Why Did Trump Allow Julian Assange’s Arrest?

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After praising WikiLeaks at dozens of events well over a hundred times during the 2016 election, it now appears that Trump has turned on Assange, after requesting that Britain’s intelligence services arrest him this morning.

Critics immediately hammered the move, with Edward Snowden claiming that this is a “dark moment for press freedom”:

Images of Ecuador’s ambassador inviting the UK’s secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of–like it or not–award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books. Assange’s critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom.

After years of harboring Julian Assange, Ecaudor’s new moderate president apparently decided that closer ties to the United States were more important than Assange and press freedom.

The world is getting weirder and weirder following the Mueller Report’s surprise exoneration of President Trump. After praising Assange and Wikileaks over the years, some are wondering if this arrest signals that President Trump made a deal with the Deep State. Why did Trump allow his arrest? Please comment below.

What Happened to Mueller’s Middle East Indictments?

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Russia collusion was said to be just phase one of the Trump campaign and administration’s misdeeds. The Middle East was supposed to be phase two. Just as phase one never produced anything involving collusion, phase two never occurred either.

In December 2018, the Daily Beast set off a media and internet firestorm reporting on “Phase Two: The Middle East connection,” which was hyped as the next step in Mueller’s expansive probe.

“Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office is preparing to reveal to the public a different side of his investigation. In court filings that are set to drop in early 2019, prosecutors will begin to unveil Middle Eastern countries’ attempts to influence American politics,” Daily Beast reporter Banco writes, citing “three sources familiar with this side of the probe.”

“In other words, the ‘Russia investigation’ is set to go global,” she continues.

That story set a narrative in motion: The Russia investigation may or may not pan out, but now Mueller was closing in on “phase two” of his operation. Trump-Russia may have failed, but there was enough proof for Trump-UAE, Trump-Saudi Arabia, and Trump-Israel, and Mueller was on the brink of delivering the goods on Middle East conclusion.

Months passed, and finally the Mueller probe came to a close. There was no Russian collusion or any collusion. As Attorney General William Barr confirmed, citing Mueller’s conclusions, there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia or any other nation. Those “court filings” cited by the Daily Beast never emerged, and no evidence that Middle Eastern nations attempted to interfere in the 2016 election ever materialized.

In the end, Mueller’s team issued zero indictments involving Middle East collusion, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t try to hunt for election interference halfway across the world. Throughout 2018, reports surfaced that the special counsel was launching separate probes into the activities of U.S. allies such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

According to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, Mueller’s team threatened him with prosecution for allegedly acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Israel, even though no evidence has emerged to sustain such a bombastic accusation. Mueller launched a separate probe scrutinizing Jared Kushner’s contacts with Middle East leaders, but nothing ever came of it. Team Mueller investigated collusion between a UAE lobbyist and the Trump campaign. No collusion was found.

At the time, it appeared objectively transparent that Mueller was engaging in a wild goose chase searching for collusion between Trump and Middle Eastern nations.

At Conservative Review, I frequently called into question Robert Mueller’s use of taxpayer funds to chase down “questionable foreign policy leads” that appeared to be sourced to foreign nations and their lobbyists with the intent to damage the reputations of the three aforementioned sovereign nations.

Thanks to two Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) disclosures, I found that before and after the New York Times published its Mueller-related Middle East stories, its reporters had frequent contact and in-person meetings with lobbyists for Qatar. Those disclosures show that the reporters wrote about the topics that were discussed in those meetings. Neither of the two publications disclosed in their reporting that they had regular contact with the lobbyists. In one piece, the New York Times reported that it received its information from an incredibly anonymous source who is “someone critical of the Emirati influence in Washington.”

Unless Mueller had obtained secret evidence to the contrary, there seemed to be no particular basis for the Middle East collusion hunt, but that didn’t stop Mueller from investigating or mainstream publications from continuing to churn out supposed “evidence” for Middle East collusion. Yet the Daily Beast story insisted that Mueller had found something and that he was close to revealing that information to the Department of Justice.

