Liberal Forum

Misty » 22 Jan 2018 8:03 pm » wrote:Mike Pence Runs Cover on Trump’s “****” and Porn Star Controversies: “I Know What’s In His Heart”
While on a diplomatic trip to Jerusalem, Vice President Mike Pence was more than happy to cement his position as a real bootlicker’s bootlicker.

Misty » 19 Jan 2018 5:45 pm » wrote: I don't trust anything that Nunes has anything to do with.

DEVELOPING=> Missing Strzok-Page Text Messages Could Only be Deleted By Someone inside FBI
January 23, 2018 by Jim Hoft
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The missing messages may still be recovered according to experts.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/01 ... nside-fbi/

Man arrested, accused of threatening to kill CNN employees.



A Michigan man was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot and kill CNN employees, WGCL-TV reported Monday.

The FBI launched an investigation after the man, who is unnamed in the CBS report, reportedly called CNN 22 times about a week ago.

"Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down," the man told a CNN operator, according to court documents obtained by WGCL-TV.

He allegedly later called CNN again, saying, "I'm smarter than you. More powerful than you. I have more guns than you. More manpower. Your cast is about to get gunned down in a matter of hours."

"I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to f---ing gun every single last one of you," he said.

The FBI were able to trace the call and arrested the man over the threats.

President Trump has repeatedly attacked the media, including CNN, calling coverage of himself and his administration "fake news."

The network was among the winners of Trump's "Fake News Awards" last week.

Trump also retweeted an edited GIF of him tackling a man with the CNN logo superimposed on his head, as well as an image of him with what appeared to be the CNN logo in a splatter of blood on the bottom of his shoe.

Journalists have criticized Trump's attacks on the media, warning that his lashing out against the press could lead to actual acts of violence against reporters.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 12:22 pm » wrote:Man arrested, accused of threatening to kill CNN employees.


One of 45's adorable deplorables.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 12:22 pm » wrote:
One of 45's adorable deplorables.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 12:22 pm » wrote:One of 45's adorable deplorables.

Unmasking Requests By Samantha Power, Susan Rice EXPLODED During Period Of Missing Strzok-Page Texts
January 23, 2018 by Joshua Caplan 172 Comments
1.5KShare122TweetEmail
In an interview posted to YouTube Monday, reporter Sara A. Carter told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein likely re-authorized FISA warrants against President-elect Donald Trump following the 2016 presidential election.

In addition, Carter revealed the number of unmasking requests exploded during the time frame of the missing Strzok-Page text messages.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/01 ... age-texts/

Jared Kushner Is China’s Trump Card

How the President’s son-in-law, despite his inexperience in diplomacy, became Beijing’s primary point of interest.

Since the election, Beijing intelligence has targeted Kushner as a key asset.

In early 2017, shortly after Jared Kushner moved into his new office in the West Wing of the White House, he began receiving guests.

One visitor who came more than once was Cui Tiankai, the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, a veteran diplomat with a postgraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University.

When, during previous Administrations, Cui had visited the White House, his hosts received him with a retinue of China specialists and note-takers.

Kushner, President Trump’s thirty-seven-year-old son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, preferred smaller gatherings.

Three months earlier, Cui had been in near-despair.

Like many observers, he had incorrectly predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election; his botched forecast, he told a friend, was precisely the kind of error that dooms the careers of ambassadors in the Chinese diplomatic system.

To make matters worse, Cui knew almost nobody in the incoming Administration.

Donald Trump had won the election in part by singling out China for “raping” the United States.

In Kushner, Cui found a confident, attentive, and inexperienced counterpart.

The former head of his family’s real-estate empire, which is worth more than a billion dollars, Kushner was intent on bringing a businessman’s sensibility to matters of state.

He believed that fresh, confidential relationships could overcome the frustrations of traditional diplomatic bureaucracy.

Henry Kissinger, who, in his role as a high-priced international consultant, maintains close relationships in the Chinese hierarchy, had introduced Kushner to Cui during the campaign, and the two met three more times during the transition.

