Senate Republicans Mobilizing to Confront China; China Acknowledges Destroying Early Coronavirus Samples

By Daily Caller. Several Senate Republicans are mobilizing plans to confront China for its delay, cover up and suppression of critical information in the lead up to the global coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Caller has learned. Options on the table even include “authorizing U.S. courts to seize Chinese government assets” once an investigation “determine[s] the damages China owes the US — and the world.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping personally asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to delay the release of information regarding its coronavirus outbreak, German intelligence reported. Xi met with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Jan. 21 to request that he withhold information and delay the declaration of a global pandemic, according to German magazine Der Spiegel’s report, published May 8.

“We now know that leaders at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party actively hid the coronavirus outbreak from the world, silencing those who tried to sound the alarm, prevent a global pandemic, and save lives,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told the Daily Caller. “Next week, I will introduce the Ending Chinese Medical Censorship and Cover Ups Act of 2020, just one of the legislative steps I am taking to hold the Chinese officials involved in medical censorship directly accountable.” (Read more from “Senate Republicans Mobilizing to Confront China” HERE)

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China Acknowledges Destroying Early Coronavirus Samples, Confirming U.S. Accusation

By Newsweek. China has acknowledged it destroyed some samples of the novel coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak, but challenged U.S. allegations that this was conducted as part of a cover-up.

Liu Dengfeng, a supervisor at the science and education division of China’s National Health Commission, said at a news conference Friday in Beijing that the Chinese government issued an order on January 3 to dispose of novel coronavirus samples at certain facilities not qualified to handle such highly infectious diseases as a measure to “prevent the risk to laboratory biological safety and prevent secondary disasters caused by unidentified pathogens.”

The move came after the novel coronavirus, known now officially as SARS-CoV-2, was classified as Class II or “highly pathogenic” based on research and expert recommendations, Liu said. This decision necessitated “clear requirements on the collection, transportation, experimental use and destruction of the pathogen” in order to avoid a potential mishap or leakage, he said. (Read more from “China Acknowledges Destroying Early Coronavirus Samples, Confirming U.S. Accusation” HERE)

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Report: Trump Planning to Partially Restore Funding to WHO

By Breitbart. On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson reported on a draft letter on a planned partial refunding of the World Health Organization by the Trump administration, which states that the U.S. “will continue to partner and work with the World Health Organization and agree to pay up to what China pays in assessed contributions.”

Carlson reported that the letter states, “Despite [its] shortcomings, I believe that the W.H.O. still has tremendous potential, and want to see the W.H.O live up to this potential, particularly now during this global crisis” and “That is why I’ve decided that the United States will continue to partner and work with the World Health Organization and agree to pay up to what China pays in assessed contributions.” (Read more from “Report: Trump Planning to Partially Restore Funding to WHO” HERE)

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Trump Set to Restore Partial Funding to WHO After Pause to Investigate Coronavirus Response

By Fox News. The Trump administration is on the brink of restoring some funding to the World Health Organization, a month after the president announced that it would be suspended while the government investigated the WHO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a five-page draft letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus obtained by “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Friday, the administration will “agree to pay up to what China pays in assessed contributions” to the WHO.

“We’re told the president supposedly has agreed to sign the letter if he hasn’t already,” host Tucker Carlson said Friday. “It’d be interesting to know who convinced him to do that.”

A senior administration official confirmed to “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that Trump has agreed to the plan set out in the draft letter.

“Despite [its] shortcomings, I believe that the WHO still has tremendous potential, and want to see the WHO live up to this potential, particularly now during this global crisis” the draft letter reads, apparently in President Trump’s voice. (Read more from “Trump Set to Restore Partial Funding to WHO After Pause to Investigate Coronavirus Response” HERE)

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‘Obamagate’ Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory, It’s the Biggest Political Scandal of Our Time and Biden is Right in the Middle of It

By The Federalist. When former president Barack Obama told supporters last week that the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case against former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is a “threat to the rule of law,” he was relying wholly on the fiction, willingly propagated for years by a pliant media, that the Russia-Trump collusion probe launched by his administration was lawful and legitimate.

But of course it wasn’t. A string of recently released documents have confirmed that the entire Russia-Trump investigation, which eventually entrapped Flynn and forced then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself, was an unprecedented abuse of power that amounted to organized effort by the Obama administration to nullify the results of the 2016 presidential election. It was in effect an attempted coup. . .