In the end, Mueller found nothing to corroborate Middle East collusion, just as he found nothing to corroborate Russian collusion. And the court filings, referrals, and indictments promised by the Daily Beast never saw the light of day. However, like a hit-and-run attack, the Mueller probe delivered reputational damage and created false, weaponized media narratives that seemed crafted with the intent of damaging the reputation of our regional allies.

One key question remains: Where did Mueller get all of his bad intelligence from? Who will investigate the investigators? Unfortunately, the legacy media, which worked in tandem with Team Mueller and the Obama Intelligence Community to promulgate the collusion hoax, doesn’t seem up to the task. (For more from the author of “What Happened to Mueller’s Middle East Indictments?” please click HERE)

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Netanyahu Wins Nail Biter Re-Election, Supporters Wave Trump Flags

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has solidified a fifth term in a nail biter election against Benny Gantz. At 2 a.m. in Tel Aviv, Netanayhu gave a few brief remarks, thanked voters and kissed his wife.

Netanyahu will now work to form a government. He has 42 days to do so. (Read more from “Netanyahu Wins Nail Biter Re-Election, Supporters Wave Trump Flags” HERE)

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Netanyahu: There Will Be No Palestinian State

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The U.S. is fully aware of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s flat rejection of the creation of a Palestinian state along with his plans to extend Israeli law to West Bank settlements, the Israeli premier said on Monday.

In an interview with Channel 12, Netanyahu pushed back against his main challenger Benny Gantz’s claims that his vow to annex the West Bank was nothing more than an empty campaign promise.

Netanyahu over the weekend historically declared that he fully intends to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The incumbent prime minister also said he had told President Donald Trump that would not evacuate “a single person” from the 400,000 or so Jews residing in the West Bank.

“Why did it take two years to get recognition of the Golan Heights even with such a friendly president? These things takes time,” said Netanyahu in reference to Trump’s presidential order last month recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. . .

“There will be no Palestinian state,” he said, “not like the one people are talking about. It won’t happen.” (Read more from “Netanyahu: There Will Be No Palestinian State” HERE)

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Rhino Poacher Trampled by Elephant, Then Eaten by Lion

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Conservation officers in South Africa found the body of a suspected poacher that they now think was killed by an elephant who trampled him. But, to add another layer to the man’s death, his body was also partially eaten by a lion.

Officials of the South African National Parks Service told reporters of the body discovered at the Kruger National Park. Authorities said that the man’s family reported that he had been killed, according to the Daily News.

Four fellow poachers reportedly fled the scene as the man was being trampled and reported the death to the man’s family. The family then contacted park officials and a search party for the remains was organized.

“Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise, it holds many dangers, and this incident is evidence of that,” Kruger National Park Managing Executive Glenn Phillips said. “It is very sad to see the daughters of the diseased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.” (Read more from “Rhino Poacher Trampled by Elephant, Then Eaten by Lion” HERE)

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Muslim Asylum Seeker Kills Wife for Converting to Christianity

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Iranian asylum seeker Dana Abdullah stabbed Avan Najmadiein, his estranged wife and 32-year-old mother of four, 50 times in October and left her to die after discovering that she refused to support his application to stay in the U.K., according to the BBC.

Abdullah, 35, returned illegally to the U.K. after being deported in 2013 for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl and he previously threatened to kill his wife because she “dishonored” him by converting to Christianity, authorities said.

“It does show that you are not someone of good character and, having been deported for that matter, you chose to come back into this country illegally and have committed this very serious crime,” Judge Michael Chambers said of Abdullah, according to Premier. . .

Detective Victoria Downing characterized Abdullah as “an arrogant and controlling man,” asserting that he killed Najmadiein because he resented her rejection, her refusal to support his application and her conversion to Christianity.

