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Briefcase

CIA director to hold Senate briefing on Khashoggi's case on Tuesday


Sputnik
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 02:03 UTC
Khashoggi
© AFP 2018/OZAN KOSE
Central Intelligence Agency Director Gina Haspel will brief US Senate leaders on Tuesday morning regarding CIA's findings about the death of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Following last week's briefing by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis, many US senators requested to hear directly from the CIA chief about the killing. Both secretaries said Washington has no direct evidence proving that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in Khashoggi's murder.

Last month, a CIA leak to several news outlets revealed the agency concluded with "high confidence" that Khashoggi's murder was ordered by the Saudi crown prince. However, US President Donald Trump has said that the CIA did not have any definitive answer on whether bin Salman had been aware of the Washington Post columnist's murder.

Comment: If Haspel has evidence, will she make a culpability case for MbS or let it slide for future leverage over the Saudi prince?

From USA Today:
Senators from both parties were upset that Haspel was not part of a recent closed-door session with top administration officials about Khashoggi's killing and the U.S. response. The briefing included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Questioned about Haspel's absence from last week's briefing, a CIA spokesman said that the director had already briefed congressional leaders on Khashoggi and that no one was keeping her away. In another explanation, a White House official said Haspel decided not to participate in part because of frustration with lawmakers leaking classified intelligence from such settings. The White House official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

Senators, in a rare rebuke of Trump's handling of the situation, moved immediately after the briefing to punish Saudi Arabia by advancing legislation to curtail U.S. backing for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. They overwhelmingly approved the resolution, 63-37, on an unexpectedly wide bipartisan vote. The resolution is pending further action as key senators push for an end to U.S. support for the Saudi war against Houthi rebels. Human rights groups say it is indiscriminately leading to civilian deaths.

Jamal Khashoggi's fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, had messages for President Donald Trump and America in a video shown at his memorial service in Washington.

From Zero Hedge:
[Rand] Paul, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued that if lawmakers aren't allowed to have access to the intelligence community's conclusions, then they can't provide oversight.

"To my mind this is the very definition of the deep state... The deep state is that the intelligence agencies do things, conclude things, make conclusions but then the elected officials are prevented from knowing about this. If we aren't told about this and I'm not allowed to know about these conclusions, then I can't have oversight. And so then state grows, the intelligence, the deep state grows and has more and more power."

"I've read in the media that the CIA has said with high confidence that the crown prince was involved with killing Khashoggi. I have not seen that intelligence nor have I even seen the conclusions. And today there's yet another briefing and I'm being excluded. So really, this is the deep state at work ... that your representatives don't know what is going on in the intelligence agencies."




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Briefcase

Witch-hunt against dissidents continues: Roger Stone pleads the Fifth, snubs Senate document request

Kyle Cheney
Politico
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 04:45 UTC
RogerStone
© Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesRoger Stone is under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. |
Longtime Trump ally Roger Stone is under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

President Donald Trump's longtime political ally Roger Stone invoked the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination as he declined to share documents and testimony with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a letter posted Tuesday by the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

"Mr. Stone's invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege must be understood by all to be the assertion of a Constitutional right by an innocent citizen who denounces secrecy," Stone's attorney, Grant Smith, said in the letter, dated Dec. 3.

Stone is under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, in part over allegations that he had foreknowledge of WikiLeaks' dump of Clinton campaign emails the month before the election. Stone has denied any advance knowledge, despite a series of tweets foreshadowing the contents of the emails, which he attributed to educated guesses and indirect information provided through an intermediary with WikiLeaks.

Stone told POLITICO on Monday that he doesn't have a pact with Trump's legal team to share defense strategies, unlike former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is in jail after being convicted of tax and bank fraud. But Stone has largely aligned his public messaging on Mueller with the president's, frequently bashing the special counsel's tactics. Stone's approach earned him a supportive tweet from Trump this week, when the president praised Stone for having the "guts" to refuse to testify against him.

In his letter to Feinstein, Stone's attorney said his client simply wants his information aired in public, and not subject to selective leaks that marked his closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence Committee last year. Stone had asked for that appearance to be public, but the committee declined and interviewed him privately.

Comment: The legal system, like any other, can be manipulated by exposing selective information, testimony and context. Stone's application of the Fifth, if followed by a full public testimony, could provide an undeniable safety net.

