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Cover-up: Police file on RT founder's death in U.S. shows major holes in investigation

Jason Leopold, Heidi Blake, Tom Warren, James Bradley, Richard Holmes, Alex Campbell
BuzzFeed
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:22 UTC
Michail Lesin
The heavily redacted report reveals nothing about how RT founder Mikhail Lesin sustained the blunt force injuries that killed him. And the Washington, DC, police won't say whether they reviewed three critical hours of hotel security footage between when Lesin was last seen alive and when he died.

Newly released police files expose significant holes in the investigation into the death of Vladimir Putin's media czar two years ago in Washington, DC, casting doubt on the official finding of how he died.

After Mikhail Lesin's corpse was found in a Dupont Circle hotel room on the morning of Nov. 5, 2015, the coroner determined that he had died from blunt force injuries to the head, and had also sustained blunt force injuries to his neck, torso, upper extremities, and lower extremities. A federal prosecutor closed the case last year, announcing that Lesin died alone in his room due to a series of drunken falls "after days of excessive consumption of alcohol."


Comment: Sounds legit...


Now, the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department has released 58 pages of its case file on Lesin's death. While many parts are blacked out, what was released raises sharp questions.
  • Nothing is said about the blunt force injuries that killed Lesin - or even about him falling down, which is how he is supposed to have died.
  • A disc of hotel security camera footage from the hallway outside Lesin's room - including three critical hours during the period between when Lesin was last seen alive and when his dead body was found - was defective. Questioned by BuzzFeed News, the police department has repeatedly refused to say if it ever managed to review that footage, raising questions about whether Lesin truly died alone in his room.
The release of the police file comes as the West is grappling with Russia's increasingly bold interventions. In a two-year investigation, BuzzFeed News showed how America's closest ally, the UK, has turned a blind eye to 14 deaths on its own soil that US intelligence suspects were in fact hit jobs by the Russian state security services or mafia organizations, two groups that sometimes work together. US spy agencies have shared intelligence on each of those deaths with Britain, yet British police have ruled out foul play in every last case. US intelligence officials told BuzzFeed News they had been watching the pattern of suspected assassinations across the Atlantic with mounting unease, and Lesin's death aggravated their fears.


Comment: No wonder Trump called BuzzFeed a "failing pile of garbage". "Maybe x" plus "maybe y" does not equal "definitely OMG". First, the only people saying these 14 deaths were due to Russians is American intelligence, which is notoriously wrong. Second, even if it is true that Russian intel sometimes works with Russian mafia (same is true of CIA and American mafia), that does not mean the two are equivalent in all or even most cases. Third, all this just designed to turn attention to the Russians and away from the Americans, as in the FBI, or perhaps even the CIA.

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Bad Guys

Those were the days: Team Clinton's favorite billionaire

Gabriel DeBeneditti
Politico
Sun, 04 Dec 2016 22:23 UTC
Haim Saban Kushner
© Getty
Haim Saban, the billionaire chairman and part owner of Univision, is one of the Hillary Clintons’ top-tier supporters and a close personal friend.
He's a donor on the inside track. Univision's chairman calls when he wants, gets a reply, and affects the strategy.

In the sprawling ecosystem of Hillary and Bill Clinton donors and fundraisers, there are thousands who fashion themselves top contributors, hundreds who consider themselves friends of the former president and secretary of state, dozens who see their role as deep-pocketed strategic advisers, and just a handful capable of dialing into the candidate's inner circle with no obstacles.

But there is only one Haim Saban.

Known for two decades to be one of the Clintons' top-tier supporters and a close personal friend, the billionaire chairman and part owner of Univision who brought Power Rangers to the United States has emerged in 2016 as all of the above, according to the clear picture painted by the hacked emails of campaign Chairman John Podesta published by WikiLeaks in recent weeks.