In the months after Trump was sworn in, they met more often than Kushner could recall. “

Jared became Mr. China,” Michael Pillsbury, a former Pentagon aide on Trump’s transition team, said.

But Cui’s frequent encounters with Kushner made some people in the U.S. government uncomfortable.

On at least one occasion, they met alone, which counterintelligence officials considered risky.

“There’s nobody else there in the room to verify what was said and what wasn’t, so the Chinese can go back and claim anything,” a former senior U.S. official who was briefed on the meetings said.

“I’m sorry, Jared—do you think your background is going to allow you to be able to outsmart the Chinese Ambassador?”

Kushner, the official added, “is actually pretty smart. He just has limited life experiences. He was acting with naïveté.”

By now, Americans are accustomed to reports of Russia’s efforts to influence American politics, but, in the intelligence community, China’s influence operations are a source of equal concern.

In recent years, the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. have dedicated increased resources to tracking efforts by the Chinese government to spy on or to enlist Western officials in pursuit of their policy goals.
(The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. declined to comment on this.)

“The Chinese influence operations are more long-term, broader in scope, and are generally designed to achieve a more diffuse goal than the Russians’ are,” Christopher Johnson, a former C.I.A. analyst who specializes in China, said.

“To be unkind to the Russians, you’d say they are more crass.”

Kushner often excluded the government’s top China specialists from his meetings with Cui, a slight that rankled and unnerved the bureaucracy.

“He went in utterly unflanked by anyone who could find Beijing on a map,” a former member of the National Security Council said.

Some officials who were not invited to Kushner’s sessions or briefed on the outcomes resorted to scouring American intelligence reports to see how Chinese diplomats described their dealings with Kushner.

Other U.S. officials spoke to Cui directly about the meetings. Kushner was “their lucky charm,” the former N.S.C. member said.

“It was a dream come true. They couldn’t believe he was so compliant.” (A spokesman for Kushner said that none of the China specialists told him that “he shouldn’t be doing it the way he was doing it at the time.”)

Kushner was still getting an education in the world of national security.

His transition from business to public service had been abrupt; even as he took on the responsibilities of a statesman, with a portfolio that ranged from China to the Middle East to Mexico, he was waiting to receive a permanent security clearance.

Shortly after Trump won the election, disagreements emerged inside the transition about whether to seek the type of clearances, overseen by the F.B.I. and other agencies, that would allow Kushner; his wife, Ivanka Trump; Donald Trump, Jr.; and Eric Trump to receive classified briefings.

Some transition officials thought it was inappropriate to dispense such clearances until the Trump children’s roles in government became more defined.

On November 16th, after multiple news organizations reported the impending requests, President-elect Trump disputed them in narrow terms, tweeting, “I am not trying to get ‘top level security clearance’ for my children.

This was a typically false news story.” (A Kushner spokesman said that Kushner was unaware of any such requests made on his behalf.)

On January 9th, Trump announced that Kushner would join the Administration, and two days before Trump’s Inauguration an aide submitted Kushner’s request for a security clearance.

The application was troubled from the start.

After failing to list any contacts with foreign governments, among other incomplete sections, Kushner’s office filed a supplement the next day, citing numerous contacts and promising to assemble a complete list.

(Kushner blamed a “miscommunication,” which caused the aide to file a “draft” prematurely.)

In May, Kushner’s office sent another supplement, listing more than a hundred contacts from more than twenty countries.

Some of Kushner’s meetings during the campaign and the transition have caused problems for him.

In June, 2016, he attended a meeting with a Russian lawyer, which Donald Trump, Jr., had arranged after he was told that she was aware of information, possessed by the Kremlin, that would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton.

(Kushner updated his security forms once more, in June, 2017, to include the meeting.)

On December 1, 2016, at Trump Tower, Kushner and Michael Flynn, a retired general and Trump’s designated national-security adviser, met with the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, who, according to Kushner, offered to deliver information about the war in Syria over a secure line. Kushner asked if the Russian Embassy had a communications channel that “we could use, where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn.”

(Members of Congress harshly criticized Kushner for suggesting the use of Russian channels.)

As months passed, some members of the White House received their permanent security clearances, but Kushner continued to wait.

