Wednesday, January 31, 2018

THE RELEASE OF THE MEMO BY NUNES LIKELY WILL UNDERMINE OUR GOVERNMENTS ABILITY TO FUNCTION

WHY?

First of all, this is a classified document where people have taken things out of context.

Second, it is going to put FBI and CIA operatives in danger as they do their jobs around the world.

So, Trump and Nunes releasing this memo is going to get American FBI and CIA agents killed. No question about this at all!

So, once again Trump is protecting his own ass while letting patriots die wherever they are around the world!

This also completely undermines the rule of law and puts the president ABOVE the RULE of law and completely undermines our system of government.

This also will tend to get Rosenstein and Mueller fired and make TRump look Guilty as hell on the world stage!

However, at this point he has proven he is guilty of collusion and of Being Putin's puppet to the whole world.

There is "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TRUMP CAN DO NOW TO ABSOLVE HIMSELF IN THE EYES OF THE WHOLE WORLD!"

HOUSE Intel releases transcript from meeting on secret memo — live updates

Fighting Internet and Wireless S…FBI Has 'Grave Concerns' On Republican-Authored FISA Memo Trump Wants Released

HuffPost · 5h

Secret

BEGIN QUOTE FROM:

House Intel releases transcript from meeting on secret memo — live updates

By Kathryn Watson CBS News January 31, 2018, 4:35 PM

House Intel releases transcript from meeting on secret memo — live updates

CIA Director John Brennan talks about recent terror and intelligence threats; Rep. Devin Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee; Fran Townsend; Steven Brill Gayle King with host John Dickerson on "Face the Nation". Photo: Chris Usher/CBS © 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved.

Chris Usher, Chris Usher/ CBS NEWS

Last Updated Jan 31, 2018 4:35 PM EST

The House Intelligence Committee has released a 51-page, unclassified transcript of the Monday night meeting that led to the vote to release the controversial, classified memo created by GOP staffers, alleging surveillance abuses by the Justice Department and the FBI.
The memo itself has not yet been released.
The release of the memo is opposed by the FBI. Earlier Wednesday, the FBI issued a rare statement warning against the memo's release, saying incompletely information in the memo raised "grave concerns." FBI Director Christopher Wray also objected to the memo's release, and, along with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, asked White House chief of staff John Kelly not to allow its release. The memo details allegations that the DOJ and FBI abused authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) around the time of the 2016 presidential campaign.
The House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines Monday night to release it, allowing the White House five days to object to its release. But Kelly had indicated Wednesday morning in an interview with Fox News Radio that the memo would be released, and President Trump, after his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, said he agreed "100 percent" that the memo should be released. According to the transcript, committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California, said the full House would vote to release the memo if for some reason the president declined.
At the same meeting, the committee voted — also along party lines — not to release a rebuttal memo crafted by Democrats on the committee.
"Today's release of the transcript of Monday's committee meeting leaves no doubt about what transpired: Over strong minority objections, the committee's majority took the extraordinary step on Monday of moving forward with public release of their flawed and misleading classified talking points – even though almost no committee members or staff had read the underlying material," Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee's ranking Democrat, said in a statement Wednesday. "In fact, the majority specifically voted down a more prudent alternative I put forward – to postpone publication of the majority's talking points, in order to at least allow the FBI and the DOJ a meaningful opportunity to inform members about the real risks to intelligence and law enforcement of that approach."
Democrats have expressed concern that Republicans are using the memo to undermine the credibility of the FBI and DOJ as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates Russian election meddling and any ties to Russia. Meanwhile, Republicans have insisted the memo has nothing to do with Mueller's probe.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CBS News' Olivia Andrzejczak Gazis contributed to this report.

FBI Has 'Grave Concerns' On Republican-Authored FISA Memo Trump Wants Released

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Fighting Internet and Wireless S…FBI Has 'Grave Concerns' On Republican-Authored FISA Memo Trump Wants Released

POLITICS

01/31/2018 12:43 pm ET Updated 1 hour ago

FBI Has ‘Grave Concerns’ On Republican-Authored FISA Memo Trump Wants Released

The bureau says the memo Republicans have used to undermine Mueller has “material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON ― The FBI has “grave concerns” about a secretive Republican-authored memo that members of Congress have been using to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference with the 2016 election.

In an extraordinary public statement on Wednesday, the bureau said the classified four-page memo authored by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee had “material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

In a party-line vote, the House Intelligence Committee used a rarely invoked procedure to approve the release of the memo, which is based on classified documents the Justice Department provided to the committee. The memo reportedly alleges that the Justice Department and the FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on Carter Page, who was associated with the Trump campaign, ahead of the 2016 election.

