The US President told reporters he could meet his Russian counterpart around his trip to the UK in just two weeks’ time
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during their last meeting at the G20 (Image: AFP)
Details of Donald Trump’s planned summit with Vladimir Putin have been confirmed this morning, as fears grow in Britain that the US President will strike a ‘peace deal’ with the Russian strongman.
The two leaders will meet in Helsinki on July 16, the Kremlin and White House revealed this afternoon.
“The two leaders will discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues,” the White House said in a statement.
The deal was struck after a trip to the Kremlin by National Security Advisor John Bolton, who held a meeting with President Putin.
President Trump said last night: “It would look like we will probably be meeting some time in the not too distant future.
“We will probably be meeting some time around my trip to Europe.” The trip was later confirmed.
According to The Times, Britain fears Trump will undermine Nato by striking a ‘peace deal’ with the Russian President.
A Cabinet minister told the Times: “What we’re nervous of is some kind of Putin-Trump ‘peace deal’ suddenly being announced.
“We could all see Trump and Putin saying, ‘why do we have all this military hardware in Europe?’ and agreeing to jointly remove that.”
The sources feared the President could hand the Kremlin a propaganda victory with an agreement like that signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
Nearly 2,000 British troops have led a Nato deployment in Estonia as part of a heavy military presence in the Baltic states, near the Russian frontier.
The US leader is due at the Nato summit in Brussels on July 11-12, followed by a working visit to Britain on July 13 to see the Queen and Theresa May.
The inspector general’s report on the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state has already documented just how riddled the bureau was with bias against Donald Trump when he was the Republican candidate for president.
Now, one conservative commentator is suggesting the report holds proof that the corruption went all the way to the top of the Justice Department.
In a Twitter post last week, Paul Sperry, who has written extensively about the FBI in columns published by the New York Post, hinted that Inspector General Michael Horowitz could have solid grounds to show “obstruction” in the Clinton email case – by none other than former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Sperry wrote that Horowitz testified on Capitol Hill about parts of his report that remain classified, and Sperry had a guess as to some of what it contained.
BREAKING: IG Horowitz testifies material implicating Lynch in possible obstruction of Hillary email case is contained in classified section of his report and that he will work with Congress to declassify it. Here is the possible smoking gun:
“BREAKING: IG Horowitz testifies material implicating Lynch in possible obstruction of Hillary email case is contained in classified section of his report and that he will work with Congress to declassify it,” Sperry wrote. “Here is the smoking gun …”
Sperry linked to one of his own columns in the Post from July 2017 that described a document indicating that Lynch had assured Clinton’s presidential campaign that she would make sure the FBI did not “go too far” in its investigation of the email case.
From even public information about the case, it’s pretty clear that Lynch kept a tight rein on it.
Did Loretta Lynch rein in the FBI’s Hillary Clinton investigation?
Former FBI Director James Comey has publicly testified that Lynch wanted him to refer to the Clinton probe as a “matter” rather than an “investigation.” (Comey pretended he was “confused” and “concerned” by the semantic choice. Can a man who made it to the top of the FBI be that obtuse? The answer is “no.”)
But if the IG report really does contain proof that Lynch put a limit on the FBI’s investigation to benefit the woman most of the political world expected to be elected president of the United States in November 2016, it puts things in a different light.
Lynch’s now infamous meeting with former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in Arizona on June 27, 2016, has never been adequately explained. The then-attorney general’s story that the two had crossed paths by accident never passed the laugh test.
On Sunday, The Washington Times reported that Clinton himself told investigators he only went to see Lynch on her Justice Department airplane because he did not want to be rude when he found out the two were parked at the same facility.
That doesn’t seem likely, to put it mildly.
What seems very possible, though, is that Lynch was keenly interested in keeping her job as the attorney general. And that Bill Clinton was interested in sounding her out about how much control she was exercising over the investigation into Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton might have been in a position to guarantee Lynch would stay on as attorney general if Hillary won the election — or remind Lynch of a guarantee already made.