The Flynn case is just one piece of a much larger story about how the Obama administration—with the full knowledge and support of both Obama and Biden—targeted incoming Trump officials in a failed attempt to cripple the new administration with allegations it had colluded with Moscow.

The complexity of their scheme, and the efforts to hide it and mislead the American people, are frustrating. The cast of characters—from high-ranking Obama administration officials to relative nobodies loosely associated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign—is long, as is the timeline of events. Details have come out slowly, in fits and starts, over the course of years. Following all the leaks and declassified transcripts and congressional hearings requires constant vigilance, and if you don’t keep up with it you can easily lose the thread.

That all works to the advantage of those who perpetrated this hoax, because it’s easy to get overwhelmed and tune it all out, or simply accept the corporate media’s deceptive reporting. But the ongoing revelations about the FBI’s targeting of Flynn can’t be ignored. They demand a full accounting. If ever there was a threat to the rule of law, it was the Obama administration’s abuse of power and its weaponization of intelligence agencies in an attempt to take down Trump. (Read more from “‘Obamagate’ Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory, It’s the Biggest Political Scandal of Our Time” HERE)

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The Unmasking of Joe Biden

By The Hill. . .The media portrayed both Obama and Biden as uninvolved. But now we know they both actively followed the investigation. According to former acting attorney general Sally Yates, she was surprised that Obama knew about the investigation and knew more than she did at the time. Obama called upon former FBI director James Comey to stay after a meeting to discuss the investigation. Comey had mentioned using the Logan Act to charge Flynn, even though the unconstitutional law has never been used successfully in a prosecution since the country was founded.

Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge of the investigation. Just a day before the latest disclosure, George Stephanopoulos asked Biden in an interview what he knew of the Flynn investigation. Biden was adamant that he knew nothing about “those moves” and he called it a diversion. But that is not true if he took the relatively uncommon action for a vice president of demanding the unmasking of Flynn information.

Yet none of this matters. A Democratic administration using a secret court to investigate the opposing political campaign does not matter to many in Congress or in the media anyway. An investigation continuing despite the lack of credible information supporting collusion does not matter to them either. A president and a vice president who take personal interest in the surveillance of their political opponents also does not matter.

There was a time, however, when all of this did matter. There was once a time when this would be viewed as the story of the century, including the unmasking of Biden himself in this investigation. But these are not those times, and this cannot be the story. Russian collusion is the story and, as Biden stressed, the rest is just a diversion. It is up to the public to decide who has been ultimately unmasked by the Flynn investigation. (Read more from “The Unmasking of Joe Biden” HERE)

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Ex-Flynn Deputy Hits Obama Officials Over Conflicting Collusion Claims

By Fox News. Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland ripped Obama administration officials on “The Story” Thursday for making what she considered to be conflicting public statements about the existence of “collusion” between President Trump and the Russian government.

“The director of national intelligence [James Clapper], the CIA director [John Brennan], the FBI director [James Comey], and the deputy FBI director [Andrew McCabe] in the Obama administration were going into closed, classified healings on Capitol Hill, in the House Intelligence Committee and they were saying there was no collusion,” she said. . .

“And then others were basically accusing President Trump of treason,” added McFarland, who served under retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. “Which way is it, guys? You dragged the country through three years of being at each other’s throats over something you knew was a lie and a hoax.

“Why did you do it and who helped you do it?” (Read more from “Ex-Flynn Deputy Hits Obama Officials Over Conflicting Collusion Claims” HERE)

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Former Intelligence Director James Clapper Responds to ‘Unmasking’ Allegations

By New York Post. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper defended his conduct after being named among top Obama administration officials as having been involved in the effort to “unmask” former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Speaking during an appearance on CNN Thursday, Clapper argued that it was “routine” to “unmask” US citizens who are inadvertently included in the surveillance of foreign adversaries.

“It’s a routine thing,” the former intelligence chief said. “It’s appropriate and legitimate when you have a valid foreign intelligence target engaging with a US person. Is it, for example, an insider, someone in the government engaging with a foreign adversary? So it’s important from the standpoint of potential jeopardy to national security that you understand what’s going on.”

Clapper told the network that he would request to “unmask” individuals as frequently as “once or twice a week” during his tenure as DNI. (Read more from “Former Intelligence Director James Clapper Responds to ‘Unmasking’ Allegations” HERE)

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Richard Burr: Senate Intelligence Chief Steps Down for FBI Probe

The Republican chairman of the US Senate intelligence committee will step down while an insider trading inquiry is carried out.

