thank you baker
Report: Trump called on spy chiefs for help as probe began
WASHINGTON — Two months before special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed in the spring of 2017, President Donald Trump picked up the phone and called the head of the largest U.S. intelligence agency. Trump told Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, that news stories alleging that Trump’s 2016 White House campaign had ties to Russia were false and the president asked whether Rogers could do anything to counter them. Rogers and his deputy Richard Ledgett, who was present for the call, were taken aback. Afterward, Ledgett wrote a memo about the conversation and Trump’s request. He and Rogers signed it and stashed it in a safe. Ledgett said it was the “most unusual thing he had experienced in 40 years of government service.” Trump’s outreach to Rogers, who retired last year, and other top intelligence officials stands in sharp contrast to his public, combative stance toward his intelligence agencies. At the time of the call, Trump was just some 60 days into his presidency, but he already had managed to alienate large parts of the intelligence apparatus with comments denigrating the profession. Since then, Trump only has dug in. He said at a news conference in Helsinki after his 2017 summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin that he gave weight to Putin’s denial that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, despite the firm conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that it had. “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia, Trump said. And earlier this year, Trump called national security assessments “naive,” tweeting “perhaps intelligence should go back to school.” Yet in moments of concern as Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election got underway, Trump turned to his spy chiefs for help.
The phone call to Rogers on March 26, 2017, came only weeks after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had angered Trump by stepping aside from the investigation. James Comey, the FBI director who would be fired that May, had just told Congress that the FBI was not only investigating Russian meddling in the election, but also possible links or coordination between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
The call to Rogers and others like it were uncovered by Mueller as he investigated possible obstruction. In his 448-page report released Thursday, Mueller concluded that while Trump attempted to seize control of the Russia investigation and bring it to a halt, the president was ultimately thwarted by those around him. The special counsel said the evidence did not establish that Trump asked or directed intelligence officials to “stop or interfere with the FBI’s Russia investigation.” The requests to those officials, Mueller said, “were not interpreted by the officials who received them as directives to improperly interfere with the investigation.” During the call to Rogers, the president “expressed frustration with the Russia investigation, saying that it made relations with the Russians difficult,” according to the report.
Trump said news stories linking him with Russia were not true and he asked Rogers “if he could do anything to refute the stories.” Even though Rogers signed the memo about the conversation and put it in a safe, he told investigators he did not think Trump was giving him an order. Trump made a number of similar requests of other top intelligence officials.
On March 22, 2017, Trump asked then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats to stay behind after a meeting at the White House to ask if the men could “say publicly that no link existed between him and Russia,” the report said.
In two other instances, the president began meetings to discuss sensitive intelligence matters by stating he hoped a media statement could be issued saying there was no collusion with Russia.
After Trump repeatedly brought up the Russia investigation with his national intelligence director, “Coats said he finally told the President that Coats’s job was to provide intelligence and not get involved in investigations,” the report said.
Pompeo recalled that Trump regularly urged officials to get the word out that he had not done anything wrong related to Russia. But Pompeo, now secretary of state, said he had no recollection of being asked to stay behind after the March 22 meeting, according to the report.
https://www.newsherald.com/zz/news/20190421/report-trump-called-on-spy-chiefs-for-help-as-probe-began/1
What’s Behind the Terrorist Attacks in Sri Lanka?
More than 200 people have been killed in simultaneous explosions at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that also injured several hundred victims. The coordinated attacks took place on Sunday morning. According to media reports, there were eight blasts in all, including at churches in Negombo and Kochchikade in the country’s west, and Batticaloa in the east. Three luxury hotels in the capital Colombo were also targeted.
It is unclear who carried out the attacks. Sri Lanka’s government has declared an indefinite national curfew and blocked social media networks such as Facebook and WhatsApp in order to prevent rumors spreading that might spark intercommunal violence, as happened in March 2018 when Buddhist mobs attacked Muslim mosques, businesses, and homes.
The targets. Sri Lanka has 22 million inhabitants. Of these, about three-fourths are ethnic Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhist. Nearly a fifth of Sri Lankans identify as Tamil—either of Sri Lankan or Indian extraction—and are mostly Hindu. About 10 percent of the population is Muslim, and 7 percent Christian – a group that includes both Tamil and Sinhalese.
Given that three of the blasts occurred at churches, timed for Easter services, at least part of the attack was aimed at the country’s 1.5 million Christians. The almost simultaneous blasts left no time to warn other churchgoers. The ability to launch several attacks all at once suggests a degree of sophistication, planning, funding, and reach.
Reuters cites the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka, which represents more than 200 churches, as having recorded 86 incidents of discrimination, threats, and violence against Christians last year. The other main targets seem to be people who would frequent Colombo’s hotels—usually a mix of tourists, business people, and wealthy locals. At least 30 of the dead are believed to be foreigners.
While authorities are still piecing together what happened, the blasts bear at least some resemblance to the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, which simultaneously targeted two luxury hotels, a busy railway terminal, and a Jewish outreach center. According to Indian intelligence, the Mumbai attacks were designed not only to cause the highest possible number of casualties but also to target groups—uch as Western tourists—that would lead to the greatest amount of international media coverage. One of the 2008 attackers was apprehended, and the others successfully identified, leading authorities in India to declare the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group responsible. But there are several differences with Sunday’s attacks in Sri Lanka, not least the fact that they were spread out across the country instead of concentrated in a single city, and that unlike Mumbai, no hostages were taken.
Was there any warning?
On April 11, a top Sri Lankan police official reportedly issued an advisory warning of potential suicide attacks on churches. (This letter has not been independently verified by Foreign Policy.) In that letter, deputy inspector general Priyalal Dassanayake wrote that a radical Islamist group called National Thoweeth Jama’ath was planning nationwide attacks.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged that some information about a planned attack had been circulating. “We must also look into why adequate precautions were not taken,” he said.
Wickremesinghe’s comments could be interpreted as a criticism of President Maithripala Sirisena, the commander of the country’s security forces.
Sri Lanka’s politics has been in turmoil recently. Sirisena became president in 2015 after he won a surprise victory over the strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had controlled the country’s politics for more than a decade. Sirisena appointed his ally Wickremesinghe as prime minister, and the two set out to reform the country’s economy and seek accountability for atrocities committed during the country’s civil war.
But Sirisena and Wickremesinghe fell out in 2018, leading the former to suspend parliament and appoint his one-time rival Rajapaksa as the new prime minister. Weeks later, under pressure from the country’s Supreme Court, Sirisena reinstated Wickremesinghe as prime minister. Relations between the two have not recovered, with observers expecting Sirisena to seek a fresh mandate at tThat led to the formation of an armed insurgent group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamhe polls. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s economy has grown at a tepid 4 percent, the currency has weakened, and Colombo has struggled to repay loans from donors such as the International Monetary Fund. In one case, Sri Lanka lost a major port—as well as 15,000 acres of land—to China after it could not repay funds it had borrowed for infrastructure projects.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/21/whats-behind-the-terrorist-attacks-in-sri-lanka/
is this a current picture?
I believe white hats are controlling them
I believe HRC and Hussein are NOT controlling their accounts. I would think that they wou;d post current (new) pictures on big holidays. And neither of them have, for awhile.
Now, with everything going on with the Mueller report, all of the big mouths in DC (Brennan, Schiff, ect) continue to post nasty things toward and about POTUS.
But nothing really from HRC and especially Hussein. Very, very, odd.
They must not be able (allowed) to speak about the Mueller investigation. I wonder why?
My guess, they can't because they are being investigated themselves, or under some type of gag order.
Time will tell I guess…