Democrat Rep. Mike Quigley (IL) faced intense backlash on Wednesday afternoon after claiming during Democrats' impeachment inquiry hearing that "hearsay" can be "much better evidence than direct" evidence.

In a rambling statement, Quigley said, "And, if gets to closed primer on hearsay, I think the American public needs to be reminded that countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created, needed exceptions to hearsay."

Quigley continued, "Hearsay can be much better evidence than direct ... and it's certainly valid in this instance."

There is considerable evidence that the American system of government may have been victimized by an illegal covert operation organized and executed by the U.S. intelligence and national security community. Former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director Jim Comey appear to have played critical leadership roles in carrying out this conspiracy and they may not have operated on their own. Almost certainly what they may have done would have been explicitly authorized by the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, and his national security team.

It must have seemed a simple operation for the experienced CIA covert action operatives. To prevent the unreliable and unpredictable political upstart Donald Trump from being nominated as the GOP presidential candidate or even elected it would be necessary to create suspicion that he was the tool of a resurgent Russia, acting under direct orders from Vladimir Putin to empower Trump and damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Even though none of the alleged Kremlin plotters would have expected Trump to actually beat Hillary, it was plausible to maintain that they would have hoped that a weakened Clinton would be less able to implement the anti-Russian agenda that she had been promoting. Many observers in both Russia and the U.S. believed that if she had been elected armed conflict with Moscow would have been inevitable, particularly if she moved to follow her husband's example and push to have both Georgia and Ukraine join NATO, which Russia would have regarded as an existential threat.

Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that the release of an inspector general's report on FBI's surveillance of the Trump campaign is "imminent."

Multiple news outlets reported Tuesday that Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, has invited witnesses interviewed in connection with the investigation to review portions of the forthcoming report. The step is routine in investigations conducted by inspectors general, and typically signals that the release of the report is near.

Horowitz told lawmakers in June that his investigators had interviewed more than 100 witnesses and reviewed more than 1 million documents during the investigation, which began in March 2018.

Barr confirmed during a press conference on Tuesday that the Horowitz report is forthcoming.

"It's been reported and it's my understanding that it is imminent," Barr told reporters in Memphis, according to Politico.

Even as Israel becomes chronically unable to form a government, the 'Gaza consensus' — the endless pounding of the strip into oblivion — persists. It could tip the scales in Netanyahu's favor.

There is no military solution in Gaza. But Israel's leaders, who are too much at loggerheads to sit in a government together, are somehow able to agree that when it comes to maintaining Israel's 12-year siege, there is only room for violent tinkering.

That violence was on full display early Tuesday morning, when Israel assassinated Islamic Jihad commander Baha Abu al-Ata in his Gaza home while he slept; the projectile also killed his wife and wounded his four children. Meanwhile, the son of another Islamic Jihad leader was killed in a separate strike, widely attributed to Israel, in Damascus overnight. Prime Minister Netanyahu said the targeted assassination of Abu al-Ata, which Israel refers to as a "surgical strike," was a necessary pre-emptive measure to stop what he termed a "ticking time bomb."

Bolivia's President Evo Morales has been highlighting his government's independence from international money lending organizations and their detrimental impact the nation, the Telesur TV reported.

"A day like today in 1944 ended Bretton Woods Economic Conference (USA), in which the IMF and WB were established," Morales tweeted. "These organizations dictated the economic fate of Bolivia and the world. Today we can say that we have total independence of them."

Morales has said Bolivia's past dependence on the agencies was so great that the International Monetary Fund had an office in government headquarters and even participated in their meetings.

As Israel continues to launch dozens of missile strikes into Gaza, so far having killed at least 24 Palestinians, including children, and injuring 70 more, former vice president and current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden took to Twitter to declare that he supports the country's actions.

"Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorist threats," wrote Biden, "It is intolerable that Israeli civilians live their lives under the constant fear of rocket attacks. That's why our administration was such a strong supporter of Israel's life-saving Iron Dome." Along with his statement, he shared an article about the Gaza rocket attacks from NBC.


On Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that they had killed Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander Bahaa Abu el-Atta. At a press conference about the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Abu el-Atta was a "ticking bomb" and that the strike had been carefully plotted to avoid further casualties. However, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that, in addition to Abu el-Atta's wife being killed in the attack, at least three other Palestinians died.

Google wants you to trust it with your money, even as its latest privacy scandal, where millions of Americans' medical records were covertly slurped up to power a secret AI project, has triggered another federal investigation.

Google is rolling out a consumer finance division, currently codenamed Cache, in partnership with Citigroup and a Stanford University credit union, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Wednesday. The search behemoth will begin offering checking accounts to customers next year, muscling into yet another market, despite a mounting stack of federal investigations targeting potential antitrust abuses.

In an idea seemingly pulled from dystopian science fiction, the Pentagon has teamed up with Raytheon to develop a system capable of delivering genetically modified bacteria underground. For purely defensive purposes, of course.

Initiated by DARPA - the same agency that led programs to create telekinetic super soldiers and weaponized robotic insects - the project seeks to "program two bacterial strains to monitor ground surfaces for explosive materials," defense contractor Raytheon said in a joint press release with the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

The first of the two strains, known as a "bio-sensor," will "detect the presence or absence of explosives buried underground," while the second will produce a "glowing light" in the event such materials are found. Remotely operated cameras or drones would then be sent to survey the area to find the glowing germs, and ultimately the buried explosives.

A newly filed complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) alleges that the whistleblower whose allegations touched off House Democrats' impeachment inquiry may have violated federal law by indirectly soliciting more than a quarter-million dollars from mostly anonymous sources via a GoFundMe page.

The complaint, which was filed last week and obtained by Fox News, alleged the donations from roughly 6,000 individuals "clearly constitute" gifts to a current intelligence official that may be restricted because of the employee's official position pursuant to 5 CFR 2635.203 and other statutes. To date, the GoFundMe has raised over $227,000. The complaint also raised the possibility that some of the donations may have come from prohibited sources, and asked the ICIG to look into whether any "foreign citizen or agent of a foreign government" contributed.

Tully Rinckey PLLC, the law firm representing the individual reporting the allegations, is closely guarding the identity of their client, though Fox News is told the individual is the holder of a top-secret SCI security clearance and has served in government.

"I have not seen anything on this scale," Anthony Gallo, the managing partner of Tully Rinckey PLLC, told Fox News, referring to the fundraising. "It's not about politics for my client -- it's whistleblower-on-whistleblower, and [my client's] only interest is to see the government ethics rules are being complied with government-wide."

Tensions are high in Gaza after Israel's targeted assassination of an Islamic Jihad leader led to intense cross border fire between the territories, resulting in the death of more than 20 people, including children, and the injury of more than 70 others.

The violence began overnight on Monday when Israel launched airstrikes in both Gaza and Syria, targeting senior leaders of the Islamic Jihad group, prompting a barrage of rocket fire from Gaza and concerns that Israel was restarting its practice of targeted assassinations of Palestinian political figures.

Both Israeli and Islamic Jihad officials confirmed the killing of the group's Gaza-based leader, 42-year-old Bahaa Abu al-Atta, along with his wife Asma. The group also claimed that two others, suspected to be the pair's children, were injured in the attack.