Richard Burr of North Carolina said he had decided to do so because he did not want the investigation to distract the committee from its work.

Mr Burr’s phone has been seized by the FBI as part of the inquiry. . .

Mr Burr said: “The work the Intelligence Committee and its members do is too important to risk hindering in any way. I believe this step is necessary to allow the Committee to continue its essential work free of external distractions.”

He turned over his mobile phone to authorities after federal agents issued and executed a search warrant at his Washington, DC, home. (Read more from “Richard Burr: Senate Intelligence Chief Steps Down for FBI Probe” HERE)

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Pompeo Condemns China’s Attempts to Steal Coronavirus Research Data; U.S. to Israel: No More Chinese Deals

By Newsweek. The U.S. State Department released a statement Thursday denouncing attempts to infiltrate systems involved in U.S. COVID-19 research that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has attributed to China.

“The United States condemns attempts by cyber actors and non-traditional collectors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to steal U.S. intellectual property and data related to COVID-19 research,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Pompeo’s remarks follow an announcement by the FBI on Wednesday that the bureau is investigating “the targeting and compromise” of organizations conducting research to develop vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19. The efforts were attributed to China-affiliated actors. . .

According to the FBI, digital intruders are seeking to pilfer valuable intellectual property related to this research, jeopardizing “the delivery of secure, effective, and efficient treatment options.” (Read more from “Pompeo Condemns China’s Attempts to Steal Coronavirus Research Data” HERE)

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U.S. to Israel: No More Chinese Deals; Pompeo’s Flying Visit

By Breaking Defense. The United States delivered a clear message to Jerusalem today – avoid further involvement of China in the Israeli economy. The message was one of the main reasons for the very short visit of American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Jerusalem — one day before the new cabinet is sworn in.

“The fact that the visit takes place in these problematic times proves its urgency ” an Israeli source said. Pompeo came to Israel with a very strict message – stop all Chinese investment in Israel, either in high tech companies or infrastructure.

Israeli officials said the message relayed during Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s hours-long visit included a very specific political warning – Israel must stop any action that strengthens the Chinese Communist Party, even if that means canceling projects already planned. (Read more from “U.S. to Israel: No More Chinese Deals; Pompeo’s Flying Visit” HERE)

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This Is the Most Blatant Example of Inflated COVID-19 Death Stats Yet

I have spectacular news to share with you. Amid all the death, doom, and gloom resulting from the coronavirus, we can now celebrate the fact that the virus has cured all other forms of death. Nobody dies from other causes of death anymore. At least that is what we are seeing in some states that are so eager to use the virus as a pretext to crush our liberties.

This week, Colorado recorded Montezuma County as having suffered its third coronavirus death. The implication of being tagged with more deaths for many Democrat-controlled states is that even small rural counties like Montezuma will not be allowed to resume regular life because they will fail to meet arbitrary and impossible benchmarks established unilaterally by the Governor Kings. The problem in this case is that the county coroner is disputing the cause of the death. This now appears to be a widespread problem.

“COVID was not listed on the death certificate as the cause of death. I disagree with the state for listing it as a COVID death, and will be discussing it with them this week,” said County Coroner George Deavers on Tuesday.

It turns out that even though the decedent tested positive for the virus, he died of alcohol poisoning because toxicology showed his blood-alcohol level was 0.55, way past the lethal level of 0.3.

“The person who died did not die from COVID-19, but they did test positive for the virus,” said county public information officer Vicki Shaffer. “The state is reporting that death as a COVID death, but our health department wanted to let people know that even though the person did have the virus, they did not die from it.”

According to local news, the decedent, Sebastian Yellow, 35, was found dead in a park in Cortez on May 4. Think about that for a moment: a 35-year-old just drops dead in a park (the virus takes a long time to kill), and yet they test his body for coronavirus and find it to be positive, and now the state rules it a coronavirus death instead of the obvious alcohol poisoning!

This is not the first time the state government has been caught inflating the numbers. On April 30, CBS4 reported that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reclassified three deaths in a nursing home as COVID-19, overruling the decision of the attending physician who said they died of other ailments while in hospice care. The state officials blamed it on the CDC guidance forcing them to tag anyone who tests positive as a COVID-19 death, irrespective of the circumstances. Recently, Dr. Deborah Birx has reportedly called into question the policy and how it’s inflating the number of coronavirus deaths.

