied-to-mueller

Paul Manafort lied about his interactions with an alleged Russian intelligence operative even after agreeing to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s inquiry, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

Manafort, Donald Trump’s former presidential campaign chairman, was found to have intentionally made false statements to Mueller’s team, the FBI and a grand jury about his dealings with Konstantin Kilimnik.

The finding means that Mueller’s team is no longer obliged to endorse the lighter punishment that Manafort was promised for his crimes when he agreed to cooperate with investigators and tell them the truth. Manafort denied lying.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued the order on Wednesday evening at the federal court in Washington DC.

Jackson said Mueller’s team had established that Manafort lied about three disputed issues – his interactions with Kilimnik, a payment he took from a pro-Trump campaign group, and another investigation that has not been identified.

She said Mueller’s team had failed to establish that Manafort lied on two other subjects – his recent contacts with Trump administration officials, and Kilimnik’s role in a conspiracy to obstruct justice for which they were both indicted.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/259031

Report: US secret program sabotaging Iran’s missiles

Unnamed officials say the Trump White House has accelerated a secret American program to sabotage Iran’s missiles and rockets.

The launch failures prompted The New York Times to seek out more than a half-dozen current and former government officials who have worked on the American sabotage program over the past dozen years. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the covert program.

The officials described a far-reaching effort, created under President George W. Bush, to slip faulty parts and materials into Iran’s aerospace supply chains. The program was active early in the Obama administration, but had eased by 2017, when Mike Pompeo took over as the director of the CIA and injected it with new resources.

The CIA declined to comment on the sabotage efforts. Government officials asked The Times to withhold some details of its reporting, mostly involving the identities of specific suppliers to the Iranian program, because the effort is continuing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-judiciary-chairman-summons-whitaker-back-to-the-hill-to-clarify-inconsistent-testimony/2019/02/13/d048d130-2fc5-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html?utm_term=.a73630b3f450

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has summoned acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker back to the Hill to explain what the chairman said were inconsistent statements made during an open hearing last week.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday said he wants Whitaker to clarify “unsatisfactory, incomplete” answers in two areas involving special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and related matters.

ROUND 2 Does Whitaker go for the knockout