For high-level appointees, the process is normally “expedited,” a former senior U.S. official said.

It can be completed in several months, unless “derogatory information” pops up during the review.

Kushner had an interim clearance that gave him access to intelligence.

He was also added to a list of recipients of the President’s Daily Brief, or P.D.B., a top-secret digest of the U.S. government’s most closely held and compartmentalized intelligence reports.

By the end of the Obama Administration, seven White House officials were authorized to receive the same version of the P.D.B. that appeared on the President’s iPad.

The Trump Administration expanded the number to as many as fourteen people, including Kushner.

A former senior official said, of the growing P.D.B. distribution list, “It got out of control.

Everybody thought it was cool. They wanted to be cool.”

Some people in the office of the director of National Intelligence questioned the expansion, but officials who reported to Trump didn’t want to risk irritating him by trying to exclude his son-in-law and other new additions.

David Priess, a former C.I.A. officer who delivered the P.D.B. during the George W. Bush Administration and is the author of “The President’s Book of Secrets,” said that Kushner’s situation was unprecedented: “Having studied the President’s Daily Brief’s six-decade history, I have not come across another case of a White House official being a designated recipient of the P.D.B., for that length of time, without having a full security clearance.”

Among national-security specialists, Kushner’s difficulty obtaining a permanent security clearance has become a subject of fascination.

Was it his early failure to disclose foreign contacts? Or did it have something to do with the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections?

As the Administration finished its first year, some clues to Kushner’s security troubles have come into sharper focus, giving a new perspective on his encounters with China.

Before arriving in Washington and taking up his unusual role as son-in-law, confidant, and free-ranging foreign-affairs counsellor, Kushner had no particular familiarity with diplomacy.

“My experience was in business, not politics, and it was not my initial intent to play a large role in my father-in-law’s campaign,” he said, in testimony before congressional committees last July, as part of the Russia investigations.

Since 2008, he had served as the C.E.O. of the Kushner Companies, the family firm, which has an office in Florham Park, New Jersey. Its assets included commercial real estate and twenty-two thousand apartments from New Jersey to Maryland.

Through his work, Kushner had established links to China.

A Kushner project in Jersey City, which opened in November, 2016, reportedly received about fifty million dollars, nearly a quarter of its financing, from Chinese investors who are not publicly named, through a U.S. immigration program known as EB-5, which allows wealthy foreigners to obtain visas by investing in American projects.

Kushner was also an investor, alongside prominent Chinese and Hong Kong businessmen, in multiple companies.

He and a brother, Joshua Kushner, co-founded Cadre, a real-estate investment firm, which received funding from Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of Alibaba.
(The scope of investors behind Kushner projects is unknown, because the company does not disclose the names.)

Ivanka Trump has her own business endeavors in China, where some of her branded handbags, shoes, and clothes are manufactured.

During the campaign, Trump asked Kushner to be “a point of contact for foreign government officials.” Kushner, who was largely uninvolved with the transition team, devoted little attention to how he would handle those contacts in the event that Trump won.

Shortly before the election, aides prepared a memo for Chris Christie, at that time the head of the transition team, concerning the sensitive matter of conversations with foreign powers.

“Because the current President is still in office, calls made during the transition period should be high level, non-substantive, and consist largely of diplomatic pleasantries,” they wrote.

Trump would be “inundated with requests for thousands of calls from around the world,” they warned, through “campaign staff, outside advisers, and other third parties.”

He must not accept them.

Requests must be “methodically returned” in “a sequence of calls that will not create any diplomatic incidents or negative press stories.”

The President-elect must have a classified intelligence briefing before conversations with foreign leaders, and then conduct the meetings only when a note-taker and a national-security aide are present.

The aides suggested that Trump make five “waves” of calls over a number of days, starting with the United Kingdom and ending with Pakistan.

“Obviously, all that just got tossed aside,” a senior transition official recalled recently, because Trump was “excited that important people were calling him.”

Trump spoke to more than two dozen heads of state before his campaign contacted the State Department.

The freewheeling access extended to in-person meetings.