Abdullah murdered Najmadiein with a kitchen knife at her home on Oct. 1, 2018, tried to set her kitchen ablaze in an attempt to erase evidence, then fled, initially to Liverpool, England, and then to Glasgow, Scotland. Authorities discovered Najmadiein’s body at her home when she failed to pick her children up from school. All of her children were under the age of eight at the time. (Read more from “Muslim Asylum Seeker Kills Wife for Converting to Christianity” HERE)

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HHS Reprogramming Department Funding to Facilitate Resettling ‘Unaccompanied’ Central American Teens

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What if I told you that our government is unintentionally completing a criminal conspiracy to deliver Central American teens from cartels and smugglers to other illegal aliens, resettling them on our dime, and sending them to our schools, all the while enriching some of the most evil organizations and nourishing the growth of MS-13 and drug traffickers?

Yesterday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told the Senate Appropriations Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee that the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for and resettles unaccompanied alien children (UACs), will run out of cash before the end of the year. That is because, as Congressional Quarterly (paywall) reported in a summary of the hearing, at a pace of about 300-350 UACs arriving each day, HHS is taking custody of roughly 70-80 children from CBP each day who are not immediately released to other family members. Azar said that there are currently 12,340 mainly Central American children, in HHS custody and bed space is almost full.

We’ve been spending roughly $1.3 billion a year on this program, and Azar revealed at the hearing that the administration transferred $446 million from other HHS programs to help fund the UAC program and that it recently transferred another $385 million.

I reached out to ORR for comment and received this statement from an HHS spokesperson:

HHS is assessing the additional resources that may be needed to support this influx and sustain critical child welfare operations. Last month, Secretary Azar notified the Appropriations Committees that he would make $385 million in administrative resources available to the UAC program, $99 million in reprogrammed ORR funds and $286 million from a Secretary’s Transfer. However, HHS projections show a continued influx would exceed all current HHS resources this fiscal year. The Administration is currently working to find solutions to this potential issue.

As I’ve noted many times, almost all of the Central American teens are self-smuggled into the country to be reunited with other illegal immigrant family. That makes them ineligible for the program on two accounts – they are not victims of a “severe form of trafficking” and they are not here without relatives. In fact, we are completing the very criminal conspiracy of smuggling that the law was designed to combat. At $4,000-$8,000 per illegal alien, the cartels have made billions off this scam, so they can further ramp up their drugs to kill Americans.

As Thomas Homan, former ICE acting director, told me last week, in one operation against MS-13, 40 percent of those caught were UACs resettled through this very program designed for refugees. According to Homan, “Many that entered the U.S. were already gang members or soon became gang members after arriving in the U.S.” We’ve witnessed a spike in MS-13 growth over the past few years as a result of the influx of Central American teens in 2014. One can only imagine the degree of danger our country is in from the exponentially higher number of teens coming in under the same circumstances.

In fiscal year 2018, roughly 72 percent of the teens being held in ORR facilities were 15-17 years old, and 71 percent were males. Mark Morgan, former chief of Border Patrol, reiterated yesterday in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee what he told me in an interview last week:

As chief of the Border Patrol, I toured the detention facilities filled to capacity with unaccompanied minors, 17 years of age or younger, who had illegally entered the country. Alone, without any parents or guardians. As I looked on, I saw both hardened young men as well as vulnerable and lost youth. With every encounter, I walked away wondering how many would be lured into joining a gang. The odds were not in their favor, as they were released into a city somewhere in the U.S., never to be heard from again.

But there is another important catch in this development. Remember how members of Congress, including a number of self-described conservatives, expressed outrage that the Trump administration reprogrammed defense funding for the quintessential defense function of border security? Well, now that HHS has reprogrammed funding from sacred federal health programs to essentially facilitate the smuggler criminal conspiracy against America and to resettle volatile illegal alien teens in our schools and communities, not a single person will protest. Funding the cartels and nourishing the growth of MS-13 while leaving taxpayers with the tab is evidently the true quintessential function of our government.

How is it that more and more of our money is being pumped into a circuitous operation that enriches evil cartels and nourishes the growth of vicious gangs without any questions? How is it that our laws say the exact opposite of this government policy, one judge even accusing the government of successfully complet[ing]” the “goal of the conspiracy” of drug smugglers at “significant expense” to taxpayers, and yet nobody stands up for we the people?

