Mueller: Obstruction indictment against Trump mentioned in Michael Wolff book does not exist

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office pushed back against author Michael Wolff’s claim that prosecutors drafted a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against President Trump. “The documents that you’ve described do not exist,” Mueller spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

In his forthcoming book “Siege: Trump Under Fire,” Wolff wrote that a draft indictment charged Trump with obstructing an investigation, tampering with a witness, and retaliating against a witness. He said his reporting was “based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel.” The Guardian, which obtained an advance copy of the book, said it had seen the documents. Wolff’s last book on Trump, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, was released in 2018 and heavily scrutinized for its flippancy with facts.

Mueller was appointed in May 2017 to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. Nearly two years later, he submitted a 448-page report detailing the investigation’s findings to the Justice Department. A redacted version of the report laid out 10 instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, but Mueller declined to say whether he committed obstruction, citing a Justice Department guideline that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. "Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct," Mueller's report said.

Attorney General William Barr concluded Mueller’s investigation did not find “sufficient” evidence to determine whether Trump obstructed justice. Barr defended the president’s behavior during the investigation as Trump being “frustrated and angry” with a process he believed was politically motivated.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mueller-obstruction-indictment-against-trump-mentioned-in-michael-wolff-book-does-not-exist

Arrest warrant ordered for former Pemex CEO Lozoya: local media

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A federal judge has issued an arrest warrant for a former chief executive of Mexican state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Emilio Lozoya, and an executive of steelmaker Altos Hornos de Mexico, or AHMSA, Mexican news agency Notimex reported on Tuesday.

Officials at the federal prosecutors office could not immediately be reached for comment.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-pemex-crime/arrest-warrant-ordered-for-former-pemex-ceo-lozoya-local-media-idUSKCN1SY2C7?il=0

In Huge Strategy Shift, Amazon Set To Purge Many Small Suppliers

Amazon is set to purge many of its small suppliers over the next few months, according to Bloomberg. The purge could shatter the generally favorable relationship between Amazon and many of its long-time vendors, as we first discussed last month when we reported that Amazon was accused of "crushing" its merchants by undercutting products with its own. The move is supposed to help cut costs and focus wholesale purchasing on large brands like Procter & Gamble, Sony and Lego. Amazon wants to ensure that the company has adequate supplies of "must-have" merchandise that will help it compete with companies like Target and Walmart. As a result, bulk orders for thousands of smaller suppliers may dry up over the next few months. It also means that many smaller retailers that have relied on Amazon for a steady stream of orders will have to win sales one shopper at a time on the platform's marketplace. This marks one of the large shifts in Amazon strategy since it opened the site up to independent sellers nearly 2 decades ago.

James Thomson, who organizes the Prosper Show, an annual e-commerce conference focused on Amazon said that "this is the kind of change that will scare the living daylights out of brands selling on Amazon. Amazon usually doesn’t give a lot of lead time and brands will be left scrambling. If they make this change soon, brands will have until the end of the summer to get their acts together or their holiday quarter will be at risk." Amazon stated: "We review our selling partner relationships on an individual basis as part of our normal course of business, and any speculation of a large scale reduction of vendors is incorrect." Amazon traditionally secures inventory in two ways: it buys items directly from wholesale vendors and resells them, and it allows independent merchants to post their own products on site, similar to a consignment model. About half the goods sold on the site come from independent merchants and the change will push the company's marketplace share of revenue even higher.

It’s one of the latest moves in Amazon‘s "hands off the wheel" initiative, which is supposed to help it continue expanding product selection without spending more to oversee it. The initiative includes other automated tasks that were previously done by human employees, like forecasting demand and negotiating prices. It also involves pushing more Amazon suppliers to sell goods on their own so that Amazon doesn’t have to pay people to do it for them. An additional upside for Amazon is that the company holds less inventory, reducing the risk that it gets stuck with unsold merchandise. Instead, Amazon can collect a commission on each sale a vendor makes and charge them fees to store, pack and deliver their goods. Vendors that sell less than $10 million per year will no longer get wholesale orders from Amazon, although the purge will vary by category. Amazon also didn’t renegotiate its annual terms with many smaller vendors – a move that telegraphs that a supplier shakeout is continuing. The company also isn’t filling many vacant vendor manager positions, according to an anonymous source, indicating that the company will expect to need fewer people to handle supplier relationships in the future.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-28/huge-strategy-shift-amazon-set-purge-many-small-suppliers

Former Scientist at Top US Lab Charged with Lying About Links to Chinese Program

A former scientist for a U.S. national laboratory has been charged with lying about his contacts with a recruitment program designed to attract foreign experts to work in China. The program has recently come under increased scrutiny in Washington over its role in enabling technology transfer to China from the United States.

Turab Lookman, 67, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who worked for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), was asked in an employment questionnaire and by federal officials whether he had been recruited by the Chinese regime’s Thousand Talents program, or if he had applied for it, federal prosecutors said in a statement, the Associated Press reported. In an indictment filed last week, prosecutors alleged that between November 2017 and September 2018, Lookman denied his involvement with the program when he in fact applied for it, charging him with three counts of making false statements. Lookman was invited to participate in the Thousand Talents program, then applied for and was accepted into the program, the indictment said. He also received compensation after being accepted.

