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If Trump fires Mueller it could end his presidency, warns Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham
© Manuel Balce CenetaSen. Lindsey Graham warned Sunday “it would be the beginning of the end” of President’s Trump’s presidency if he fired special counsel Robert Mueller.
Sen. Lindsey Graham warned Sunday "it would be the beginning of the end" of President's Trump's presidency if he fired special counsel Robert Mueller.

"As I said before, if he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency," Graham, R-S.C., said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"Because we're a rule of law nation. When it comes to Mr. Mueller, he is following the evidence where it takes him and it's very important he be allowed to do his job, without interference. And there are many Republicans who share my view."

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Arrow Up

Three-quarters of respondents say Trump should fire Mueller, Drudge poll

TrumpMueller
© Getty ImagesPresident Trump • Special Counsel Mueller
More than three-quarters of people who answered a poll on the conservative Drudge Report site said that President Trump should fire special counsel Robert Mueller.

Mueller is currently investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Moscow.

The online poll, which was posted on the site on Saturday, had surveyed fewer than 500,000 people on Sunday.

The poll comes after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe over the findings of an internal review that said he provided unauthorized information to the press and was not forthcoming with investigators during the investigation. McCabe said he was fired as an attempt to undermine Mueller's investigation.

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Bad Guys

Finian Cunningham: Britain's Skripal-Syria synchronization

Skirpal
© REUTERS/ Peter Nicholls
It's just too much of a coincidence. The dramatic ramping up of Cold War-like hostility towards Russia by Britain and its NATO allies dovetails with major military setback for these same powers in Syria.

The plausible connection is this: the attempted smearing of Russia over the apparent poison-assassination plot in Britain is being used by Britain and the United States to push their desired military intervention in Syria to topple the Assad government.

Both scenarios involve staged provocations employing chemical weapons. Less coincidence; more synchronicity.

In Britain, the apparent poisoning of a former Russian spy living in exile with a nerve agent is being sensationally blamed on Moscow. Moscow has rejected official British allegations that its state agents were responsible for the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the southern English town of Salisbury on March 4.

The whole affair smacks of a psychological operation orchestrated by British state agencies with the premeditated objective of incriminating Russia. Suspicion stems from the whirlwind speed with which the British authorities have formulated their charges against Russia through a saturated media campaign.


Comment: See: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Doing Putin's 'Dirty Work': Barmy British Incite War With Russia


Chess

'Till Moscow bows and kneels': West wages multi-front, multi-domain campaign

US soldiers
Contain Russia in all spheres, squeeze it out everywhere you can, and ramp up pressure to make it kneel. It's not a big thing to find a pretext to justify the orchestrated campaign launched by the West to put the relations with Moscow on confrontational footing. It stubbornly keeps on reviving the Cold War. This is a holistic policy with some actions hitting media headlines to focus world public attention on, while some moves are camouflaged and kept out of spotlight.

With so many doubts expressed about Moscow's complicity in the Salisbury spy poisoning, the leaders of the UK, the US, Germany and France - the big four - made an unprecedented joint statement putting the blame on Russia. They did not find it necessary to wait for investigation results to say Moscow had violated the international law and threatened their security. The statement says Russia did not cooperate with Britain. It does not mention the fact that Moscow was ready to meet London halfway but received no requests in line with the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The only thing Russia can be blamed for is its policy of refusing to communicate in the language of ultimatums.

Everything has suddenly become clear. Russia's guilt is evident despite the fact that nothing new has been revealed since French President Macron's spokesman warned the UK on March 14 against "fantasy politics". The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon had not investigated the case but the verdict was handed down. UK PM Theresa May was quiet happy about the statement as it showed that the allies "are standing alongside us".

On March 15, the US introduced new sanctions against Russia to punish it for alleged election meddling and cyberattacks. The announcement came together with the statement of the Big Four. As usual, the move is the result of allegations and claims not based on solid proof and established facts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer believes it's still "not enough". He demands that President Trump introduce more sanctions and publicly denounce Russian President Putin. It's just the first step, chimed in Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He wondered why it had taken so long.

