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Hillary's 'exoneration fix' was in from the get-go: immunity agreements for aides, state-sanctioned disposal of evidence

HillaryClinton
© MSNBC/KJN
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
The American Center for Law and Justice finally got some satisfaction from its numerous FOIA requests to the Department of Justice. It took a specific court order from a federal judge to release long-secret documents that might raise a few eyebrows among those who are still interested in matters pertaining to Hillary Clinton's aides and the former secretary of state's missing emails.
The ACLJ has obtained the DOJ's infamous immunity agreements with Hillary Clinton's top aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson - documents previously unreleased to the public and which include the DOJ attempting to enter an agreement not to comply with the requirements of FOIA, and which confirm it agreed to "dispose" of evidence, including Mills' and Samuelson's "culling laptops" which contained all of the missing emails from Hilary Clinton's private homebrew server.

Boat

After Germany refuses 'invitation' to send military to Strait of Hormuz, US consul Grenell 'reminds' her the empire has 34,000 troops stationed there

MaasMerkel
© Union Syndicate
German FM Heiko Maas • German Chancellor Angela Merkel
The U.S. ambassador to Germany called on Chancellor Angela Merkel's government on Thursday to take on a global responsibility to match its economic might after Berlin showed reluctance to join a naval mission in the Strait of Hormuz.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Thursday reiterated that Germany would not participate in a planned U.S.-led naval mission to the Strait of Hormuz, close to Iran. He says Berlin wants to ease tensions with Iran and everything should be done to avoid an escalation.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday there had been no formal request for the military alliance to launch a mission in the Strait of Hormuz. However, the U.S. Embassy in Berlin on Tuesday said it had formally asked Germany to join France and Britain to help secure the Strait and "combat Iranian aggression".

Ambassador Richard Grenell, who has courted controversy since arriving in Berlin last year with some outspoken views, told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper that Germany had a duty to fulfill. "Germany is the biggest economic power in Europe. This success brings global responsibilities," he said.

Comment: Germany seriously needs to grow a pair and become sovereign.

See also:


Arrow Up

UN envoy: Escalating US-Iran tensions in Strait of Hormuz may impact whole region, particularly Iraq

USS Abraham Lincoln & USAF
© Sputnik/Brian M. Wilbu
USS Abraham Lincoln and USAF B-52H Stratofortress conducting joint exercises in the Arabian Sea.
Tensions between Iran and the United States in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway in the Persian Gulf area, may not only negatively impact Iraq but the Middle East region as a whole, the special representative of the UN secretary-general for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said.

"What is happening now in the Strait of Hormuz, if things spin out of control, not only will it be an issue between the United States and Iran, it would impact the entire region and, in particular, Iraq", Hennis-Plasschaert said when asked how the tensions between Iran and the United States could affect Iraq.

The matter requires a pragmatic and realistic approach since the impact from a possible escalation of US-Iran tensions may undermine the progress that Iraq has achieved in terms of post-war recovery over the recent years, according to the special representative.

As for Russia's Security Concept for the Gulf area potentially being an option for stabilizing the situation, Hennis-Plasschaert said that "every call, from whomever, for regional stability and security is to be welcomed".

Last week, Russia unveiled to foreign diplomats in Moscow its new concept for security in the Persian Gulf in response to these rising tensions. The concept outlined a system of collaborative security measures through arms control, joint counterterrorism efforts and the removal of foreign military presence in the region as key conditions for stability.

Pyramid

Are we not merciful? US 'grants' 90-day waivers to nations participating in Iran's CIVILIAN nuclear program

Arak project
© REUTERS/ISNA/Hamid Forootan
The Arak heavy-water project, 190 km (120 miles) southwest of Tehran January 15, 2011.
Washington will hold off introducing more secondary sanctions against Iran, which would have affected Russian, Chinese and European entities helping Tehran with the upkeep of its nuclear sites.

In a prerecorded interview with Fox Business channel on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton has announced that the US would not slap sanctions on the companies engaged in research and maintenance of certain Iranian nuclear sites, for now. Bolton said the US would be "watching those nuclear activities very, very closely," describing the waivers as a "short 90-day extension" as opposed to a 180-day one.

In addition to slashing the duration of the waivers in half, the US State Department in May discontinued two waivers that allowed Iran to exchange its enriched uranium for natural uranium and send excess heavy water for storage.

Five waivers were still extended and are set to stay in place at least for another 90 days. These concern the Islamic Republic's Fordow enrichment facility, the Arak nuclear complex, the Bushehr nuclear plant and Tehran Research Reactor.

Comment: The US these days:




Telephone

Trump calls Putin with offer to help put out Siberia wildfires

trumPutin
© Global Look Press/Flickr.com/White House
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with US President Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump has offered Russia help in battling wildfires that have swept across Siberia, the Kremlin has said. Russian President Vladimir Putin declined the offer but called it a step to improving rocky relations.

