White House: ‘There Is Still No Evidence of Any Russia-Trump Campaign Collusion’

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The White House said testimonies from former C.I.A. Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats back up the administration’s claim that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

“This morning’s hearings back up what we’ve been saying all along,” a White House spokesman said in a statement Tuesday. “That despite a year of investigation, there is still no evidence of any Russia-Trump campaign collusion, that the president never jeopardized intelligence sources or sharing, and that even Obama’s CIA Director believes the leaks of classified information are ‘appalling’ and the culprits must be ‘tracked down.’”

As he testified before the House Intelligence Committee, Brennan said he was “aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign.” They concerned him “because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals.”

Though he said “seeing these types of contacts during the same period of time raised my concern,” Brennan noted that the “contacts might’ve been totally, totally innocent and benign as well as those that might have succumbed somehow to those Russian efforts.”

Meanwhile, Coats dodged when he was asked about a report that claimed Donald Trump asked both he and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers to publicly state that he was not under investigation for colluding with the Russian government. (Read more from “White House: ‘There Is Still No Evidence of Any Russia-Trump Campaign Collusion'” HERE)

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Evidence Piling up That Seth Rich Leaked DNC Emails to Wikileaks

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The evidence is growing that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich leaked over 44,000 emails to Wikileaks. Democrats assert that the Russians hacked into the DNC’s emails. However, Julian Assange of Wikileaks maintains that the Russians didn’t do it. He says a disgruntled insider did it.

Two More Voices

Last weekend, two more voices spoke up claiming insider knowledge. Kim Dotcom, a friend of Assange and founder of Megaupload, said he was involved with Rich transferring the emails to Wikileaks. He issued a statement today describing his contact with Rich. He said Rich contacted him using the pseudonym “Panda” (Rich loved pandas).

Rich reportedly said he wanted to start a branch of Dotcom’s New Zealand Internet Party in the U.S. He was tired of “corruption and the influence of corporate money in politics.” Dotcom references an interview he gave Bloomberg in May 2015. In it, he hinted that Wikileaks would be releasing information about Hillary Clinton and the election.

But he left it at that. He said Rich’s family has asked him to be sensitive to their loss in his public comments. He says he is fully willing to provide full details to U.S. law enforcement and Congress.

Kim tweeted at Google administrators, asking them to reveal the contents of Rich’s gmail accounts to Wikileaks. Kim once told Rush Limbaugh he intends to appear on his radio show to discuss the evidence. Sean Hannity has invited him on his show.

A second person also came forward last weekend, anonymously posting on the /pol/ political channel of social media bulletin board 4chan. They said that that many in D.C. know that Rich leaked the emails, but were afraid to come forward. The anonymous person said that the DNC is terrified. In a second post, the person hints that the labor organization SEIU knows something about his death.

Amateur Sleuths Doing the Work the Mainstream Media Won’t

Amateur sleuths posting on the 4chan and Reddit found accounts that belonged to Rich. They were fairly easy to identify due to his unique personality quirks. They had names like Pandas4Progress. His posts reflected his preference for Sanders in the election. They also reveal his disappointment with the Democrats’ rigged party system.

Strangely, his posts have been edited since his accounts were discovered. His email address was removed from one post — notably the email address identified the anonymous account as his.

The owners of a Pandas4Bernie account issued a statement on Monday asserting they are not affiliated with Rich. However, they did include a sentence revealing they believe he was the whistleblower.

We may not be Seth Rich, but we can do justice to his life by extending the effects of his work, by honoring the courage of whistleblowers who put their lives on the line to expose the truths that animate our demands for justice, and ultimately to break the power of corrupt, undemocratic elites once and for all over our lives and institutions.

The account indicates that some of the people behind the account are active participants in #JusticeForSeth, an effort trying to solve his murder.

The amateur sleuths on the bulletin boards have put together many revealing pieces of information related to the DNC emails and Rich’s murder. The police report showed that at least three of the responding officers wore body cameras. Where is that footage?

Rich was alive when they appeared on the scene. The EMTs who treated him told Rich’s parents later that they were surprised he did not live. Rich acted confused however, because when he was asked where he lived, he gave a previous address. Someone claiming to be a doctor who treated Rich after he was taken to the hospital posted an anonymous comment on Reddit. The commenter asserted that Rich’s condition was stable at the hospital. But then medical staff was told not to attend to him.