Prosecutors said the program was “established by the Chinese government to recruit people with access to and knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property.” The scientist was arrested on May 23 and is due to appear in court for a bail hearing on May 28. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.

Lookman joined LANL in 1999 and worked there until recently, the Albuquerque Journal reported. It is unclear whether he resigned or was fired. In 2017, he was named Laboratory Fellow, one of the lab’s highest recognitions for it staff, according to a LANL press release at the time. Lookman, who is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, worked in LANL’s Theoretical Division as an expert in the computational physics of materials, complex fluids, and nonlinear dynamics. His work in the field, which includes two books and more than 250 publications, also received “enormous worldwide attention,” according to the press release. LANL, located in northern New Mexico, is a national laboratory run by the U.S. Department of Energy—best known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb, which was developed at the site decades ago as part of the Manhattan Project. The laboratory is now tasked with engaging in science projects relating to national security, including ensuring the safety of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technology to counter threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems relating to energy, infrastructure, health, and global security.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/former-scientist-at-top-us-lab-charged-with-lying-about-links-to-chinese-program_2940848.html

Deep State Blame Game: Loretta Lynch Contradicts Comey’s Testimony on Clinton Email Investigation

NEW YORK — Conflicting testimony and narratives between disgraced former FBI director James B. Comey and former attorney general Loretta E. Lynch raise serious questions not only about who is telling the truth but also about Comey potentially mischaracterizing or even fictionalizing key claims he made about President Trump and the Russia collusion story. Last week, Lynch’s closed-door December 2018 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee was made public by Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga). At the hearing, Lynch disputed Comey’s claim that she directed him to downplay the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server by referring to what ultimately became a criminal probe as instead “a matter” during any public comments on the issue.

“I didn’t direct anyone to use specific phraseology,” Lynch stated. “When the Director asked me how to best to handle that, I said: What I have been saying is we have received a referral and we are working on the matter, working on the issue, or we have all the resources we need to handle the matter, handle the issue. So that was the suggestion that I made to him.” Lynch maintained that she was “quite surprised that he characterized it in that way,” referring to Comey’s claim that Lynch directed him to call the investigation “a matter.” Her denial of directing Comey to call it a matter precludes the possibility of any misunderstanding on Comey’s part. In June 2017 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey specifically described Lynch as directing him to call the Clinton probe “a matter.”

“The attorney general had directed me not to call it ‘an investigation,’ but instead to call it ‘a matter,’ which confused me and concerned me,” Comey stated. “That was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude, ‘I have to step away from the department if we’re to close this case credibly.’” In his book, “A Higher Loyalty,” Comey goes even further, detailing a conversation he claimed that he had with Lynch in which he says that she instructed him to call the investigation “a matter” – phraseology Comey viewed as aligned with Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Comey wrote in the book: I explained that I thought we had reached a point where at my regular quarterly press roundtable, set for October 1, I should confirm we had a Clinton email investigation open, which the whole world knew anyway, but then offer no further details. Attorney General Lynch agreed that it made sense to do that. But then she quickly added, “Call it ‘a matter.’” “Why would I do that?” I asked. “Just call it ‘a matter,’” came her answer. It occurred to me in the moment that this issue of semantics was strikingly similar to the fight the Clinton campaign had waged against The New York Times in July. Ever since then, the Clinton team had been employing a variety of euphemisms to avoid using the word “investigation.” The attorney general seemed to be directing me to align with that Clinton campaign strategy. Her “just do it” response to my question indicated that she had no legal or procedural justification for her request, at least not one grounded in our practices or traditions. Otherwise, I assume, she would have said so.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/28/deep-state-blame-game-loretta-lynch-contradicts-comeys-testimony-on-clinton-email-investigation/

Troops Wearing ‘Make Aircrew Great Again’ Patch Triggers Outrage from Left

Mass outrage on the left ensued after photos emerged of United States sailors aboard the USS Wasp wearing “Make Aircrew Great Again” patches with President Trump’s likeness on them. The images were first reported by White House reporters traveling with the president on his trip to Japan, where he stopped at a U.S. military base in Yokosuka. After the photos surfaced online, leftist commentators and pundits began calling for the airmen to be punished, claiming they had violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for engaging in political activity while in uniform.

One man who calls himself a “liberal provocateur” tried to alert their commander. He had also called them wearing the patch “fascism,” and asked if they had “armbands, too”. Another leftist dug up photos to confirm whether the patches were actually real, and found they have been worn since at least September 2017. One professor worried that the military was not loyal to civilian control and the Constitution, and was now “part of a presidential personality cult”.

Leftists were similarly outraged when Trump visited a U.S. base in Iraq last year for Christmas. Several troops had “Make America Great Again” hats, which drew claims they had violated UMCJ again. Some speculated that Trump’s staff had brought the hats with them and distributed them. The U.S. Air Force later said the airmen were not in violation of the UCMJ. “There is no rule against Airmen bringing personal items to be signed by the president,” U.S. Air Forces Europe said in a statement. There have been other shows of support for Trump from the military that have not garnered as much attention. In January, Trump was greeted by a standing ovation at the Pentagon, and an attendee waving a MAGA hat. One source said the attendee was a female in a military uniform.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/28/troops-wearing-make-aircrew-great-again-patches-triggers-outrage-left/