Secretary of state: Trump wants troops out of Afghanistan before the 2020 election

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that President Donald Trump wants the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan drawn down before the 2020 presidential election, adding that he has seen “real progress” with security in the area.

The comments came just a few hours before NATO officials announced two U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan during train-and-assist missions there. About 14,000 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the country.

During remarks at The Economic Club Of Washington, Pompeo said the troop withdrawal is consistent with past requests from Trump, who has said he wants an end to U.S. involvement in the nearly 18-year-old war.

“End the endless wars, draw down, reduce,” Pompeo said. “It won't just be us. … we hope that overall, the need for combat forces in the region is reduced.”

When asked about timing the withdrawal to the 2020 election, Pompeo laughed that “it's not only my expectation, it would be job enhancing.”

Pentagon officials referred all questions on the comments to the State Department.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/07/29/secretary-of-state-trump-wants-troops-out-of-afghanistan-before-the-2020-election/

Overstock CEO says FBI encouraged him to have a sexual relationship with Russian spy Maria Butina

The multimillionaire CEO of Overstock.com engaged in a sexual relationship with Russian spy Maria Butina with the encouragement of the FBI but did not follow their directions when they told him to rekindle it, he has claimed.

Patrick Byrne met Butina for the first time at FreedomFest, an annual libertarian convention in Las Vegas, in July 2015. He told the Washington Examiner that Butina approached him after his keynote speech, telling him she was the leader of a gun rights organization in Russia, but he “brushed her off.” Butina later approached him again and said she worked for a top official at the Central Bank of Russia and invited him to speak there.

By his account, the 57-year-old CEO, who said he holds a low-level security clearance, reported the contact with Butina, 30, to the U.S. government. The FBI then gave him a "green light" to get to know Butina. The two began a romantic relationship, which ended in March 2016. Four months later, he said, the FBI asked him to rekindle the relationship with Butina.

“The second period, I did it because I was instructed to rekindle it. However, I decided that was not the right thing to do,” Byrne said. “But I was told where the orders came from, and the orders came from high enough that I accepted the orders. I just want America to know that I didn’t lay a finger on her that second time.”

Byrne said this second phase with Butina lasted until March 2017, and that he was swept up in "political espionage," meeting with the FBI to discuss her.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/overstock-ceo-says-fbi-encouraged-him-to-have-a-sexual-relationship-with-russian-agent-maria-butina

All about the security clearances… who else is being targeted atm because of their security clearance?

Remove those targeting Americans with s-clearances from the continental US immediately!

China Covertly Subverting Trump Reelection

Dissident billionaire outlines Beijing's four-pronged influence strategy

China is conducting an aggressive disinformation and influence campaign designed to block the re-election of President Trump in 2020, according to a dissident Chinese billionaire who until recently was close to senior Beijing leaders.

Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese real estate tycoon-turned-anti-communist critic, said in an interview that details of the influence operation were disclosed recently by Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan in Beijing.

The campaign has been underway since the 2018 mid-term election and involves enlisting pro-China elements inside the United States to end the Trump administration after four years.

"China has been protesting western powers trying to interfere in the domestic politics of China but in fact China is not only trying interfere in the domestic politics of the United States, they are interfering publicly with U.S. elections," Guo told the Washington Free Beacon.

According to Guo, who has known current Chinese President Xi Jinping for more than 10 years, the anti-Trump influence operation is being directed by Xi and Wang through the Communist Party of China (CCP) National Security Commission, a high-level body created in 2013 that since then has tightened control over all other security organs.

"For the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the security committee has given very clear instructions that it is not permissible for Trump to win the 2020 election," Guo said speaking through an interpreter.

By deploying its intelligence and influence resources in the United States, the CCP is working to exploit the harsh political divisions between Democrats and Republicans in seeking to unseat the Trump administration.

"President Trump has already caused a lot of damage to the CCP, so they have declared he will not be allowed to have another four years in power," the dissident said.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-covertly-subverting-trump-reelection/

Fake Cash & Fake Accounting: Chinese Regulators Suddenly Halt 46 IPOs and Bond Offerings

The companies are clients of China’s 2nd largest audit firm, now under investigation.

On Monday, Jinhe Biotechnology and Liande Automatic Equipment disclosed in filings that they had been ordered by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to suspend their plans to sell bonds.

On Sunday night, four companies — Hunan Baili Engineering Sci&Tech, Jiaao Enprotech Stock, MLS Co., and Woer Heat-Shrinkable Material Co. – disclosed in filings that they had been ordered by the CSRC to suspend their IPOs in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Regulators also stopped four IPOs on Shanghai’s Star Market, which itself debuted just last week with great fanfare. The 25 stocks listed on it gained 140% on the very first day, followed by steep declines the second day. The four companies whose IPOs got nixed, according to Yicai Global, were Beijing LongRuan Technologies, Beijing Transuniverse Space Technologies, Luoyang Jianlong Micro-Nano Materials, and Shenzhen JPT Opto-Electronics.

On Sunday, two companies disclosed that their bond offerings were stopped by regulators, according to Yicai. On Friday, seven companies disclosed that their bond offerings have been halted.

In total, regulators suspended 46 IPOs and bond offerings, based on filings made at the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, including Shanghai’s Star Market, as of Monday, according to the South China Morning Post. The reason: these companies had chosen Ruihua Certified Public Accountants as their auditors.

Ruihua, the second largest audit firm in China, has been embroiled in scandals involving large amounts of fake data, including fake cash, on its clients’ books. The fakeness of this cash became obvious when these companies defaulted on debt that they could have easily serviced with the cash they claimed to have on their books but didn’t. And Ruihua had just signed off on those fake books.

The CSRC had finally put Ruihua under investigation on July 5 for allegedly falsifying information, according to Yicai Global, after the scandal of Kangde Xin Composite Material Group had blown up in January.

Kangde Xin had reported 15 billion yuan in available cash at the end of September 2018, but on January 15, 2019, it defaulted on just 1 billion yuan of commercial paper because that cash on the balance sheet didn’t exist.

It had been the third company in a row to default on a relatively small amount of debt despite huge cash balances on the balance sheet. “The defaults call into question the actual availability and amounts of reported cash balances,” Fitch mused at the time – a phenomenon I called “Fake Cash & Fake Accounting” in January, as China’s corporate debt was blowing up in record fashion.

Investors in Chinese stocks have long been hounded by fake numbers on their financial statements. Fake cash balances are particularly pernicious in terms of audit quality because that’s one of the easier and most obvious and most important items to check out by the company’s auditor.

Fitch expects another record year for Chinese corporate defaults. And it’s during these defaults that creditors tend to discover what all is missing that they thought was there.

Nevertheless, this barrage of orders by regulators to dozens of companies – all Ruihua clients – to halt raising much needed new funds, either via stock offerings or bond offerings, is more than just another busy Monday in China’s corporate world. It shows that regulators are finally trying to crack down on pandemic accounting fraud that involves all kinds or participants, including the auditors.

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/fake-cash-fake-accounting-chinese-regulators-suddenly-halt-46-ipos-and-bond-offerings/