The manager of the bar where Rich was last seen before his death said police never contacted the bar. The bar had surveillance video the police could have requested. After Rich’s death, his girlfriend told a local news station she thought he was murdered “out of anger.” The D.C. police chief at the time was known for hobnobbing with the Clinton campaign and DNC officials.

Wikileaks All But Admits the Leaker is Rich

Julian Assange, the owner of Wikileaks, has hinted several times that Rich is the insider who leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Less than two weeks after Rich was murdered, Wikileaks tweeted that it was offering a $20,000 reward for information.

On a Dutch news program, Assange said, “Our whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. A 27-year-old that works for the DNC was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons, as he was walking down the street in Washington, D.C.”

In another cryptic tweet on Monday, Assange presciently hinted that someone outside of Wikileaks might identify Rich as the source. Assange also uses the hashtag #SethRich in his tweets about him.

Shutting Down Coverage

Last week, the mainstream media attacked the testimony of Rod Wheeler, the private investigator hired by the Rich family. Wheeler had told Fox News that Rich leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. However, he admitted later that he hadn’t personally seen the evidence. Rather, he came to that conclusion based on comments made by a federal investigator to Fox News. That anonymous source said he had seen the case file and that “44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between Democratic National Committee leaders, spanning from January 2015 through late May 2016, were transferred from Rich to MacFadyen before May 21.”

Fox News pulled the article on Tuesday. The left is also putting pressure on Fox News and Sean Hannity’s advertisers to stop his ongoing coverage.

Rich’s family has asked people to stop their investigations, calling it conspiratorial. They hired a spokesperson who handles crisis communications for Democrats, Brad Bauman. They suggested pressuring Wikileaks to reveal its evidence of the connection to their son. Strangely, Bauman convinced them not to.

However, in this video, Rich’s parents profusely thank everyone who has been trying to find the murderers.

A Nathan Rich, who claims to be a cousin of Seth Rich, has been tweeting about the likely connection. In one tweet, he raised his suspicions. Another family member responded and admonished him for the tweet. He deleted it, but it has been archived.

The Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media are trying to shut down the investigative work, labeling it as conspiracy theories. But they don’t control the evidence. At this point, there’s more evidence that the DNC emails were leaked to Wikileaks than that the DNC was hacked by Russia. Congress and the FBI should at least expand their probe to question Assange and Dotcom. (For more from the author of “Evidence Piling up That Seth Rich Leaked DNC Emails to Wikileaks” please click HERE)

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Wasserman Schultz Threatened Police Chief for Gathering Evidence on Her IT Staffer’s Alleged Crimes

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Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police with “consequences” for holding equipment that she says belongs to her in order to build a criminal case against a Pakistani staffer suspected of massive cybersecurity breaches involving funneling sensitive congressional data offsite. (The full exchange over the matter begins at 2:40 of the above video.)

The Florida lawmaker used her position on the committee that sets the police force’s budget to press its chief to relinquish the piece of evidence Thursday, in what could be considered using her authority to attempt to interfere with a criminal investigation.

The Capitol Police and outside agencies are pursuing Imran Awan, who has run technology for the Florida lawmaker since 2005 and was banned from the House network in February on suspicion of data breaches and theft.

“My understanding is the Capitol Police is not able to confiscate Members’ equipment when the Member is not under investigation,” Wasserman Schultz said in the annual police budget hearing of the House Committee On Appropriations’ Legislative Branch Subcommittee.

“We can’t return the equipment,” Police Chief Matthew R. Verderosa told the Florida Democrat.

“I think you’re violating the rules when you conduct your business that way and you should expect that there will be consequences,” Wasserman Schultz said.

As one of eight members of the Committee on Appropriations’ Legislative Branch subcommittee, Wasserman Schultz is in charge of the budget of the police force that is investigating her staffer and how he managed to extract so much money and information from members.

In a highly unusual exchange, the Florida lawmaker used a hearing on the Capitol Police’s annual budget to spend three minutes repeatedly trying to extract a promise from the chief that he will return a piece of evidence being used to build an active case.

“If a Member loses equipment and it is found by your staff and identified as that member’s equipment and the member is not associated with any case, it is supposed to be returned. Yes or no?” she said.

Police tell her it is important to “an ongoing investigation,” but she presses for its return anyway.