The day that our politicians begin placing the interests of America’s security and financial solvency at least on equal footing with the interests of illegal aliens and the Mexican cartels is the day we will preserve at least a modicum of representative governance. (For more from the author of “HHS Reprogramming Department Funding to Facilitate Resettling ‘Unaccompanied’ Central American Teens” please click HERE)

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Tensions Rising: Turkish President Accuses U.S. Of Meddling in Elections

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On Friday, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States and the European Union of “meddling” in his country’s local elections.

Erdogan told reporters, “America and Europe are… meddling in Turkey’s internal affairs,” reported AFP, and that the U.S. and Europe should “know your place.”​ . . .

On Sunday, Erdogan’s party, the AKP, suffered a defeat in the mayoral race for Istanbul, the city in which Erdogan rose to power in as mayor. The AKP also lost control of Ankara, the capital city which has been held by the party for decades. Since the defeat, the AKP has contested the results in both cities, and a recount is currently taking place in districts of Istanbul, The Washington Post reported.

The results showed the mayoral candidate of the opposition CHP, Ekrem Imamoglu, ahead by about 25,000 votes in Istanbul, a city which has a population of about 15 million. But on Thursday, Ali Ihsan Yavuz, a deputy chairman of the AKP, reportedly said the recount had narrowed Yildrim’s lead to around 19,000. On Thursday, AKP secretary general Farih Sahin said the party would petition to Akara’s provincial election board for a recount in Akara as well.

In a Tuesday briefing, U.S. Department of State spokesman Robert Palladino reportedly commented on the results. “Free and fair elections are essential for any democracy,” Palladino said. “And this means acceptance of legitimate election results are essential.” (Read more from “Tensions Rising: Turkish President Accuses U.S. Of Meddling in Elections” HERE)

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McCain Institute Cozies up to Qatar Front Groups

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Cindy McCain, the widow of deceased Republican Sen. John McCain, and the McCain Institute have continued to cozy up to two shadowy front groups that work to advance the interests of a theocratic Middle Eastern regime.

Over the past few years, Mrs. McCain and the McCain Institute have ramped up partnerships on many fronts with the Sports Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), which describes itself as an “independent coalition aiming to reform the integrity and governance of sport,” and its founder, the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS), which claims to have similar goals.

Whistleblowers, however, have shown that while SIGA and ICSS claim to be sports-oriented organizations, they merely act as a front for more nefarious purposes. SIGA, which was formed by ICSS, a group that is entirely controlled by the nation of Qatar, has created tremendous inroads in the United States thanks to the support of the McCain family. Since SIGA’s 2017 founding, Cindy McCain and the McCain Institute have offered SIGA the legitimacy it needs to pursue further partnerships and collaboration with international brands such as Mastercard and Deloitte and high-profile international organizations like UNESCO.

Qatar’s continuing investments in the sports world hardly have anything to do with sports. As The New York Times explained in a seminal piece Thursday, sports is a key function of Qatar’s soft power strategy.

“Qatar’s investments — especially in luxury, sports and the arts — aren’t just about prestige and profits,” Giorgio Cafiero, who heads Washington-based consultancy Gulf State Analytics, tells the Times. “They are also about hearts and minds, and anchored in forging deep alliances that give outside players a greater stake in the continuation of Qatar as an independent state.”

Cindy McCain is a founding member of SIGA and currently sits on its SIGA council alongside Mohammed Hanzab, who chairs ICSS, which formed SIGA. It is unclear whether Mrs. McCain is paid to sit on the board of SIGA.

A few months ago, the McCain Institute, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and ICSS (the Qatari front group), co-hosted a “Securing Sport 2018” conference, which was supported by the Qatari Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The McCain Institute has for the past few years co-hosted other events with ICSS and SIGA, offering credibility to the Qatari front groups, which appear ultimately intended to expand Qatar’s influence abroad and protect its selection for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The McCain family ties to Qatar go back many years, but a strong bond began to form during the 2011 Arab Spring.

