Anonymous ID: 30d2bf April 13, 2019, 9:11 a.m. No.6163761   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3827 >>3846 >>4092 >>4259

Trump confidant Roger Stone seeks full Mueller report

 

President Donald Trump's longtime confidant, Roger Stone, asked a federal judge Friday to compel the Justice Department to turn over a full copy of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation as part of discovery in his criminal case.

 

Stone has pleaded not guilty to charges he lied to Congress, engaged in witness tampering and obstructed a congressional investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. In a court filing late Friday night, his lawyers said Stone is entitled to see the confidential report — which was submitted to the attorney general late last month — because it would help prove their allegation that there are constitutional issues with the investigation.

 

In a separate action, a former aide to Stone who was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury asked a federal appeals court to determine whether he still needs to testify now that the Russia probe has concluded.

 

In court documents, the lawyers argue they are entitled to a private disclosure of the nearly 400-page report that Mueller submitted to Attorney General William Barr late last month and said they "must be allowed to review the Report in its entirety because it contains the government's evidence and conclusions on matters essential to Stone's defense."

 

"To be clear, Stone is not requesting the Report be disclosed to the world - only to his counsel so that it may aid in preparing his defense," the lawyers wrote.

 

Stone, who is set to go on trial in November, has maintained his innocence and blasted the special counsel's investigation as politically motivated. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which stem from conversations he had during the campaign about WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that released material stolen from Democratic groups, including Hillary Clinton's campaign.

 

In a four-page letter to Congress that detailed Mueller's "principal conclusions," Barr said the special counsel did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump associates during the campaign, but did not reach a definitive conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Instead, Mueller presented evidence on both sides of the obstruction question, but Barr said he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to prove that Trump had obstructed justice.

 

Barr has said he expects to release a redacted version of Mueller's report next week that will be sent to Congress and made public.

 

In the separate case, Andrew Miller, a former Stone aide, filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia over the subpoena he was issued in Mueller's investigation.

 

Last year, Mueller's team sought Miller's testimony regarding Stone, WikiLeaks and the Russian government-controlled online persona Guccifer 2.0, which was used to release hacked material during the 2016 election. But Miller challenged his grand jury subpoena, arguing that Mueller's appointment was unconstitutional.

 

Earlier this year a three-judge panel of the court upheld the special counsel's appointment and a contempt order intended to force Miller to testify.

 

In the new petition, Miller's attorney, Paul Kamenar, argued that the matter now appears to be moot because Stone has been indicted and like "Cinderella's carriage that turned into a pumpkin at midnight, special counsel Mueller's authority expired."

 

Kamenar is now asking the court to have the government formally say whether it will still pursue Miller's testimony. If that's the case, Kamenar is asking for a rehearing of the case. He said in a statement that he will take the fight to the Supreme Court if necessary.

 

https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article229214134.html

Anonymous ID: 30d2bf April 13, 2019, 9:14 a.m. No.6163784   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3797 >>3837 >>3846 >>3859 >>3999 >>4092 >>4259

Cindy McCain Rips Trump’s Human Trafficking Proposal: ‘A Wall is Not Going to Fix This’

 

Cindy McCain, the widow of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), ripped a proposal by President Donald Trump to erect a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to blunt the flow of human trafficking in an interview airing Friday.

“The people that are coming over the border, for the most part, are not trafficked individuals,” McCain told NBC News reporter Cynthia McFadden. “It’s people within our own walls, in our own borders, so a wall is not going to fix this, but education will and awareness will and strengthening our laws will.”

 

“The misnomer in this is that somehow this occurs outside the country, that somehow its another country — not us, ever us. Well, it is very much us,” she continued. “The trafficking I’m talking about with you is domestic trafficking, these are domestic individuals being trafficked.”

McCain serves on the Arizona governor’s human trafficking council and has worked on initiatives to reform laws on the issue since 2004.

 

McCain recently apologized after law enforcement disputed her claim that she stopped a human-trafficking attempt at an airport in Glendale, Arizona. She made the false presumption because a woman was accompanying a child of “a different ethnicity.”

 

In February, President Trump said human traffickers were “going through a border where there’s nobody for miles and miles, and there’s no wall to protect,” adding, “they come into our country and they sell people.”

 

In her interview with NBC News, McCain also criticized the lack of civility in U.S. politics and said that her late husband would have been saddened by the state of Democrat-Republican relations. “I am quite certain he knows what’s going on,” she said. “I know he’d be so upset over this because of the tenor, the lack of inaction on many members’ parts, specifically on members of Congress,” McCain said. “He would’ve been right in the mix saying we’re going to work together, please let’s not fight. That’s who he was.”

 

She continued: “Oh, he loved a good fight. Heck, yeah. But it was never personal with him. He and Ted Kennedy used to fight like cats and dogs on the floor. but they were the best of friends. I wish we could go back to that.”

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/12/cindy-mccain-rips-trump-human-trafficking-proposal/

Anonymous ID: 30d2bf April 13, 2019, 10:09 a.m. No.6164244   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Ecuadorean judge orders Swedish citizen close to Assange jailed pending trial

 

QUITO (Reuters) - An Ecuadorean judge ordered a Swedish citizen, who according to the Andean country's government was linked to WikiLeaks, jailed pending trial for alleged involvement in hacking government computer systems, the prosecutor's office said on Saturday.

 

Ola Bini, who has lived in Ecuador for five years, was detained at Quito airport on Thursday as he prepared to board a flight to Japan, after the country's interior minister said three foreign citizens had been leaking private information related to the South American country.

 

That announcement came the same day Ecuador ended its asylum for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who had lived in the country's London embassy since 2012, avoiding possible extradition to the United States, where he has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

 

More recently, Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno had accused WikiLeaks and Assange of violating his privacy by publishing private family photographs. WikiLeaks has denied those allegations, arguing that Moreno was attempting to deflect attention from corruption allegations against him.

 

Bini, a 36-year-old software developer, works at the Quito-based Center for Digital Autonomy, an organization focusing on cybersecurity and data privacy. Bini had visited Assange at the embassy some 12 times in recent years, interior minister Maria Paulo Romo said in a local television interview on Friday.

 

Bini's lawyer, Carlos Soria, called the judge's decision "incomprehensible and surprising," and said he planned to appeal the decision, arguing that the justice system "has allowed itself to be influenced by non-judicial factors."

 

"They are trying to link him with some sort of possible espionage case without any proof or evidence," Soria told Reuters in a telephone interview. "He is a personal friend of Julian Assange, he is not a member of WikiLeaks, and being friends with somebody is not a crime - neither is having computers in your home."

 

The prosecutor's office said it had found "a large quantity" of electronic equipment and credit cards in Bini's suitcase and during a raid of his home.

 

It also presented a report showing he had paid more than $230,000 for internet services between 2015 and 2019.

 

https://www.euronews.com/2019/04/13/ecuadorean-judge-orders-swedish-citizen-close-to-assange-jailed-pending-trial