Trump called Putin on Wednesday evening, the Kremlin press service said. Putin expressed his "sincere gratitude" for Trump's concern and offer of a helping hand to Russia.

The Russian leader then told his US counterpart that Russia has already dispatched multiple aircraft to Siberia to help fight off the raging blaze that has spread to some 2.7 million hectares. So far, the fires have destroyed large swathes of forest, but have not encroached on residential areas.

While Russia does not need third-party assistance for the time being, should such need arise it would avail itself of the offer, Putin said, adding that it brings a gleam of hope for the strained Russia-US relationship, which hit new lows under the Trump administration. The two leaders agreed to keep in touch, including through meetings in person.

X

New twist in Butina case: FBI informant seduced her, but even he believes she is NOT a Russian agent

Maria Butina
© AP
Maria Butina
A new development in the case of the Russian gun activist Maria Butina has emerged after an FBI informant, with whom she had an affair, revealed that he repeatedly told the agency that the woman posed no threat to the US.


Comment: So they sicced a Fed on her, and even he says she's not a Russian agent. Well, blow us all over with feathers...


Butina's lawyer, Robert Driscoll, issued a statement last week, saying that a man, who used to be in a relationship with his client, had contacted him and revealed that he was an FBI informant during their time together. The person in question was none other than US entrepreneur, e-commerce pioneer, and CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne.

Byrne insisted that he had reported on multiple occasions to the FBI that "Maria's behavior and interaction with him was inconsistent with her being a foreign agent and more likely an idealist and age-appropriate peace activist."


Comment: See also:


Bad Guys

Baltimore's Elijah Cummings complains about Trump 'infested' tweet, but once called his city 'drug infested' too

rat in city
© Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun
Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings has called his own Baltimore community a "drug-infested area" in Congress in the past, proving his and allies' condemnation of Trump's similar comment to be hypocritical virtue-signaling.

Cummings comes from a "drug infested area" where kids grow up to be drug zombies (if they grow up at all) just 40 miles from Washington DC, the Maryland rep laments in a 1999 congressional hearing, a clip from which has been retweeted by President Donald Trump.

Comment: It's pretty clear that Baltimore's leadership (black, white or whatever) has been failing it in every possible way for decades. And they're mad at Trump for pointing it out?


Eye 2

Jeffrey Epstein received court documents claiming he raped 15-year-old girl day before he was injured in jail cell

epstein berman
© Stephanie Keith / Getty Images
US Attorney for Southern District of NY Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein, July 8.
A day before Jeffrey Epstein, an accused child sex trafficker, was found mysteriously injured in his jail cell, the wealthy financier was served legal documents detailing a woman's claims that he raped her in his New York City mansion when she was just 15 years old.

The accuser, Jennifer Araoz, plans to sue Epstein next month for claims of sexual assault, battery and rape, which she alleges he started committing when she was a New York high school student in 2001, according to a court filing earlier this month.

But first, Araoz is asking a judge to order Epstein to submit to a deposition, where he can be asked by Araoz's lawyers the identity of a female "recruiter" who allegedly conspired with him to identify her "as a potential sexual abuse victim" and "facilitated the grooming" of Araoz.

Bad Guys

UK Foreign Secretary Raab basically tells Iran only Britain is allowed to illegally detain tankers, no swap

Dominic Raab
© Dan Kitwood/Pool via REUTERS
Dominic Raab is seen at the Foreign and Commonwealth building after being appointed as the Foreign Secretary by Britain's new Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London, Britain, July 24, 2019.
Britain on Thursday ruled out exchanging an Iranian tanker detained by Gibraltar for a British-flagged tanker seized by Iran in the Gulf.

"We are not going to barter: if people or nations have detained UK-flagged illegally then the rule of law and rule of international law must be upheld," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said while on a trip to Bangkok.


Comment: Raab should read that back to himself very, very slowly!


"We are not going to barter a ship that was detained legally with a ship that was detained illegally: that's not the way that Iran will come in from the cold," he said. "So I am afraid some kind of barter or haggle or linkage is not on the table."

Tensions have spiked between Iran and Britain since after Iranian commandos seized a British-flagged tanker last month. That came after British forces captured an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar, accused of violating sanctions on Syria.

Yoda

Trump's DNI nominee Ratcliffe is intent on getting to bottom of Russiagate

Rep John Ratcliffe
© CNN.com
Rep. John Ratcliffe
Shortly before President Donald Trump announced he had nominated Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe made it clear he intends to hit the deck running on the "crimes" behind Russiagate.

"What I do know as a former federal prosecutor is it does appear that there were crimes committed during the Obama administration," Ratcliffe told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo. Mincing few words, he claimed the Democrats "accused Donald Trump of a crime and then tried to reverse engineer a process to justify that accusation."

It's an extravagant claim. But it is also true, and the proof is in the pudding of which we should have a steady diet in the months to come.