On November 17th, Trump had his first meeting with a foreign leader, Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.

According to a transition official, the meeting had come about after Abe’s government contacted Ado Machida, a policy director for the Trump transition, whose father had served as one of Japan’s representatives to the United Nations.
(Machida declined to comment.)

In another break with protocol, Trump was accompanied to the meeting by his daughter and son-in-law, while they were still running their respective businesses.

During the transition, Kushner met with a range of foreign officials to discuss the incoming Administration.

At the same time, as the head of his family’s business, he was urgently seeking an infusion of cash to repay a debt totalling hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2007, the Kushner Companies had bought 666 Fifth Avenue, a forty-one-story office tower, for $1.8 billion, the highest price ever paid for a building in Manhattan at that time.

The deal turned out to be a potential disaster for Kushner.

Demand for office space had fallen short, and he was hunting for investors, in Asia and the Middle East, among other places, to shore up the building’s finances.

On November 16, 2016, Kushner had a private dinner with Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of China’s Anbang Insurance Group, to discuss Wu’s possible investment in 666 Fifth Avenue.

Months later, when the meeting was revealed, and Bloomberg News reported that the Kushner family stood to make as much as four hundred million dollars from the agreement with Anbang, Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, criticized it as a possible conflict of interest.

The companies abandoned the negotiations.

In some cases, it was unclear whether Kushner was representing the transition or his business.

On December 13th, at the recommendation of Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador, Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, the head of Vnesheconombank, or V.E.B., a Russian state bank.

Kushner and the White House have said that he was acting as a Trump adviser and did not discuss his business.

But Representative Adam Schiff, of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has raised concerns that Kushner was discussing business while serving the transition.

Schiff pointed to statements by V.E.B. and a spokesman for Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, which suggest that Kushner held the meeting in his capacity as head of the Kushner Companies.

On January 9, 2017, shortly before beginning work at the White House, Kushner said that he was stepping down as C.E.O.

He sold his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue to a family trust, while retaining ownership of many of his assets.

As Trump prepared to enter the White House, he took a sudden measure that unnerved officials in Beijing.

On December 2nd, encouraged by the fiercest anti-China hawks among his advisers, including Steve Bannon, at that time his chief strategist, Trump took a telephone call from the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, breaking with nearly four decades of American diplomatic practice.

The U.S. has friendly relations with Taiwan, but Presidents since Ronald Reagan have avoided speaking directly with Taiwan’s President, because, as part of its “One China” policy, the U.S. formally recognizes only the Beijing government.

Then, in an interview, Trump mused about giving up the “One China” policy and recognizing Taiwan’s government, in Taipei.

Chinese officials turned to the man that Kissinger had recommended to them: Jared Kushner.

Kushner later told others that he took on the China portfolio reluctantly, after “clamoring” Chinese officials called Trump Tower and asked for him by name.

On December 9th and 10th, Cui Tiankai and Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat, visited Kushner at his office at 666 Fifth Avenue.

Unlike officials from Japan and the United Arab Emirates, who were secretive about contacts with Trump’s transition team, the Chinese diplomats kept the Obama Administration informed.

After visiting Trump’s transition team, Yang called the White House to report the encounter.

At times, Flynn and others joined the meetings.

Laying out China’s hopes and ambitions for its relations, Cui urged the U.S. to expand military-to-military exchanges and to endorse the Belt and Road Initiative, a foreign infrastructure campaign intended to expand Chinese influence abroad.

According to a participant in the discussions, Flynn welcomed the overture, praising the Belt and Road Initiative and saying that, although the U.S. had just one government at a time, he appreciated “beginning dialogue now.”

After Trump’s Inauguration, on January 20th, Kushner’s contacts with Cui intensified.

They met again on February 1st, and, that day, Ivanka took her daughter, Arabella, to a lunar New Year celebration at the Chinese Embassy.

Later that month, Kushner persuaded Trump to back off his threat to abandon the “One China” policy.

Kushner also passed along proposals from Cui to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who made his first official trip to Beijing in March.

During the visit, Tillerson startled China experts by adopting some of Beijing’s official phrases, including “mutual respect,” which is often interpreted as reinforcing China’s claims over disputed waters in Asia.