A federal employee with knowledge of the situation, and who requested anonymity, told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group that as House authorities closed in on Imran Awan and his brothers, a laptop used by Imran was hidden in an unused crevice of the Rayburn House Office Building. Wasserman Schultz’s office is in Longworth House Office Building, a separate structure.

The laptop was later found by Capitol Police and seized because it was relevant to the criminal investigation, the source said.

The investigation is examining members’ data leaving the network and how Awan managed to get Members to place three relatives and a friend into largely no-show positions on their payrolls, billing $4 million since 2010.

The congresswoman characterizes the evidence as “belonging” to her and argues that therefore it cannot be seized unless Capitol Police tell her that she personally, as opposed to her staffer, is a target of the investigation.

When TheDCNF asked Wasserman Schultz Monday if it could inquire about her strong desire for the laptop, she said “No, you may not.” After TheDCNF asked why she wouldn’t want the Capitol Police to have any evidence they may need to find and punish any hackers of government information, she abruptly turned around in the middle of a stairwell and retreated back to the office from which she had come.

Her spokesman, David Dameron, then emerged to say, “We just don’t have any comment.”

Though, on the surface, Wasserman Schultz would have been a victim of Awan’s scam, she has inexplicably protected him, circumventing the network ban by re-titling him as an “adviser” instead of technology administrator.

Politico described him and his wife, Hina Alvi, as having a “friendly personal relationship” with both Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York.

That baffled a Democratic IT staffer, who said “I can’t imagine why she’d be that good of friends with a technology provider.”

“Usually if someone does bad stuff, an office is going to distance themselves” rather than incur political fallout for a mere staffer, he added.

Wasserman Schultz resigned as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, after Wikileaks published thousands of internal emails obtained by an as-yet unidentified hacker.

The last 30 seconds of the exchange can also be seen here.

(For more from the author of “Wasserman Schultz Threatened Police Chief for Gathering Evidence on Her IT Staffer’s Alleged Crimes” please click HERE)

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Pope Gives Trump a Copy of His Global Warming Encyclical

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Pope Francis gave President Donald Trump a copy of his encyclical that refers to Earth as an “immense pile of filth” and calls for phasing out fossil fuels to fight global warming.

Francis gifted Trump with his 2015 letter “Laudato Si” during their half-hour meeting Wednesday, Bloomberg reported. The Pope intended for his gift to bolster calls for Trump to not withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement.

Trump promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on the campaign trail, but European leaders — and some in his own White House — are urging the U.S. president to stick with it. Leaders of G7 countries are expected to lobby Trump on the issue when they meet him in Italy this week.

Francis says he would not “proselytize” during his meeting with Trump, but at least one Bishop believed that the pontiff could “convert” Trump on the issue of global warming.

“They will come to an agreement, since the president claims to be a Christian, and so he will listen to him,” Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, the chair of the Pontifical Academies of Science and Social Sciences, said ahead of the meeting. (Read more from “Pope Gives Trump a Copy of His Global Warming Encyclical” HERE)

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Key Takeaways From CBO Score of the Republican Health Care Bill

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The Congressional Budget Office updated its score of the House-passed American Health Care Act this week, prior to its being sent over to the Senate.

This budgetary analysis projects that if passed into law, the bill would reduce the number of insured by 23 million, but would decrease the deficit by $119 billion while also reducing federal outlays by $1.1 trillion and federal revenue by $992 billion.

While the score is roughly similar to the score from the original version of the bill released on March 23, several modifications to the law occurred since then and were not reflected in earlier estimates.

The new CBO score addresses the effect of allowing states to waive the Affordable Care Act essential health benefit and community rating requirements on premiums in particular.

Effects on Coverage and Premiums

First, the CBO finds that 2 million fewer people in 2020 and about 1 million fewer in 2026 would become uninsured under the American Health Care Act.

It cites that this is due to “4 million more people with employment-based coverage, as employers in states making changes to market regulations would probably view the insurance products in the nongroup market as less desirable alternatives and decide to offer insurance to their employees, and 3 million fewer people with nongroup coverage, as some would enroll in employment-based coverage, and others would become uninsured.”

This is an interesting way to frame the effects of the bill, since reducing premium levels by rolling back regulations could actually have the effect of making plans more desirable for individuals looking to pay less.

The CBO lacks any real discussion of these positive effects.