USA

Our phony Middle East wars rage on while America's homeland crumbles

US troops
© Getmilitaryphotos/ShutterstockFuzzy troops looking for a fuzzy enemy in a fuzzy war.
Overseas, the United States is engaged in real wars in which bombs are dropped, missiles are launched, and people (generally not Americans) are killed, wounded, uprooted, and displaced. Yet here at home, there's nothing real about those wars. Here, it's phony war all the way. In the last 17 years of "forever war," this nation hasn't for one second been mobilized. Taxes are being cut instead of raised. Wartime rationing is a faint memory from the World War II era. No one is being required to sacrifice a thing.

Now, ask yourself a simple question: What sort of war requires no sacrifice? What sort of war requires that almost no one in the country waging it takes the slightest notice of it?

America's conflicts in distant lands rumble on, even as individual attacks flash like lightning in our news feeds. "Shock and awe" campaigns in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, initially celebrated as decisive and game changing, ultimately led nowhere. Various "surges" produced much sound and fury, but missions were left decidedly unaccomplished. More recent strikes by the Trump administration against a Syrian air base or the first use of the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, the MOAB super-bomb, in Afghanistan flared brightly, only to fizzle even more quickly. These versions of the German blitzkrieg-style attacks of World War II have been lightning assaults that promised much but in the end delivered little. As these flashes of violence send America's enemies of the moment (and nearby civilians) to early graves, the homeland (that's us) slumbers. Sounds of war, if heard at all, come from TV or video screens or Hollywood films in local multiplexes.

Comment: No one is being required to sacrifice a thing. It is precisely what we ARE sacrificing (and don't know it) that is the problem. There would be no approval, no funding, no willingness to murder masses of people for some fake ideal or strategy or someone's neocon agenda.


Eye 1

Jingoistic fear of Russia is spiraling out of control

Theresa May
© Stuff.co.nz"M"
The Salisbury poisoning has exposed the hysteria of Britain's rulers.

The speed with which Britain's political class has descended into jingoism and anti-foreigner hysteria in the wake of the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury has been extraordinary. In mere days, before we have proof of Russian state involvement, before we know the full facts of who was behind this attempted murder, virtually every section of our political and media elites was hollering for confrontation, demanding punishment of the Russian beast, and wailing, yet again, about the threat this warped eastern entity poses to Western stability and democracy. That such an evidence-lite outburst of nationalistic and militaristic fervour has come from those who have spent the past 18 months lecturing the little people about our alleged disdain for truth and our Little Englander paranoia should be lost on no one.

We are living through a desperate, hammed-up re-enactment of the Cold War era. 'Christ, I miss the Cold War', said Judi Dench's M in Casino Royale when one of her missions proved rather more complicated than she had expected. She could have been speaking for much of the 21st-century Western political establishment who, feeling all at sea, and bamboozled by a contrarian electorate that refuses to vote in the way they're meant to, seem to long to wrap themselves in the comfort blanket of old Cold War certainties from that era when the world was binary and our politicians didn't have to say much more than 'I hate the USSR' to win applause. Post-Salisbury we've had Theresa May doing a bad impersonation of M, telling us it is 'highly likely' the Russian state was behind this poisoning and that Britain will confront the evil east head-on over this matter. Hey presto, suddenly 'Maybot', this PM so ridiculed by the press as flat and uninspiring, looks strong. This is the magic dust of Cold War nostalgia.

Comment: The delusional and paranoiac British government has lost the plot and become certifiably insane. The danger is in the escalating hostilities and Russia is meeting this challenge head on. The bear has begun to roar.


Attention

Peter Strzok had a personal relationship with recused Judge Contreras in Flynn plea case

Strzok/Flynn
© Getty/Carlos Barria/ReutersPeter Strzok • General Michael Flynn
Text messages obtained by The Federalist show that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page conspired to collude with Judge Rudolph Contreras, a FISA judge who presided over Michael Flynn's guilty plea and was later removed from the case.