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Target

Kiev's martial law is cover for launching attacks against breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, Moscow warns


RT
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 10:05 UTC
Poroshenko/troops
© Mikhail Palinchak/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service via ReutersPresident Petro Poroshenko meets with soldiers in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow believes the Ukrainian government is set for a flare-up of hostilities against rebels in the east, using the newly-imposed martial law to cover up its preparations. Russia's Foreign Ministry has called on international observers, monitoring the situation in Ukraine, to step up their efforts to prevent possible provocations.

Last week, Kiev imposed martial law in the eastern and southern parts of the country, after Russia blocked its ships which had entered the Kerch Strait, between Crimea and mainland Russia, without authorization. The move to subsequently enforce martial law "aims to camouflage a new provocation in Donbass", which Ukraine would frame as evidence of Russian aggression, according to Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

"Assault and mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian army are being relocated to the conflict zone after completing intensive training courses with support from US, Canadian and British instructors," she warned, while the troops are being spread along the disengagement line in an apparent preparation for an offensive operation.

Comment: Poroshenko is taking a page out of the Western playbook: instigate a self-serving provocation, victimize the innocent, declare martial law, provoke a 'retaliatory' confrontation and assign all blame to the 'adversary'.

See also:

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Stop

Nigel Farage quits UKIP, slams the party as 'obsessed with Tommy Robinson and Muslims'

Henry Holloway
Daily Star
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
Nigel Farage
© Philip Coburn/Daily MirrorNigel Farage
Farage - a two time leader of UKIP - brought the party into the mainstream and was a leading figure of the Brexit camp during the EU Referendum. The MEP has since clashed with the party's leadership as he voiced concerns over the direction of the party, in particular efforts to woo EDL founder Robinson.

Writing his resignation letter in the Telegraph, he blamed the party for trying to bring in "extremists" and warned this would "damage the party beyond repair".

He said: "With a heavy heart, I am leaving Ukip. It is not the Brexit party our nation so badly needs."

The 54-year-old was a founding member of UKIP after quitting the Tories, serving as an MEP since 1999 and having two stints as leader between 2006 and 2016.

He said:
"We are now just a few days away from the most ill-judged political event I have ever been aware of in British politics. The very idea of Tommy Robinson being at the centre of the Brexit debate is too awful to contemplate. And so, with a heavy heart, and after all my years of devotion to the party, I am leaving UKIP today. There is a huge space for a Brexit party in British politics, but it won't be filled by UKIP."

Comment: The 'party's over' for Farage, and it isn't the first time.

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Briefcase

Trump lawyers hope to punish Stormy Daniels with an $800K legal bill

Peter Weber
The Week
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 06:02 UTC
gavel
© Getty Images
On Monday, lawyers for President Trump asked U.S. District Judge S. James Otero to force porn actress Stormy Daniels to pay nearly $800,000 in Trump's legal fees and penalties from a defamation case Daniels lost against Trump. Charles Harder, a lawyer for Trump, asked for $390,000 in legal fees and an equal amount to deter a "repeat filer of frivolous defamation cases." Otero said that Harder's $840-an-hour rate was reasonable but suggested his 580 hours billed might be excessive; he will rule on the request later. Daniels is appealing his decision to throw out her case.

Michael Avenatti - who represents Daniels in this case and a separate one over a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement Trump and his former lawyer Michael Cohen paid her during the 2016 election to keep quiet about an affair she said she had with Trump - called the proposed fees "absurd and outrageous," arguing that Harder "can't just pick a number out of thin air in an effort to put my client under Donald Trump's thumb and intimidate her." He told reporters the NDA case is the main attraction and predicted that the attorney's fees he exacts from Trump in that case will be a number that "dwarfs exponentially" what Trump is seeking.

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Attention

Here's why major countries are shunning the UN compact on migration

Raheem Kassam
The Daily Caller
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 04:00 UTC
Migration
© Dusan Po, Giannis Papanikos/Shutterstock
What do you do if you're a supranational behemoth with a multi-billion dollar budget coupled with a vast number of subsidiary entities that focus on migration?

If you're the U.N., you publish the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and seek to set up more supranational government entities to duplicate the work you're already doing, at a gargantuan cost to (mostly Western) taxpayers.

The report - a subject of consternation around the world, and wisely nixed by President Trump in 2017 - is due to be signed in Marrakech on December 11.

But if the latest nations to object - Italy, Austria, Hungary and Poland - have anything to say about it, the document may end up in the shredders of the U.N.'s headquarters in New York.