As for premiums, the CBO finds the effects the same as previously estimated for roughly half the population, or for the people residing in states that did not pursue any waiver.

However, for the other half of the population, the CBO attempts to estimate the effects of different combinations of waiver decisions. It estimates that one-third of the population would be in states that make some changes to market regulations.

For these states, the CBO finds premiums to be 20 percent lower than under current law by 2026.

It also expects that these lower premiums would lead to more people having insurance, but fewer in the nongroup market—although “lower premiums could attract more enrollees to the nongroup market.”

About one-sixth of the population would reside in states that would substantially alter essential health benefits and waive community rating rules. For this population, the CBO projects “significantly lower premiums for those with low expected health care costs.”

However, it caveats that there is an issue of drastically raising premiums on higher-cost and older individuals in the market.

Ultimately, the CBO’s treatment of these effects could be more deeply analyzed. Most importantly, its methodology is relatively opaque, and ultimately includes an internal disagreement around whether or not lowering premiums leads to increased take-up in insurance coverage.

Regardless of these internal issues, the CBO still projects meaningful premium reductions by 2026 under the American Health Care Act, especially with moderate regulatory reforms.

Medicaid and State Exchanges

The largest projected savings in the bill come from reforms in Medicaid, along with the elimination of the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies in the individual market. The CBO’s score on Medicaid still reflects that it assumes more states would likely have expanded in the future under the Affordable Care Act.

Thus, its projection that 14 million fewer people would be insured due to not having Medicaid under the American Health Care Act might be overstated in all of its scores of the legislation.

Of that 14 million, 4 million will choose to be uninsured in 2018, which suggests the CBO’s methodology with regard to the effect of the individual mandate is unchanged from its original score of Obamacare.

In Medicaid, the CBO projects that these changes result in $834 billion savings from 2017-2026. There is little difference here between the past scores and the current.

Similar optimism from the CBO remains for the Affordable Care Act on the exchange side, as it is important to remember this number would be against a baseline that assumes the Affordable Care Act will enroll 7 to 8 million more people in the individual market, when in reality it does not appear this will be the case, as Avik Roy pointed out in response to the first score.

Nonetheless, savings from elimination of the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies is projected to amount to $665 billion in savings.

Key Takeaways

The CBO’s new score of the American Health Care Act has not changed much from the previous iteration besides incorporating views about how the states will respond to the available waivers, and incorporating the increased spending also included in the manager’s amendments.

While there might be disagreements about the coverage effects of state waivers, it is clear that there are meaningful premium reductions from allowing states to pursue them.

Given this, the CBO has still done nothing to address the inherent uncertainty involved in scoring large, complex pieces of health legislation by hiding large considerations behind opaque methodologies.

It also has still failed to walk back its overly optimistic views on the power of the individual mandate or the performance of Obamacare moving forward. (For more from the author of “Key Takeaways From CBO Score of the Republican Health Care Bill” please click HERE)

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Students and Faculty Protesters Demand Punishment of College Republicans Group

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Student and faculty protesters rushed a college administration building Monday calling for the school to punish its College Republicans group.

Orange Coast College faculty and students protested the school’s College Republicans chapter after the group published emails from OCC professor Jessica Alabi to Orange Coast College President Dennis Harkins. The emails revealed the professor said she would “stand up” to the group, if the president did not, according to Campus Reform.

The materials also showed that Alabi stopped members of the group from attending a campus event because they were perceived as a threat to the “safe space.” The College Repulicans want OCC to investigate the professor.

The protesters shouted, “No hate, no KKK, no fascist USA” and “Get that club out of our face.” Students held socialist flags and symbols or signs mocking the College Republicans.

“It makes no sense to me why the union and a vocal minority of students would protest against the OCC Republicans for simply asking for an investigation into the matter and protections for students from being discriminated against on the basis of their political affiliation,” said Joshua Recalde-Martinez, the OCC College Republicans’ former president. (Read more from “Students and Faculty Protesters Demand Punishment of College Republicans Group” HERE)

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Hannity Now Silent, Fox News Caves to Pressure, Retracts Seth Rich “Conspiracy” Story; But Rich Cousin Contends That He Was Assassinated Over WikiLeaks Emails

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By The Hill. Fox News on Tuesday retracted a story regarding the 2016 killing of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich after massive outcry over sharing conspiracy theories about the murder.

