Mueller Files First Charges

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By Pamela Brown, Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz. A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

Mueller was appointed in May to lead the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. (Read more from “Mueller Files First Charges” HERE)

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First Charges Approved in Robert Mueller’s Russia Probe With Plans to Take People Involved Into Custody

By Ginger Adams Otis. The first round of charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election were approved Friday – but it’s still not known what they are or who they target . . .

The special counsel has been digging into allegations of Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign since May.

Mueller has been focusing on potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The President is also part of the probe for possible obstruction of justice for his alleged efforts to impede the investigation . . .

In addition to Mueller’s probe, three committees on Capitol Hill are conducting their own investigations. (Read more from “First Charges Approved in Robert Mueller’s Russia Probe With Plans to Take People Involved Into Custody” HERE)

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Third Woman Accuses George H.W. Bush of Groping Her, Was Asked to ‘Be Discreet’

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. . .In 2014, author Christina Baker Kline was invited to a fundraiser for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy in Houston.

After a luncheon and having met former First Lady Barbara Bush, she and her husband then met the former president for a photo op. He told her that she was “beautiful” and she thanked him. After confirming with her that she was a writer, he then whispered, “You wanna know my favorite book?”

With “impeccable” comic timing, Bush reached his arm around her lower back, “squeezed [her] butt hard,” and answered “David Cop-A-Feel” as the photographer took the picture.

Afterwards, a woman who claimed to be a friend of the Bush family drove her and her husband back to their hotel. It wasn’t until they were in the car that Kline told her husband what had occurred . . .

“Our driver, who was stopped at a light, sat there for a moment, then leaned back and looked at us. ‘I do trust you will be … discreet.’

(Read more from “Third Woman Accuses George H.W. Bush of Groping Her, Was Asked to ‘Be Discreet'” HERE)

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World-Renowned Journalist Who Exposed Clinton Foundation Dead in Car Bombing

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A world-renowned journalist who exposed corruption within the Clinton Foundation was found dead on Monday after a car bomb exploded with her inside.

Maltese Investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was responsible for leaking millions of documents from the Panama Papers, which exposed high-level government corruption from around the world.

Her most recent work revealed that Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, had connections to offshore companies that linked them to the sale of Maltese passports, and showed that they had received payments from the government of Azerbaijan, according to a report from the Guardian.

During a press conference on the attack, Muscat acknowledged Galizia’s work, and said, “Everyone knows Ms. Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of mine, both politically and personally, but nobody can justify this barbaric act in any way.” (Read more from “World-Renowned Journalist Who Exposed Clinton Foundation Dead in Car Bombing” HERE)

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Conservative Website Funded Initial Fusion GPS Trump Opposition Effort

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The opposition research project that ultimately produced the controversial Trump-Russia dossier was initially backed by the conservative Washington Free Beacon website, it was revealed late Friday.

Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti and chairman Michael Goldfarb said in a statement that the publication had retained Fusion GPS to “provide research on multiple candidates in the [2016] Republican presidential primary,” as well as Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Continetti and Goldfarb denied that the Free Beacon “had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele,” the former British spy who compiled the now-infamous file. The dossier, which was published by BuzzFeed in January, contained unverified and lurid allegations about dirt the Russians had on then-candidate Donald Trump and his campaign’s possible connections to Moscow.

Free Beacon’s connection with Fusion GPS was first reported by the Washington Examiner. According to the Examiner’s report, lawyers for the Free Beacon told the House Intelligence Committee that the website funded the research between the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2016. (Read more from “Conservative Website Funded Initial Fusion GPS Trump Opposition Effort” HERE)

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Mattis: US Will Not Accept a Nuclear North Korea

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By Fox News. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a stern warning to North Korea on Saturday: Despite its ongoing missile and nuclear programs, it is simply no match for the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

“Make no mistake,” Mattis said during a news conference in Seoul, “any attack on the United States or our allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons by the North will be met with a massive military response that is effective and overwhelming.”

During the joint appearance with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, Mattis acknowledged that the threat of a nuclear missile attack by North Korea was accelerating.

The CIA says North Korea could be just months away from being capable of hitting the U.S. with a nuclear strike, Reuters reported.

Mattis accused the regime of Kim Jong Un of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs — and vowed to defeat any attack. (Read more from “Mattis: US Will Not Accept a Nuclear North Korea” HERE)

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James Mattis: Threat of North Korea Nuclear Attack ‘Is Accelerating’

By Associated Press. US defence secretary Jim Mattis has said the threat of nuclear missile attack by North Korea is accelerating.

In remarks in Seoul with South Korean defence minister Song Young-moo at his side, Mattis accused the North of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs – and vowed to defeat any attack . . .

As he emphasized throughout his weeklong Asia trip, which included stops in Thailand and the Philippines, Mattis said diplomacy remains the preferred way to deal with the North. (Read more from “James Mattis: Threat of North Korea Nuclear Attack ‘Is Accelerating'” HERE)

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Brakes Slammed on Information Flow in Las Vegas Shooting

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Fifty-eight people killed. More than 500 injured. And yet, nearly a month after the Las Vegas Strip experienced the worst mass shooting in modern American history, local and federal authorities are refusing to fill in the blanks.

It wasn’t always like this. In the days after Oct. 1, when Stephen Paddock opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest festival crowd from his Mandalay Bay corner suite, Las Vegas police were hosting multiple news conferences a day. Then, once a day. Then, once every few days.

They compiled and released snippets of officers’ body camera footage. They spent several minutes answering specific questions. They released a comprehensive timeline, which ended up being wrong. They took it back, and tried to clarify the errors, but instead caused more confusion.