Kushner and Cui also met repeatedly to prepare for Trump’s first meeting with China’s President, Xi Jinping, on April 6th, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Daniel Russel, who, until last March, was the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and is now a diplomat-in-residence at the Asia Society, in New York, said, “It was clear that heated arguments were taking place among the President’s advisers.”

On one side, hard-liners, including Bannon, who has said he believes that China is “bent on world domination,” advocated a confrontational stance on trade and other issues.

On the other, according to Russel, “Jared Kushner was described as adamant that Mar-a-Lago should be exclusively about bonding.”

Russel continued, “We were told that the theory was to first establish a warm family friendship, using meals and Trump’s personal charisma.”

In the event, China overwhelmingly achieved its objectives: a soft-focus summit with regal photo ops and little talk of trade and other touchy subjects.

It was also an auspicious occasion for the Kushner family.

While Xi met with Trump, Beijing regulators approved three trademark applications from Ivanka’s company, to sell bags, jewelry, and spa services.

Ivanka is also an adviser to the President, and her deals with the Chinese were hardly unusual.

Since Trump assumed office, the Chinese government has approved scores of trademark applications by the Trump Organization.

Kushner was proud of his role in the summit, telling a person close to him, “People say we ought to do things the way they always have been done, with the same approaches.

Somebody with more experience, tied to the old ways, may not have necessarily been able to pull off the Mar-a-Lago summit like we did.”

He added that the officials who have criticized his approach to foreign affairs “usually get pretty uncomfortable when they’re not in control of something and it doesn’t go the way they want.”

By the spring of 2017, investigators in charge of evaluating whether to give Kushner a permanent security clearance had new information to consider.

U.S. intelligence agencies aggressively target Chinese government communications, including Cui’s reports to Beijing about his meetings in the United States.

According to current and former officials briefed on U.S. intelligence about Chinese communications, Chinese officials said that Cui and Kushner, in meetings to prepare for the summit at Mar-a-Lago, discussed Kushner’s business interests along with policy.

Some intelligence officials became concerned that the Chinese government was seeking to use business inducements to influence Kushner’s views.

The intelligence wasn’t conclusive, according to those briefed on the matter.

“I never saw any indication that it was successful,” a former senior official said, of Chinese efforts to compromise Kushner.

The Chinese could have mischaracterized their discussions with Kushner.

But the intelligence reports triggered alarms that Chinese officials were attempting to exploit Kushner’s close relationship with the President, which could yield benefits over time.

“They’re in it for the long haul,” the former official said.

(A spokesman for Kushner said, “There was never a time—never—that Mr. Kushner spoke to any foreign officials, in the campaign, transition, and in the Administration, about any personal or family business. He was scrupulous in this regard.”)

In March, 2017, Bill Priestap, the F.B.I.’s chief of counterintelligence, visited the White House and briefed Kushner about the danger of foreign-influence operations, according to three officials familiar with the meeting.

Priestap told Kushner that he was among the top intelligence targets worldwide, and was being targeted not only by China but by every other major intelligence service as well, including those of the Russians and the Israelis.

Priestap said that foreign spy agencies could use diplomats and spies masquerading as students and journalists to collect information about him. (An F.B.I. spokesperson declined to comment.)

Priestap and Kushner discussed some of Kushner’s contacts, including Wendi Deng Murdoch, the ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch.

Kushner and Ivanka Trump had known her for about a decade, and she was a regular guest at their Washington home.

U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials have long speculated about Wendi Murdoch’s ties to the Chinese government.

Internally, some Chinese officials spoke about her in ways that suggested they had influence over her, the former senior official, who was briefed on the intelligence, said.

Other officials said that the intelligence was inconclusive.

The allegations against Wendi Murdoch are complicated by her divorce from Rupert Murdoch.

On January 15th, some of the allegations were published in the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

(A spokesperson for Wendi Murdoch said, “The idea that she is involved in anything covert is so absurd, it could only have come from an unnamed source.” A spokesperson for Rupert Murdoch said that Murdoch does not believe Wendi is a spy.)