“On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich,” the retraction reads. “The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.”

“Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.” (Read more from “Fox News Bows to Pressure, Retracts Seth Rich “Conspiracy” Story While Cousin Contends That He Was Murdered Over WikiLeaks Emails” HERE)

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Seth Rich’s Cousin Suspects He Was Killed for Talking to Wikileaks

By Cassandra Fairbanks. Jonathan Rich, the cousin of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, is speaking out — and he does not believe that the murder was a botched robbery as the DC police and media claim.

In a now-deleted tweet, Jonathan responded to Sean Hannity of Fox News who had posted an article about their findings that his cousin had contacted WikiLeaks and sent them the emails which were released shortly after his death.

“First thing I said when my Dad told me was he knew something and he was murdered. The rest of the family thought I was nuts. See last name,” Jonathan tweeted.

He was promptly told not to comment by Andy Rich, and the tweet was deleted.

“This is not the place & not a topic for you to comment on. I love you but filter bro. #family,” Andy Rich tweeted in response. (Read more from “Seth Rich’s Cousin Suspects He Was Killed for Talking to Wikileaks” HERE)

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Hannity: I’m Not Discussing Seth Rich

By The Hill. Fox’s Sean Hannity addressed the growing controversy around his continued coverage of the 2016 killing of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich following massive backlash for sharing conspiracy theories about his death. . .

“Out of respect for the family’s wishes for now, I am not discussing this matter at this time,” Hannity said near the top of his 10:00 a.m. ET program.

The host changed the subject, instead continuing his criticism of media outlets for covering the Trump-Russia investigation, calling it hypocritical since no evidence has linked the two.

Later in the opening monologue, Hannity appeared to indicate that he may visit Rich stories again “at the proper time.” (Read more from “Hannity Now Silent, Fox News Caves to Pressure, Retracts Seth Rich “Conspiracy” Story; But Rich Cousin Contends That He Was Assassinated Over WikiLeaks Emails” HERE)

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Former CIA Agent: Deep State Targeting Trump Family Members to Damage President

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A former CIA agent said the Trump family is undoubtedly being targeted by intelligence agencies and other actors looking to damage the Trump administration.

Bob Baer, a former CIA case officer, made the comments Friday during an appearance on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” Ingraham asked Baer if right-wing populist political activists should be concerned about being monitored by deep state actors.

“For you and me, no … we’re not that important to the equation,” Baer said. “But you can count on it that people are after the Trump family right now.”

“In the government they’re combing through intercepts, they’re combing through conversations. Nobody in that family is not being watched by the press, by foreign governments who have interests in this — and if you in any way were to become a public figure in politics, yeah, you’re vulnerable,” said Baer.

Baer also noted that the frequency of leaks and level of information they reveal is unprecedented. “I have never seen it this bad in terms of leaks,” said Baer. “It’s not often I agree with Trump, but the fact is, when the NSA intercepted Flynn … that got out and that’s not supposed to happen … that’s classified, top-secret codeword” information. (Read more from “Former CIA Agent: Deep State Targeting Trump Family Members to Damage President” HERE)

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Judge Will Reconsider Ruling Blocking Trump’s Sanctuary Cities Order

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A federal judge Tuesday agreed to reconsider his ruling blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order to cut funding from cities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick accepted the administration’s request to reconsider his April ruling. He gave the two California counties that challenged the executive order — San Francisco and Santa Clara — two weeks to file any documents opposing the request.

The administration was facing a Tuesday deadline to file paperwork to seek a second review by Orrick. (Read more from “Judge Will Reconsider Ruling Blocking Trump’s Sanctuary Cities Order” HERE)

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Uber Admits Stiffing NYC Drivers by Millions of Dollars

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Uber on Tuesday admitted to underpaying its New York City drivers tens of millions of dollars for the past 2 1/2 years.

“We are committed to paying every driver every penny they are owed — plus interest — as quickly as possible,” Uber executive Rachel Holt said in a statement. “We are working hard to regain driver trust, and that means being transparent, sticking to our word, and making the Uber experience better from end to end.”

The ride-hailing company said each affected driver would get a refund of about $900, which includes interest. Uber did not give an exact figure on how many drivers it has in the city, but said it was in the tens of thousands. (Read more from “Uber Admits Stiffing NYC Drivers by Millions of Dollars” HERE)

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