By Oct. 13 — the last time the Metropolitan Police Department or the FBI addressed the media or public — something had changed. The sheriff, who had been straightforward and stern, was now emotional and at times combative. Both he and the FBI failed to provide much new information, and at the end of the meeting, they refused to take questions.

Since that day, the only person who has shed more light on the investigation is Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos, who was shot in the leg while approaching the gunman’s room. His platform to share that information? “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which aired last week. He hasn’t made himself available to the media since. (Read more from “Brakes Slammed on Information Flow in Las Vegas Shooting” HERE)

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Prominent Democrat Calls for Hillary Probe

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While many Democrats are downplaying the Washington Post’s report that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the controversial anti-Trump dossier, a prominent party figure – a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and CIA director under Barack Obama – believes an investigation is warranted.

Leon Panetta, who also served as secretary of defense, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and a congressman from California, was asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Thursday night how it was possible that neither “the chair of the DNC and the Clinton campaign” knew about payments for the dossier.

“Well, it’s obviously something that the Intelligence Committee is going to have to look at,” Panetta said. “You know, knowing presidential campaigns, they’re big operations and somehow the left hand may not know what the right hand is doing. And that could be the case here.”

Panetta said the committee “is going to have to get into this, determine just exactly what happened, who knew what and when.”

Blitzer asked Panetta why Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias didn’t tell Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that the campaign had paid for the dossier. The report was included by then-FBI Director James Comey in the intelligence community’s January report on Russian meddling in the election, even though Comey described it as “salacious and unverified.” (Read more from “Prominent Democrat Calls for Hillary Probe” HERE)

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Almost All American ISIS Fighters Unaccounted for, Sparking Fears They Could Slip Through Cracks and Return

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When it came to recruiting foreigners to flee the comforts of home for the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, ISIS succeeded like no other — encouraging more than 40,000 fighters from more than 110 countries to travel to the fighting fray both before and after the declaration of the “caliphate” in June 2014. Subsequently, authorities have warned about the threat of returning jihadists to their homeland and since the falls of Mosul, Raqqa and the rapidly receding footprint of ISIS, such fears have come to the forefront.

According to a new report, “Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees,” released this week by the Soufan Center — a Washington-based security intelligence consultancy — there are now at least 5,600 citizens or residents from 33 countries who have returned home — accounting for about 15 percent of the fighters.

The report asserts that for the United States, 129 fighters succeeded in leaving the country and only seven have returned.

Of the 5,000 residents of the European Union who flocked to Iraq and Syria, a quarter are alleged to have returned home. But in the U.K., that figure was closer to half, with some 425 of the 850 fighters who left Britain to join the self-styled caliphate back on home soil. Around 5,000 left from Central Asia, of which just 500 — 10 percent — too have returned. (Read more from “Almost All American ISIS Fighters Unaccounted for, Sparking Fears They Could Slip Through Cracks and Return” HERE)

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House Passes Resolution to Fast Track Trump’s Tax Plan

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Congressional Republicans just got a big step closer to enacting comprehensive tax reform.

By a vote of 216-212, the House passed the Senate’s budget resolution on Thursday morning, paving the way for Republicans to begin their fast track to tax reform.

Twenty Republicans joined the entire caucus of House Democrats in voting against the resolution. Many GOP members who voted against the measure cited issues with a key provision in the tax.

However, the Republican majority in the House was large enough to sustain the number of defections, leading to a very close vote in the end.

The successful House vote is the last procedural step before congressional Republicans can move toward fast track tax reform legislation — something that is expected to be revealed next week.

Thursday’s resolution was critical for the GOP in getting tax reform through the near-impossible hurdles of Congress, Politico reported.

Following the vote, Republicans opened up procedural powers that will allow the GOP-controlled Senate to pass tax legislation with just 51 votes — avoiding any Democrat filibusters.

The vote among House Republicans was tight, and Speaker Paul Ryan and other House leaders had to conduct last-minute maneuvering to save the resolution from failure.

Numerous Republican members from high-tax states threatened to vote “no” on the budget unless GOP leaders ended plans to hamper the state and local tax deduction currently in the tax proposal.

However, Ryan was hoping enough Republicans would be excited about finally rahieving tax reform and thus vote in favor of a blueprint that many members were not happy about.

Currently, the GOP tax reform blueprint proposes the termination of the state and local tax deduction. This deduction permits Americans to reduce what they pay in local and state taxes from their federal tax bill.

Ending the SALT deduction would offset a considerable amount of the revenue lost in the planned tax cuts. According to a study by the Tax Policy Center, this save $1.3 trillion over 10 years, Business Insider reported.

Residents in high-tax states like California, Massachusetts and New York enjoy this deduction, and their representatives did not want to see it gone.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, a Republican congressman from a high tax state, tweeted that he would not support the budget.

Republican leaders worried that enough Republican congressman in these states would derail the resolution.

However, every Republican congressman from California voted in favor of the resolution, as well as a handful of Republicans from New York.

According to House Way and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady, the GOP tax plan is expected to be released on Nov. 1. (For more from the author of “House Passes Resolution to Fast Track Trump’s Tax Plan” please click HERE)

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America Showers Hillary With Side-Splitting Birthday Wishes

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It’s Hillary Clinton’s 70th birthday Thursday, and Americans are sending her the hilarious birthday wishes she deserves – complete with uranium cakes, orange jumpsuits, deleted emails and even a surprise FBI informant to crash the party.

To celebrate her role in the Uranium One scandal in which Russia was given control of one-fifth of uranium mining in the U.S., former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka sent the former first lady a special radioactive cake:

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted “Happy birthday Hillary” and shared news that the Justice Department has lifted a gag order on an FBI informant, who may now testify before Congress on a uranium deal struck with Russia when Hillary was secretary of state.

(Read more from “America Showers Hillary With Side-Splitting Birthday Wishes” HERE)

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