At a 2011 address at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Sen. McCain praised Qatar for its role in fostering the Arab Spring.

Unfortunately, the Arab Spring quickly became an Islamist Winter. The supposed democracy movement empowered Islamist and jihadi groups with the political momentum to topple U.S. allies and sow chaos in the region.

Over the next few years, McCain continued to offer strong support to Qatar and other nations’ arming and funding of “rebel” jihadist groups in Syria and Libya.

In 2017, when Qatar’s Gulf neighbors boycotted Doha, demanding that it stop funding terror, McCain wrote an op-ed in the New York Times urging the sides to settle their difference in the face of “more pressing threats,” such as Russia.

The McCain Institute has not only cozied up to Qatari front groups, but plenty of other dictatorial nations. The nonprofit outfit, like the Clinton Foundation, has been accused of acting as a crony pseudo-international humanitarian network that ends up empowering the world’s worst theocratic regimes. However, its particular affinity for the nation of Qatar has gone relatively unnoticed in the media.

In 2017, at the McCain Institute’s high-level Sedona Forum, “Meshal Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Qatar’s Ambassador to the U.S., was invited to mingle with the McCain Institute’s pre-selected guests,” the Daily Caller reported.

The McCain Institute frequently highlights its claimed efforts in combatting human trafficking. Given that it is such a high-priority item for the organization, its decision to partner with Qatari institutions may strike many as odd, because Qatar remains the equivalent of a modern slave state for non-Qatari workers in the country. Qatar’s usage of forced labor to build its World Cup sites has been described as a “human trafficking nightmare.”

Nonetheless, the McCain institute has been embedded with SIGA and other Qatar-linked groups since the beginning.

“The McCain Institute shares SIGA’s belief that a cohesive effort is needed to restore trust in the sports industry, and are therefore proud to be one of the organisation’s founding members,” reads a press release from the McCain Institute website, touting its partnership with the Qatar-created front in working to supposedly combat human trafficking, which as stated above, is a government-sanctioned epidemic in Qatar.

The McCain Institute claims to be transparent about its funding mechanisms. However, it shields some of its donors with anonymity, so it’s unclear whether Qatar-backed institutions donate directly to the organization. The McCain Institute does reveal that it has received “two anonymous donations in support of its efforts countering human trafficking.”

Cindy McCain and the McCain Institute have partnered with elements of the Qatari regime and offered its front groups the political legitimacy that it needs to expand its nefarious influence inside the United States, to the detriment of U.S. citizens and freedom-loving people throughout the world.

The McCain Institute did not respond to a request for comment. (For more from the author of “McCain Institute Cozies up to Qatar Front Groups” please click HERE)

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Collusion? Russians Gave $35 Million to Company With John Podesta on Board

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Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, John Podesta, played a central role in another potential Russian collusion scandal that has not yet been investigated.

Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, served on the board of Joule Unlimited, a now defunct alternative energy company, from January 2011 to January 2014. He resigned from the company’s board to accept the powerful job of Counselor to President Barack Obama.

During Podesta’s tenure on the board of Joule Unlimited, a significant investment in the company by a firm owned by the Russian government escaped review and scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

In September 2011, eight months after Podesta joined the board of Joule Unlimited, Rusnano, a venture capital fund wholly owned by the Russian government, announced it was investing one billion Russian rubles, $35 million, in the company, which accounted for 46 percent of the $75 million invested in it up to that time from its launch in 2007. Founders Afeyan Noubar and Dr. David Berry invested an estimated $10 million in the 2007 first round. The venture firm Noubar heads, Flagship Ventures – now known as Flagship Pioneering – led a second round investment of $30 million in 2010, as the Boston Globe reported.

Curiously, the CFIUS failed to initiate a review of the transaction despite statutory and administrative guidelines that any such transaction in which a foreign country or foreign company obtained more than a ten percent interest in an American company was reviewable. (Read more from “Collusion? Russians Gave $35 Million to Company With John Podesta on Board” HERE)

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