It's not just that Saban - unanimously described by friends as brash and loving, particularly enamored of the Democratic nominee to the point of being famously upset when she lost to Barack Obama in 2008 - can get an immediate call back from Podesta or campaign manager Robby Mook with a simple, "Can one of you please call me at your earliest convenience? Tx." And it's not just that the private equity magnate, worth $3.6 billion according to Bloomberg, is the only West Coast donor to host Clinton for high-dollar fundraisers multiple times this cycle, contributing with his wife roughly $11.5 million to pro-Clinton 2016 efforts on top of his foundation contributions of between $10 million and $25 million, his $5 million for Bill Clinton's presidential library in 2002, and his $7 million for a new Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Comment: Yet such a strong supporter of Killary seems to drop her like a hot potato when the locus of power shifts.

Collusion with Israel - not Russia: Mega-donor Haim Saban thanks Jared Kushner for working on Israel's behalf
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's senior advisor - and the man who allegedly ordered Gen. Michael Flynn's "collusion" calls to Russia - has appeared at pro-Israeli donor Haim Saban's event where he has been thanked for his lobbying on behalf of Israel.

Speaking at the three-day conference, prominent Clinton Foundation donor Saban thanked Kusher for "taking steps to try and get the UN Security Council to not go along with what ended up being an abstention by the US against a 50-year-old tradition."

The multibillionaire was referring to Flynn's admission that he had been told to ask Russia to delay a December 2016 UN Security Council vote on Israeli settlements. It has since been reported that Flynn was acting on Kushner's orders, and that Israeli officials had contacted Trump's team to ask for their help to veto the resolution, Reuters reports.
[...]
During his talk with Kushner, Saban revealed how he met Trump's son-in-law, explaining Kushner had written him an admiring letter in 2010 after he had read a profile on him in the New Yorker. Saban never read the letter and only learned of it when it was passed on to him during the election. "We became friends and we exchange ideas on an ongoing basis," Saban said. "He advises me and I advise him."
Given Kushner's meteoric rise to power and staunch pro-Israel "advocacy", a lot about this doe-eyed power-driven young man has come to light in recent months. And one has to ask: Does Trump even know what the heck he's doing in empowering Kushner so much? and do not miss: Jared Kushner: Friend or foe? Son of a gangster, son-in-law of President Trump

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Blue Planet

UN: Trump's Jerusalem move widely condemned


Aljazeera
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
UN room discussion
© Richard Drew/AP
Palestinian ambassador to the UN said Trump's decision should disqualify the US from leading peace efforts.
During an emergency meeting, UN Security Council members widely condemned Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that has led to deadly clashes across the occupied Palestinian territories. Eight countries called for the emergency meeting at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, as Palestinians protested across the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza Strip against the US president's decision throughout the day.

Several countries resoundingly condemned the unilateral move by the US to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Trump, ignoring warnings from the international community, announced on Wednesday that the US was formally recognising Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and would begin the process of moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the city.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, while Israel says Jerusalem, which is under Israeli occupation, cannot be divided.

The international community has never recognised Israel's claim to the entire city.
Here is a look at what was said during the emergency session:
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Propaganda

Delusional CNN pundit: "Mistakes are why people should trust the mainstream media"


RT
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 21:33 UTC
CNN Fake news
© Maureen Dowling / YouTube
Factually inaccurate reports are a natural by-product of fighting Donald Trump's "system of lies", CNN pundit David Frum has reassured the public. The Atlantic senior editor's comments were made in the wake of false reporting by ABC and CNN.

"The mistakes are precisely the reason people should trust the media," Frum told Brian Stelter, on CNN's Reliable Sources program.

He insisted that "the worst mistakes that press organizations have made in their coverage of [US President Donald] Trump has precisely occurred in their overzealous effort to be fair to the president."

Frum's comments come after two major news networks, CNN and ABC, each had to correct "bombshell" reports that showed Trump and his administration in a poor light.
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Jet1

Out-of-touch establishment feigns shock at Defence Secretary Williamson's "kill UK jihadi" comments - Williamson stands his ground


Westmonster
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:03 UTC
Gavin Williamson
© Hannah Mckay / Reuter
Gavin Williamson
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has stood his ground after the 'hug a jihadi' crowd slammed his comments saying they should be wiped out.