When Kushner was briefed by the F.B.I., he saw little cause for alarm, according to a person close to Kushner.

He had no doubt that China and other countries were trying to persuade him to do things or to provide information, but he was, despite his inexperience in diplomacy and intelligence, confident in his ability to navigate these situations.

After all, he told others, New York real estate is not “a baby’s business.”

Largely away from view, the U.S. and China are engaged in a heightened competition to steal sensitive information from each other and to manipulate foreign officials.

Since 2016, Chinese authorities have expanded public warnings about the threat posed by American espionage.

(In November, the Chinese Society of Education issued a video quiz for primary-school students, which included the question “What number should you dial when you spot spying activities?”)

China’s intelligence services have demonstrated greater sophistication in seeking to compromise foreign officials, sometimes by using hacked information.

In 2014, Chinese hackers copied a vast database from the Office of Personnel Management.

Officials said that Beijing appeared particularly interested in identifying Chinese-Americans who were working for the U.S. government, so that China could try to manipulate them into being of assistance.

For its 2017 budget, the Obama Administration requested nineteen billion dollars for cybersecurity, an increase of more than thirty-five per cent from the previous year.

Earlier this month, the F.B.I. arrested Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former C.I.A. officer, and charged him with unlawful possession of defense information.

In addition to countering classic espionage, the U.S. is considering new ways of managing how foreign powers lobby and seek to affect the American political system.

A 2016 law has established an interagency unit to coördinate “counter-propaganda,” and bills proposed in October expand requirements of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which regulates foreign influence in Washington.

American intelligence officials describe their Chinese counterparts with grudging respect.

At the end of the Obama Administration, Russia and China topped the White House’s list of counterintelligence threats, largely because of their proficiency in electronic surveillance—intercepting phone calls and e-mails.

The Chinese were not yet on the level of the Russians in the area of “human intelligence,” or spies and informants, a senior Obama Administration official said, “but they’re certainly improving, and they’ve been quite aggressive in recent years.”

Michael Bahar, a former staff director and general counsel for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, said, “They are a professional service. They do their homework.”

In the months after Priestap briefed Kushner on the counterintelligence threat, Kushner and Ivanka Trump made some adjustments.

In May, the Kushner Companies issued an apology after reporters observed Nicole Kushner Meyer, Jared Kushner’s sister, speaking about his White House position while promoting real estate to potential investors in China.

In September, Kushner and Ivanka declined an invitation to visit China, amid criticism from some American scholars that they were ill-equipped to conduct diplomacy on behalf of the United States.

Other plans remained unchanged.

In November, Kushner travelled to China as part of the President’s delegation for a summit with Xi Jinping.

In Beijing, Kushner had lunch at the home of Wendi Murdoch, an occasion that went unmentioned in briefings and public schedules.

(A White House spokesman said that Kushner attended the lunch “in a personal capacity,” after the President’s official business was complete.)

Kushner saw no reason to curtail their friendship.

In the seven months since Kushner’s meeting with Priestap, Wendi Murdoch had done nothing that raised his suspicions, according to a person close to Kushner.

“Why do I have more of a risk of telling her state secrets than anyone else?” Kushner asked recently.

“Either I’m qualified to handle state secrets or I’m not qualified to handle state secrets.

I think I understand my responsibilities.”

In December, U.S. intelligence agencies briefed a wider circle of officials, saying that “a member of the president’s family” was being targeted by a Chinese influence operation, echoing earlier warnings.

It was not clear if that family member was Kushner or someone else.

The President’s children resist the argument that their undivested assets, their behavior, and their willingness to mix government service and personal profit present a target to adversaries and allies alike.

The senior transition official believes that’s a mistake.

“They’re going to slowly, over time, get what they want out of him, and it’s not going to be obvious,” the official said.

“Sure, you’ll take the meeting, but you’re giving them a real investment opportunity that’s ‘good for them,’ and ‘everyone wins.’ Meanwhile, they’re just trying to get their teeth into him.”

Kushner enters his second year in Washington facing increasing political and legal pressures.