Actual FISA experts have treated that claim with extreme skepticism.

President Donald Trump onstage with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray as he participates in a graduation ceremony at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, on Dec. 15, 2017.

President Donald Trump has indicated he supports the memo being made public, telling a House Republican after the State of the Union address that he would “100 percent” release it. Trump’s statement was at odds with the position of his own White House, which had insisted an actual review process was in place.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday urged his colleagues not to use the memo to undermine the Mueller probe, calling it “a completely separate matter.” His statement was a bit late ― Republicans and Fox News anchors had been using the mysterious memo to suggest it was time to fire Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has oversight of the special counsel investigation.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee and the man chiefly responsible for the memo, issued a statement on Wednesday saying DOJ and the FBI “stonewalled” Congress for nearly a year and that they issued “spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses.”

“The FBI is intimately familiar with ‘material omissions’ with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts, and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses,” said Nunes, a member of Trump’s transition team. “Regardless, it’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.”

Asked if the Justice Department backed the FBI’s position, a department spokesperson noted that the FBI is part of DOJ, and did not immediately respond to a follow-up question. A spokesperson for Mueller’s office declined to comment.

Republican attacks on the FBI appear to have had a detrimental impact on the public’s trust in the bureau. The percentage of Republicans who said they had at least a fair amount of trust in the FBI dropped 22 points from 2015 to 2018, according to a recent HuffPost/YouGov poll. The percentage of independents who had at least a fair amount of trust dropped 15 points over that timeframe, while Democrats’ trust of the bureau remained roughly level.

Here’s the FBI’s full statement:

The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.
With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.

This article has been updated with comment from Nunes, a response from Mueller’s office, and information from the HuffPost/YouGov poll.

Stormy Daniels gave the weirdest interview ever last night

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Stormy Daniels gave the weirdest interview ever last night

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Updated 1:10 PM ET, Wed January 31, 2018

Stormy Daniels appears on Jimmy Kimmel 01:37

(CNN)Porn star Stormy Daniels sat down with Jimmy Kimmel Tuesday night to talk about -- or, more accurately, dance around -- why President Donald Trump's personal lawyer may have directed a $130,000 payment to her just before the 2016 election.

It was -- even by Daniels' standards -- weird.

Kimmel repeatedly tried to pin Daniels -- real name: Stephanie Clifford -- down on whether or not she had conducted an affair with Trump in the mid-2000s, whether she had signed a non-disclosure agreement to not talk about the alleged relationship and whether or not her signature on a statement denying the affair was actually, well, her signature.

And she repeatedly sought to stoke speculation with non answers, rhetorical winks and you-know-what-I-means.

A few examples:

* KIMMEL: This is fascinating, the signature on the original statement doesn't match the signature on this statement and I went through my library of photographs of you to compare it, head shots that you have signed and these seem to match the original statement and am I getting at anything. Did you sign this letter that was released today?

DANIELS: I don't know did I? Doesn't look like my signature does it?

KIMMEL: It doesn't look like your signature. You're saying perhaps this letter was written and released without your approval?

DANIELS: Hmm. Ha ha.

* KIMMEL: I know you either do or don't have a non-disclosure agreement. Which if you didn't have a non-disclosure agreement -- do you have a non-disclosure agreement?

DANIELS: Do I?

KIMMEL: You can't say. But if you didn't, you certainly could say I don't have a non-disclosure agreement.

DANIELS: You're so smart Jimmy.

* KIMMEL: I apologize, I have one more question Have you ever made love to someone whose name rhymes with Ronald Rump

DANIELS: I'll call you whatever you want me to baby.

To quote Maude Lebowski: You can imagine where it goes from there.

It's very, very hard to know what to make of the interview. Especially when you consider that Daniels put out a statement -- via her publicist -- just before appearing with Kimmel that said: "I am denying this affair because it never happened."

Is Daniels just trying to make her 15 minutes last as long as possible by playing at knowing something she can't say? Or is there some sort of there there? It's impossible to know.

Here's what we do know -- courtesy of Wall Street Journal reporting: Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen established an LLC in Delaware, a state famous for its lack of corporate transparency, and used that company to make a $130,000 payment to Daniels. No one disputes that happened. Cohen -- and Daniels in a statement -- have denied any romantic relationship between the president and the porn star. No one has offered an alternative explanation for why a six digit sum was transferred to Daniels.

The answer to that question -- If this wasn't hush money then what was it? -- is very important. So we need to just keep asking for it.