Williamson recently told the Daily Mail: "Quite simply, my view is a dead terrorist can't cause any harm to Britain.

"I do not believe that any terrorist, whether they come from this country or any other, should ever be allowed back into this country.

"We should do everything we can do to destroy and eliminate that threat."

His comments were jumped upon by the Metropolitan elite, such as LibDem Defence spokesman Lord Campbell, who said Williamson's comments were "ill-considered and appear to endorse a clear breach of humanitarian law".

Comment: Just another example of the schizoid discourse in Western democracies: The Muzzies Are Coming! Adopt a Refugee!

It's a real mind job. Everyone knows the latest breed of jihadi is the worst of the worst: a savage on two legs who would sooner saw your head off than engage in civilized discussion. Naturally, people feel that such criminals and terrorists should be killed on the battlefield. But nope, those sentiments are not allowed. How could anyone think such dark thoughts? We would never be so heartless! Never mind that "we" have been bombing Muslims to kingdom come for the past 16 years... These people are nuts.

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Jet3

Pentagon openly threatens to shoot down Russian jets over Eastern Syria

Marko Marjanović
Checkpoint Asia
Sun, 10 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Military jet
© Sputnik
Pentagon actually refers to eastern Syria as "our airspace" as it graduates from implicit to open threats.

Two weeks ago I wondered if heightened Pentagon rhetoric about "unsafe Russian flying practices" in Syria was to prepare the media for a possible shoot down of a Russian plane by the US. Now the US has moved on to openly threatening to do so.

Recall, on November 24th CNN ran an article whereby according to unnamed officials poor US pilots were being "subjected to unsafe Russian flying practices". This followed a report a week earlier where an unidentified Pentagon officer spoke about "threatening" and "potentially threatening" Russian aircraft and their "increasingly alarming behavior" (which later in the article simply turned out to be Russians flying in weapons range of US assets on the ground).
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Sherlock

Trump's top intel official spied for George Soros

Jay Syrmopoulos
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 09 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
SorMcMaTrump
© The Free Thought Project
A member of the Trump transition team and former CIA paramilitary officer, John R. Maguire, reportedly revealed during a meeting prior to an intelligence-gathering operation in Afghanistan, that President Trump's National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster - the highest-ranking intelligence official in the U.S. government - "authorized surveillance of Steven Bannon and Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump," then proceeded to send the collected data to a surveillance facility in Cyprus owned by billionaire globalist George Soros, according to The Gateway Pundit.

Additionally, according to a report by The Intercept:
"[Maguire] said there were people inside the CIA who joined in the previous eight years [under Obama] and inside the government and they were failing to give the president the intelligence he needed," said a person who was pitched by Maguire and other Amyntor personnel. To support his claim, Maguire told at least two people that National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, in coordination with a top official at the National Security Agency, authorized surveillance of Steven Bannon and Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Adding to these unsubstantiated claims, Maguire told the potential donors he also had evidence H.R. McMaster used a burner phone to send information gathered through the surveillance to a facility in Cyprus owned by George Soros.
For those unfamiliar with Soros, he is a champion of progressive causes globally and funds his Open Society Foundation to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Although operating under the guise of a global philanthropist, Soros works to fund NGOs as a means of destabilizing targeted governments.

Comment: Had the various ploys and attempts at sabotaging the Trump administration not come under such intense scrutiny, the dot connecting of a deeper layer of collusion may have gone undetected. All that is suspect may not be true, but there are more than enough questions and pieces of evidence up for serious consideration.