He has already testified before congressional committees about his meetings with the lawyer from Moscow, the Russian Ambassador, and the head of V.E.B.

The F.B.I., too, is reportedly investigating Kushner’s Russian meetings.

As details of his dealings with China come to light, they expose him to additional questions about the wisdom of his diplomatic efforts and the recurring risk that his work in government cannot be disentangled from his family’s business interests.

This month, it emerged that the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York had issued subpoenas to the Kushner Companies, for details about its use of the EB-5 visa program.

Kushner’s once expansive role in the White House has narrowed, and he no longer meets frequently with Ambassador Cui.

Still, by his own description, he is as confident as ever that his instincts, honed in the family business, can serve him, and the country, well.

In the White House, he has a lofty but precarious status.

Henry Kissinger, who had encouraged Kushner’s dialogue with Cui, described Kushner as occupying a “daunting role flying close to the sun.”

Recently, a former teaching fellow from Kushner’s undergraduate days at Harvard recalled that Kushner took a popular class on the American Presidency, taught by Roger Porter, who had advised Ronald Reagan when he was President.

At the end of the semester, Porter read aloud from “The Inner Ring,” a 1944 oration by C. S. Lewis.

It was Porter’s warning to his ambitious students about the temptations that haunt higher office, and the allure of favor-seekers.

“You will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world.” ♦

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 1:30 pm » wrote:

Jared Kushner Is China’s Trump Card

A very long read, but worth it.
I put some of the parts I found interesting in bold font.


So 45 has up to 14 people receiving the highly classified Presidential Presidential Daily Briefing with him, because it's 'cool.'

And one of them is Kushner, who has been unable to receive a full security security clearance.

But Hillary.........

Republicans Claim Surveillance Power Abuses in Russia Inquiry

(as much as I could screenshot without paying)

Top House Judiciary Dem rips Nunes memo accusing FBI of bias.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday ripped a GOP-crafted memo accusing FBI officials of political bias, calling it misleading and damaging to the Justice Department.

Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, accused Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) of using classified material to compile a “conspiracy theory” memo that argues there is political bias within the FBI.

“Too many of our colleagues appear to be constructing their own version of history—completely unrelated to the facts as you and I understand them—based, at least in part, on this memorandum,” Nadler wrote in a letter to Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).

Devin Nunes Won’t Even Show His Infamous Memo to the Justice Department

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) won’t #releasethememo.

The now infamous document was prepared by Republican staffers for the House Intelligence Committee, which is chaired by Nunes, and it supposedly details how the FBI and the Justice Department improperly conducted surveillance in connection with the Trump-Russia probe.

Conservatives looking to discredit the Russia investigation have embraced the classified memo, though they haven’t seen it, and have called for its release.

But Nunes has so far insisted on keeping it secret—even from the Justice Department.

FBI: Devin Nunes Won’t Show Us Memo Alleging Surveillance Abuses

The FBI has not been permitted to see the memo Rep. Devin Nunes and his staff wrote about alleged abuses by the intelligence community, The Daily Beast has learned.

“The FBI has requested to receive a copy of the memo in order to evaluate the information and take appropriate steps if necessary. To date, the request has been declined,” said Andrew Ames, a spokesperson for the FBI.

House Republicans quietly investigate perceived corruption at DOJ, FBI

A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans.

A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.

The people familiar with Nunes' plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement. The group hopes to release a report early next year detailing their concerns about the DOJ and FBI, and they might seek congressional votes to declassify elements of their evidence.

That final product could ultimately be used by Republicans to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether any Trump aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign — or possibly even to justify his dismissal, as some rank-and-file Republicans and Trump allies have demanded.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:22 pm » wrote:About that Nunes memo.
Top House Judiciary Dem rips Nunes memo accusing FBI of bias.
Rep. Jerry Nadler.....

Nunes refuses to show his memo to the DOJ or the FBI.


Devin Nunes Won’t Even Show His Infamous Memo to the Justice Department
FBI: Devin Nunes Won’t Show Us Memo Alleging Surveillance Abuses

This is just another one of Nunes' little stunts designed to discredit Mueller, the FBI and the whole Russia investigation, just like his midnight ride to the WH last March when he went to the WH to brief them on Intel reports he received from the WH.