We are seeing disputes between state health departments and local coroners over how to determine cause of death play out in other states as well.

As we’ve reported, most estimates show the infection fatality rate for people in their 30s is roughly 0.007%. A typical 35-year-old has a 0.17% chance of dying in any given year … of anything. Thus, the normal mortality rate is 24 times higher than that of coronavirus for people that age. Now that the virus is so ubiquitous and so rarely lethal in young people, it makes no sense to assume someone died from it unless the autopsy showed the degradation of the lungs or other similar symptoms. They are literally coding every death in this country of anyone who has the virus (which is likely in the tens of millions) as a COVID-19 death.

Approximately 2.8 million people die every year, which means roughly 470,000 will die over a 2-month period. Given that it’s very likely 5%-10% of the country have the virus, but very few die from it as a percentage of those infected – nearly zero among younger people – how many of those typical deaths are now being coded as COVID? This is particularly concerning when we see states report a few random deaths among younger people. While anomalous death from the coronavirus is certainly possible in younger people, this raises serious questions about the accuracy of any existing recorded deaths for those particularly young.

We saw this play out in April when Ventura County, California, coded the death of a 37-year-old who overdosed on fentanyl as a COVID-19 death. Nearly 70,000 are dying every year from drug overdoses, particularly young adults. How many of these respiratory deaths will easily be coded as the coronavirus so long as they test positive?

There was much commotion when Georgia officials announced that death of a 22-year-old in Columbus, but the local coroner absolutely disputes that assertions. The 22-year-old new mother tragically died four days after giving birth, but Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan believes she died from a complication stemming from the C-section. “The E.M.S. personnel and myself pretty much came to the same conclusion,” Bryan said. “I personally don’t believe she died from the virus.”

We all see how this virus has become more political than anything in our lifetime. When places like Los Angeles, with so few deaths per capita, are preemptively announcing a lockdown for another three months, there is no longer any denying that liberal politicians will use this as a pretext to push generation-changing social transformation and will stop at nothing in the misinformation war to justify their actions. At least 60,000 people die in L.A. in any given year. In a county of 10 million people, there are officially only 1,659 coronavirus deaths (including the likely inflation). Are we really to believe that coding of deaths going forward will not be politicized and easily conflated with typical deaths?

Nowhere is this more of a concern than in nursing homes where we are seeing more than 50% of the recorded deaths and where many of them are being added retroactively. Naturally, roughly 25% of the annual 2.8 million national fatalities occur in senior care facilities and so many have already tested positive for the virus, but didn’t necessarily die from it. But per CDC guidance, it must be counted as a COVID-19 death.

Last week, my colleague Steve Deace received an email from a listener who just lost her father in a nursing home in Ohio. She noted that he had advanced Alzheimer’s and tested positive for COVID-19, along with 75% of the residents. However, 90% were asymptomatic and her father had recovered from the virus. None of the staff believed he died from the virus, but it was listed as the cause of the death on his death certificate. “Covid-19 is listed as cause of death. Absolute lie. Hopefully our firsthand experience can be added to your research,” she wrote.

Indeed, we are the ones who will have to do this research because the media and government won’t do it for us. (For more from the author of “This Is the Most Blatant Example of Inflated COVID-19 Death Stats Yet” please click HERE)

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Federal Judge Out of Control: Trying to Sentence Gen. Flynn Even Though Prosecution Wants Charges Withdrawn; List of Officials Who Sought to ‘Unmask’ Flynn Released

By CNN. Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan on Wednesday asked whether President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn could be held in contempt of court for perjury.

Sullivan also appointed a retired judge to look into Flynn’s case and argue against the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss it. . .

Sullivan signaled on Tuesday he would open the door to third parties to weigh in on the case, but it wasn’t clear whom he would allow. Others have argued to him that the judge could sentence Flynn, essentially ignoring the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss his charge.

Sullivan appointed a retired judge, John Gleeson, [to present] arguments to the judge “in opposition to the government’s Motion to Dismiss” and on “whether the Court should issue an Order to Show Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury,” the judge wrote.

Gleeson is a former Clinton appointee to the federal trial bench in the Eastern District of New York. (Read more from “Federal Judge Out of Control: Trying to Sentence Gen. Flynn Even Though Prosecution Wants Charges Withdrawn” HERE)

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Hannity Warns Biden ‘Might Want to Start Thinking About Getting His Story Straight’ on Flynn Unmasking

By Fox News. Sean Hannity opened his show Wednesday by reacting to the newly released list of Obama administration officials who requested to “unmask” the identity of former national security adviser Michael Flynn in intelligence reports during the Trump transition.