Newly discovered text messages obtained by The Federalist reveal two key federal law enforcement officials conspired to meet with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judge who presided over the federal case against Michael Flynn. The judge, Rudolph Contreras, was recused from handling the case just days after accepting the guilty plea of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser who was charged with making false statements to federal investigators.

Comment: Another layer uncovered, indicating those working to prove the administration culpable are the ones that should be investigated.


X

Trump hasn't fired Mueller even after angry Tweet sparks concern

Mueller supporters
© Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFPHouse Democrats showing support for FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
President Donald Trump's lawyer said that he has no plans to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The US leader again reignited the rumors of an impending ouster by attacking the 'Russiagate' probe chief on Twitter.

"In response to media speculation and related questions being posed to the Administration, the White House yet again confirms that the President is not considering or discussing the firing of the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller," Trump's lawyer, Ty Cobb, said in a statement on Sunday, as he sought to debunk the recurrent media reports that Mueller's career as the chief investigator of purported 'Trump-Russia collusion' is hanging in the balance.

The fresh speculations over Mueller's fate were triggered by Trump himself, who went on yet another Twitter rant over the weekend, writing that the probe "should have never been started." He then called out Mueller for bias, referring to the make-up of his team as "13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans?"

"Another Dem recently added...does anyone think this is fair?," Trump wrote, before stressing that there was no collusion between his team and Russia.

Comment: It would be counter-productive to fire Mueller and have this investigation go to 'restart.' Besides...coming up with nothing has every advantage for Trump.

See also: Mueller subpoenas Trump Organization, requests docs related to Russia


Footprints

Moscow raises Britain one better: Take a walk...out of Russia!

Brit Ambassador
© BT.comBritish Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow
The expulsion of 23 British diplomats, to be complete within one week is accompanied by the decision to close the British consulate in St Petersburg.

Earler this week the British Prime Minister Theresa May fired a shot at the Russian Federation, convicting Russia's government, especially its president Vladimir Putin of culpability in the assassination attempt of a former Soviet spy and his daughter who was in Britain to visit her father. Sergey and Yulia Skripal remain hospitalized after suffering an attack by a nerve agent determined by British authorities to be Novichok, an agent developed in the Soviet Union. In the wake of this conviction, which came without any sort of substantive proof, she expelled 23 Russian diplomats with a rather scurrilous remark that these personnel were also spies.

On Saturday March 17, the Russian response was announced. Twenty-three British diplomats have also been expelled from the Russian Federation. They are to be gone within one week.

However, Russia went a bit farther.

Comment: A sticky wicket this one! Clearly there is no Moscow connection to the Skripal incident, nor is Putin a suspect! May needs a drama to be relevant as she is plummeting in public and international esteem. What better foil than to flail and flog at Russia and hop on the 'drumbeat for war' bandwagon. If Russia didn't do it...who benefits might tell us who did.

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Briefcase

Dossier lawsuit: British court orders Christopher Steele to appear for deposition

Gubarev/Steele
© McClatchy Washington Bureau/the daily trumpAleksej Gubarev • Christopher-Steele
The former British spy who wrote the infamous dossier has been ordered to appear for a deposition in a lawsuit over the salacious document filed in the U.S.

A British court ordered Christopher Steele to testify about his role in compiling the dossier, which alleges that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign. Steele's report was funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. BuzzFeed News published the 35-page document in Jan. 2017.

Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian businessman named in the dossier, is suing BuzzFeed in Florida and Steele in London. The dossier claims that Gubarev was recruited as a Russian spy and that his web hosting companies were used to infiltrate the DNC's computer systems.

Gubarev's lawyers have tried for months to force the London-based Steele to provide a deposition for the lawsuit against BuzzFeed, which is being heard in federal court in Florida. Steele has resisted the efforts to provide a deposition, arguing that Gubarev's lawyers are attempting to use his deposition in the BuzzFeed case in order to collect information for use in the lawsuit pending against him in the U.K. But a British judge sided against that argument.

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