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 1:36 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 1:30 pm » wrote:So 45 has up to 14 people receiving the highly classified Presidential Presidential Daily Briefing with him, because it's 'cool.'
And one of them is Kushner, who has been unable to receive a full security security clearance.
But Hillary.........

Oh my gosh, Trump has sold out to the Chinese, too?
Great, great job at ignoring the Democrat felonies, like you always do.
(Clem points to a squirrel.)

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 1:30 pm » wrote:A very long read....

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:22 pm » wrote:This is just another one of Nunes' little stunts designed to discredit Mueller, the FBI and the whole Russia investigation, just like his midnight ride to the WH last March when he went to the WH to brief them on Intel reports he received from the WH.

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 2:34 pm » wrote:Little Miss Marxist is in Full Coverup Mode to deny obvious Democrat-committed felonies.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:34 pm » wrote:

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 1:36 pm » wrote:Oh my gosh, Trump has sold out to the Chinese, too?

Great, great job at ignoring the Democrat felonies, like you always do.

I am amazed at the amount of things that you are willing to ignore when it comes to your Cult45 leader.

Why is Kushner receiving the most highly classified Intel contained in the PDB, when he has been unable to obtain the proper clearance?

And why was he meeting all alone with the Chinese ambassador, so there is no record of what they talked about?

The Chinese say he was discussing his private business with them.
He said he wasn't.
But since he went against all protocol, and had no one else in the room, he can't prove it.
Not very bright.

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 2:36 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:22 pm » wrote:This is just another one of Nunes' little stunts designed to discredit Mueller, the FBI and the whole Russia investigation, just like his midnight ride to the WH last March when he went to the WH to brief them on Intel reports he received from the WH.

I will happily save this to jam into your face when the massive abuse of power and countless felonies have been revealed.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:39 pm » wrote:
You accuse me of doing exactly what you are doing concerning 45.
Your obvious and desperate attempts at deflection are not working.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:43 pm » wrote:

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 2:36 pm » wrote:I will happily save this to jam into your face when the massive abuse of power and countless felonies have been revealed.

On the basis of zero evidence, you smear Trump, but in the face of a mountain of evidence of Democrat felonies, you lie in their defense.

Psychopath.

That sounds a little violent Puss.

Make sure you repost it if and when Nunes' little stunt falls apart, just like his midnight ride to the WH did.

And make sure the link works.

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:22 pm » wrote:About that Nunes memo.



Nunes refuses to show his memo to the DOJ or the FBI.

I made this point, but why would he reveal the memo to those criminals at either Department?

If you strike a King, you must kill him.

Obama officials, Clinton allies and corrupt members of the Deep State tried to "kill" Trump, and they failed badly.

Who's going to jail?

Sessions announces DOJ probe of missing FBI text messages
BY OLIVIA BEAVERS
http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... y-fbi-text

This is just another one of Nunes' little stunts designed to discredit Mueller, the FBI and the whole Russia investigation, just like his midnight ride to the WH last March when he went to the WH to brief them on Intel reports he received from the WH.

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 2:42 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:34 pm » wrote:I am amazed at the amount of things that you are willing to ignore when it comes to your Cult45 leader.

Things, what "things," psycho?
I've asked you for months to provide one single shred of evidence of criminal wrongdoing, and you come up empty.
Then go on to spread more smears and lies.
That's about all you dl.

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 2:42 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:34 pm » wrote:Why is Kushner receiving the most highly classified Intel contained in the PDB, when he has been unable to obtain the proper clearance?

Maybe because he is fully aware of the dangerous corruption in the FBI and refuses to reveal parts of his life that might be leaked to the corrupt liberal MSM.
I sure as hell wouldn't.

Termin8tor » 23 Jan 2018 2:42 pm » wrote:

Misty » 23 Jan 2018 2:34 pm » wrote:And why was he meeting all alone with the Chinese ambassador, so there is no record of what they talked about?

Look, a squirrel!
I see nothing at all illegal here, psycho.