Speaking of the agreement in late 2017, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stated,
"Our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone ... The global approach in the New York Declaration is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty."
It seems the rest of the world is waking up, with a U.K. parliamentary petition now nearing 100,000 signatures in opposition to Britain becoming a signatory. Similar movements are springing up in Denmark, New Zealand and Belgium.

It's not just because the Global Compact for Migration is broadly unnecessary (U.N. agencies currently already spend up to $6bn a year on migration-related study and assistance), but it is also incredibly perverse.

Comment: UN-necessary, UN-effective, UN-enforceable, UN-acceptable.

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Handcuffs

Turkey issues arrest warrants for two Saudis regarding Khashoggi's murder


Sputnik
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 13:34 UTC
Khashoggi
© AP/Virginia Mayo/FileJamal Khashoggi
The two Saudis held high posts in the kingdom, but were sacked after Riyadh announced that Jamal Khashoggi had been killed in a "rogue operation". Saudi Arabia insists that no members of the royal family were connected to the crime.

The Turkish Haber Turk TV channel reported that the Istanbul Public Prosecutor's Office has issued arrest warrants for two Saudi citizens - Ahmad Asiri, a former deputy head of Saudi intelligence and Saud al-Qahtani, a former media consultant for the crown prince. According to the TV channel, the Turkish attorney general suspects that the two orchestrated the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

It remains unclear whether Turkish prosecutors have found any new evidence that led them to believe that Asiri and al-Qahtani were responsible for the murder.

Comment: See also:

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Dig

South Africa's parliament backs land reform report - Land expropriation is a go


Aljazeera
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
Ramaphosa
© Themba Hadebe/APSouth Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa
Opposition Democratic Alliance says it could go to court to stop proposed land reforms

South Africa's parliament has approved a report endorsing a constitutional amendment that would allow expropriation of land without compensation - a decision the main opposition party said on Tuesday it could challenge in court.

Land is a hot-button issue in South Africa where racial inequality remains entrenched more than two decades after the end of apartheid when millions among the black majority were dispossessed of their land by a white minority.

A parliamentary team last month recommended a constitutional amendment to make it possible for the state to expropriate land without compensation in the public interest.

The team's report was debated in parliament on Tuesday and approved by a majority of the members present. However, adopting the report is just one step in a long process to change the constitution to allow for land reforms.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Trump's timidity is letting Comey off the hook

Ray McGovern
Consortium News
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 19:22 UTC
Comey
© DonkeyHoteyComey: Wanted open hearing.
Because President Donald Trump has again pulled the rug out from under them, House Republicans face Mission Impossible on Friday when they try to hold ex-FBI Director James Comey accountable for his highly dubious authorization of surveillance on erstwhile Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Comey let go his unprecedented legal maneuver to have a court quash a subpoena for him to appear behind closed doors before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee before the Democrats take over the committee in January. The current committee chair, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), decried Comey's use of "baseless litigation" in an "attempt to run out the clock on this Congress."

The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); so the still secret FISA application "justifying" surveillance of Page is almost sure to come up.

Comey had wanted a public hearing so he could pull the ruse of refusing to respond because his answers would be classified. He has now agreed to a closed-door meeting on Friday, with a transcript, likely to be redacted, to appear soon after.

In an interview with The New York Post last Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that he could declassify Comey's damning Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant request to show how devastating those pages likely are, but said he would not do so "until they were needed," namely, if a Democratic House starts going after him. "If they go down the presidential harassment track, if they want go and harass the president and the administration, I think that would be the best thing that would happen to me. I'm a counter-puncher and I will hit them so hard they'd never been hit like that," Trump told the paper. He added: "It's much more powerful if I do it then, because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday's news."

Comment: See also:

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Network

China loops Portugal into One Belt One Road initiative

Zhou Jin, An Baijie
China Daily
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 19:08 UTC
Xi Jinping Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
© XinhuaPresident Xi Jinping is welcomed by his Portuguese counterpart, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, at Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon, Portugal, Dec 4, 2018.
President Xi Jinping arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on Tuesday, kicking off the first state visit by a Chinese head of state to the country in eight years.

Upon his arrival, Xi said that China and Portugal enjoy a traditional friendship and that their long-lasting bilateral relations have withstood the test of time, as well as changes in the international landscape.

Proper resolution of the Macao issue in 1999 set an example for nations in tackling leftover issues from history through friendly consultations, Xi said.

In 2005, China and Portugal established a comprehensive strategic partnership, and stepped up mutually beneficial cooperation that has brought tangible benefits to both peoples, the president said.
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