See also:

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Bandaid

Tillerson hard-pressed to heal trans-Atlantic rifts


New China
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 06:38 UTC
Tillerson/Le Drian
© REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks with French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the Lebanon International Support Group meeting in Paris this month.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday wrapped up a five-day three-nation Europe visit which, experts said, was unlikely to heal the expanding trans-Atlantic rifts on the relevant regional and global issues. The absence of any summary of the tour, which took him to Brussels, Vienna and Paris, and which is the 7th of its kind since Tillerson took office in February, also indicated the fruitlessness of the visit, said experts.

MIDDLE EAST RIFTS

The tour, which aims to ease the rising tensions between Washington and Brussels, had been overshadowed before it even started on Monday by rumors of Trump's possible Jerusalem-related decision later.

After Trump made the highly controversial announcement on Wednesday in which he recognizes Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and orders the U.S. embassy in Israel to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Tillerson has spent most of his remaining tour peddling Trump's justification to upset European allies.

Bilateral grudges were also detonated by Trump's retweeting of anti-Muslim posts, as British Prime Minister Theresa May, among European leaders, said Trump's posts were "wrong", and Trump later snapped by suggesting May to focus on her country's own security.

Comment: Trust issues. If Trump's goal is to single-handedly decrease EU dependency on the US, he may put a check mark in the box on that idea.

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Star of David

Analyst: Two-state solution for Israel-Palestine has been dealt a lethal blow


Sputnik
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 18:22 UTC
Israelipoliceworshipers
© Business Insider
Israeli police and Palestinians in prayer, Jerusalem old city.
US President Donald Trump's December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has been condemned by the international community and the Arab League. Speaking to Radio Sputnik Israel Shamir, an international relations analyst said that Trump's move has dealt a lethal blow to the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

Sputnik: While the Arab League has said that Washington terminated its neutrality in the region, some experts have argued that the US has never been neutral in this bitter conflict, what is your take on that?

Israel Shamir: Well, it seems to be the result of him [Trump] building up two different things: one is a coalition that will support him [Trump] internally in the United States and there he needs some parts of the Jewish establishment to lean upon. While the liberal Jews are against him he decided to choose for the Jewish Zionists who also have a strong voice within the American establishment and to look for their support. And externally there is, let's say, a new axis being built - let's call this "an axis of goodness" - that is the axis of New York - Tel Aviv - Riyadh. And this second axis of goodness (because they called their enemies an "axis of evil") they seem to build a new idea that they can remake the Middle East. Then we know that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, [Mohammad bin Salman], is a person of great ambitions, the person of great daring but not very successful, not very lucky. So now it seems that this decision by Trump which was done on his hope that it will be supported by the Saudis, but the Saudis also could not support it publicly. And whether they support it within their hearts or not we still don't know but in a few days on 13th of the month [December] there will be a big Islamic summit in Istanbul and that will a kind of give us a little bit more insight about what will happen.

Comment: Time to pivot to a new dynamic on behalf of Muslim heritage and the plight of Palestinians.

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Pirates

Where to go? 'Terrorist migration' to Afghanistan as the next ISIS stronghold is one option


RT
Mon, 11 Dec 2017 01:36 UTC
ISIS truck
© Global Look Press
"You're traveling through another desert, a desert not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a barren land whose boundaries are that of terrorism. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, Afghanistan."
Decades of instability and weakened security forces make Afghanistan one of the most probable new IS destinations after the terrorist group's defeat in Syria and Iraq, Nikita Mendkovich, political analyst at the Russian International Affairs Council, told RT.

The Iraqi government announced Sunday that the country was "totally liberated" from terrorists and that the war against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) has ended.

Earlier this week, Russia's General Staff said "all terrorist units of IS on Syrian soil have been destroyed, and the territory is liberated."

Surviving militants have been fleeing the two countries, with Afghanistan becoming the "most probable" new foothold for IS, Mendkovich said. "There has been long time instability in Afghanistan and a high level of terrorist activity in the context of the weakness of the governmental security agencies," he said. Mendkovich was referring to the decades of fruitless struggle against the Taliban by US-led intervention forces and Afghan authorities. US troops have been in Afghanistan since 2001.
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