“Why in the hell did the Obama administration’s unmasking requests jump threefold from 9,500 in 2013 to 30,355 in 2016?” Hannity asked.

“Now, we know one part of the massive increase was targeted at Donald Trump campaign adviser, an incoming national security adviser, a man who has served this country honorably for 33 years in combat zones, and that’s General Michael Flynn,” the host added. “We now know he was unmasked a whopping 48 times by roughly two dozen Obama officials between Election Day, November 8, 2016 and the president’s inauguration, January 20, 2017.”

The host explained that the term ‘unmasking’ refers largely to the process of identifying an American citizen whose communications have been picked up by U.S. intelligence officials during surveillance on a foreign government, person or other entity.

In Flynn’s case, he was unmasked over his calls with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, which were picked up on wiretaps. That information was then leaked to The Washington Post in early 2017. (Read more from “Hannity Warns Biden ‘Might Want to Start Thinking About Getting His Story Straight’ on Flynn Unmasking” HERE)

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List of Officials Who Sought to ‘Unmask’ Flynn Released: Biden, Comey, Obama Chief of Staff Among Them

By Fox News. Top Obama administration officials purportedly requested to “unmask” the identity of former national security adviser Michael Flynn during the presidential transition period, according to a list of names from that controversial process made public on Wednesday.

The list was declassified in recent days by Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and then sent to GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, who made the documents public. The roster features top-ranking figures including then-Vice President Joe Biden — a detail already being raised by the Trump campaign in the bare-knuckle 2020 presidential race where Biden is now the Democrats’ presumptive nominee.

The list also includes then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Obama’s then-chief of staff Denis McDonough. (Read more from “List of Officials Who Sought to ‘Unmask’ Flynn Released: Biden, Comey, Obama Chief of Staff Among Them” HERE)

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FBI Serves Warrant on Richard Burr in Investigation Into Stock Sales Tied to Pandemic

The FBI has seized a cellphone belonging to Sen. Richard Burr as it investigates stock trades he made at start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The North Carolina Republican gave his cellphone up to the agents while they served a search on Burr at his residence, an official confirmed to the Los Angeles Times. Authorities are looking into whether Barr purposely dumped stocks on Feb. 13 as part of an insider trading investigation. . .

Burr took bipartisan condemnation after news of the sales was revealed. He is accused of using information he received from daily intelligence community briefings as the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman to inform his trading decisions. After he offloaded as much as $1.72 million of his holdings, Burr reportedly compared the growing health crisis to the 1918 flu pandemic at an exclusive Feb. 27 luncheon.

The Republican senator has maintained that he did nothing wrong and asked for the Senate Ethics Committee to conduct a full investigation into the allegations. He said in a statement after the controversy began that he “relied solely on public news reports” in his decision to sell a large percentage of his portfolio in 33 separate transactions. (Read more from “FBI Serves Warrant on Richard Burr in Investigation Into Stock Sales Tied to Pandemic” HERE)

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Devin Nunes Vows Criminal Referrals for Robert Mueller’s Team in Latest Russia Probe Reckoning

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, vowed to pursue multiple new criminal referrals amid the ongoing fallout of bombshell revelations in the Justice Department’s handling of the Russia probe.

Referring to former special counsel Robert Mueller, Nunes said: “We’re looking at doing criminal referrals on the Mueller team, the Mueller dossier team, the Mueller witch hunt, whatever you want to call it. That’s where we are now in our investigation.” Nunes made his remarks in a special new episode of Fox Nation’s “Witch Hunt,” hosted by Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett.

Last year, Nunes sent eight criminal referrals to U.S. Attorney General William Barr alleging several “potential violations” of the law in the course the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling and contacts with Trump advisers during the 2016 campaign.

Now in the wake of the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against former Trump National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn, Nunes is turning his attention to the conduct of the special counsel, who was appointed after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

“We’re doing a large criminal referral on the Mueller dossier team that put together a fraudulent report — that knew there was no collusion the day that Mueller walked in the door,” said Nunes. “They set an obstruction of justice trap. There’s no doubt in my mind that we will make a conspiracy referral there.” (Read more from “Devin Nunes Vows Criminal Referrals for Robert Mueller’s Team in Latest Russia Probe Reckoning” HERE)

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