GOP members1 dead in accident involving train carrying GOP members of Congress

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GOP members 1 dead in accident involving train carrying GOP members of Congress

1 dead in accident involving train carrying GOP members of Congress

By Adam Kelsey
ALI ROGIN
Lucien Bruggeman
Meghan Keneally

Jan 31, 2018, 3:32 PM ET

Zack Wajsgrasu/The Daily Progress via AP

WatchTrain carrying congressmen involved in accident

A train carrying Republican members of Congress to a legislative retreat slammed into a garbage truck in western Virginia Wednesday morning, killing at least one person and injuring at least five others.

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The deadly crash occurred in Crozet, Virginia, about 15 miles west of Charlottesville. The Amtrak train carrying the legislators blasted into the garbage truck at about 50 miles an hour, according to lawmakers. The group was headed for The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.

A metal container from on the truck was flung onto its side next to the train. Debris was strewn throughout the area alongside the tracks.

Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., was on board and said he knew the seriousness of the violent crash right away.

"I’m an engineer so I know when you feel something that’s got as much mass as a train, anything you hit that causes you to feel it on the train, you know it’s a pretty significant collision,” he said.

PHOTO: Emergency personnel work at the scene of a train crash involving a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., Jan. 31, 2018. An Amtrak passenger train carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers to a Republican retreat in West Virginia struck the truck. — Emergency personnel work at the scene of a train crash involving a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., Jan. 31, 2018. An Amtrak passenger train carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers to a Republican retreat in West Virginia struck the truck.more +

Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fl., echoed that sentiment, saying it didn't take long to figure out something was wrong.

"You couldn’t miss this crash. This was a huge trash truck. We hit this thing and you knew you hit something you just weren’t sure what," Dunn told ABC News.

Some members of Congress and their spouses who are doctors assisted in the rescue efforts. Dunn said there were up to 10 medically trained lawmakers headed to the conference.

"We jumped off the train and went to work," he said. "Every member of the 'Doc Caucus' got out of the train and helped the guys who'd been injured," he said, referring to the self-titled group of doctors who are now working in Congress.

Dunn said the doors were locked but another congressman who was an Army Ranger "knew how to unlock the door and he got us out.”

PHOTO: First responders and passengers from an Amtrak passenger train carrying members of Congress, carry one of the injured to an ambulance after the train collided with a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., Jan. 31, 2018. — First responders and passengers from an Amtrak passenger train carrying members of Congress, carry one of the injured to an ambulance after the train collided with a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., Jan. 31, 2018.more +

Westerman praised the heroic efforts of his fellow lawmakers.

“Even before the emergency services got here, there were people off the train trying to administer first responder aid to those who were injured,” Westerman said.

The White House said in a statement that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the accident all morning. Later, in the Oval Office, he said the accident was "very sad."

"The train accident was a tough one, and a tremendous jolt," Trump said, adding the members of Congress were still "going on to the conference."

"I'll be going tomorrow and we'll be together, but it was pretty rough hit. That's what they all tell me," he said, adding that he spoke to "a few of the folks" on the scene.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., tweeted that "there were three people inside the truck that was straddling the track and which the train hit." He confirmed that one person died and wrote that one person had minor injuries and another had serious injuries.

Dunn said that the person who died in the crash "was already passed out when we got to him."

Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., told ABC station WABC that the person who died was inside the truck.

The University of Virginia Health System said Wednesday afternoon that three patients had been transported to UVA Medical Center and that it was expecting two additional patients. One of the patients was listed in critical condition.

Rep. Jason Lewis, R-Minn. was transported to a hospital, where he was being evaluated for a possible concussion, according to an aide in his office.

PHOTO: Map showing location where an Amtrak train carrying members of Congress collided with a truck, Jan. 31, 2018. — Map showing location where an Amtrak train carrying members of Congress collided with a truck, Jan. 31, 2018. more +

Westerman and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who was also on the train, said the impact severed the truck in half and sent the front of the train off the tracks. They estimated the train -- which didn't appear to brake upon impact -- to be traveling about 50 miles an hour when it struck the truck.

As ABC News was talking to Westerman, a first responder was walking through the car where he was still sitting, asking: “Is everybody OK?”

“To look out the window and see the debris and the garbage truck, I knew there were probably people injured. My thoughts and prayers are with the ones who are on the truck and our families,” he said.

PHOTO: This photo posted by Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon shows the scene after a train hit a garbage truck. — This photo posted by Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon shows the scene after a train hit a garbage truck.

The NTSB said Wednesday afternoon that it was "gathering information" about the cause of the collision, which was not immediately known. The identity of the person who died has not yet been released.

Amtrak added in a statement that two of its crewmembers and three passengers were among those injured.

The GOP retreat was set to begin Wednesday and Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to address the gathering at 7 p.m. Pence tweeted after the accident that he was receiving "regular updates" on the crash and would still be travelling to West Virginia.

President Donald Trump was expected to attend a two-hour lunch with the group on Thursday.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.