Does the still-classified section of the IG report hold proof that Lynch was willing to keep the FBI from going “too far” in investigating Hillary?
Democrats and the liberal media have been claiming – ludicrously – that Horowitz’s damning report actually cleared the FBI. It actually exposed the agency as filled with bias, staffed by agents who thought nothing of using the bureau’s awesome powers to try to rig a presidential election.
That was bad enough. But the biggest shoe might still be waiting to drop.
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He said that God told him Ted Cruz would be president. Now either God made a mistake or Glenn Beck is a liar.
The conservative mogul’s business woes continue via another round of layoffs and the death of a sale to the billionaires backing fellow right-wing media giant Ben Shapiro.
Conservative media firebrand Glenn Beck’s multimedia empire TheBlaze appears to be on its last legs after another round of layoffs and after a prospective high-profile buyer lost interest.
The right-wing cable and digital media company—founded by Beck shortly before he exited Fox News in 2011—fired another round of staffers this week, shrinking a workforce that has already been reduced to less than 50 employees, according to two sources who spoke with The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity. The two sources also confirmed that more than a dozen employees had been laid off over the past several days.
Making matters worse, the company’s hopes for a bailout from a fellow right-wing titan did not go as planned.
Glenn Beck sided with liberals like Samantha Bee over Trump.
A potential lifeboat in the form of a proposed sale to the billionaire owners of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s website The Daily Wire now appears unlikely. A source familiar with the negotiations told The Daily Beast that talks between the two parties broke down and the sale is now effectively dead.
TheBlaze once generated a reported $90 million in revenue annually, but has been in a slow motion implosion over the past several years. Top-level managerial shakeups, seemingly ceaseless layoffs, and office closures have depleted morale, tanked the site’s web traffic, and caused cable distributors to jump ship.
Following a major round of layoffs last year, which accounted for one-third of the website’s staff, the remaining skeleton crew grew further discouraged as basic requests went unanswered or took months to accomplish.
Beck’s flair for conspiratorial, right-wing rants were largely seen as a precursor to the Trumpism that has overtaken conservatism in recent years. But as his empire began to crumble, right around the time Trump was elected to office, Beck—who likened Trump to Hitler—began to team up with mainstream media and liberal celebrities, rebranding himself as a born-again champion of civility.
That seemingly failed, however, as his business continued to struggle. Ultimately, he flip-flopped on that conciliatory reinvention, donning Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hat in May and declaring on-air: “I will vote for him in 2020! Gladly!”
The Beck empire’s downfall came into the national spotlight when millennial right-wing provocateur Tomi Lahren departed from TheBlaze in a dramatic and highly public fight that underscored the outlet’s internal tumult.
Company managers took months to remove Lahren’s image from web apps associated with TheBlaze and, according to one insider source, a website redesign that was supposed to be completed months ago still remains a work-in-progress.
Beck is also purging himself of many of his more expensive possessions, leading some employees to suspect that the conservative talk show host may be looking to close up shop at TheBlaze’s headquarters in Dallas and relocate to Los Angeles, where the company still maintains a smaller office.
The conservative firebrand acknowledged on his show on Thursday that he was looking to sell his house in the Dallas suburbs—a decision people close to Beck attribute to his fear that the economy is in the midst of another housing bubble.
“I am putting my home up for sale because I fear this economy as we are headed for trouble and I don’t want to be sitting with a big huge house,” Beck said on the radio earlier this week.
Earlier this year, Beck’s radio company Mercury Radio Arts put the 1966 DC-9 private jet on the market. A source familiar with Beck’s thinking said the radio host was unhappy that the aging plane could not travel long distances without needing to refuel.
One source familiar told The Daily Beast that the former Fox News host has also been selling and giving away some of the trinkets he keeps in TheBlaze’s office, including statues and costumes that the host had collected over the years.
House Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte on Friday subpoenaed former FBI Agent Peter Strzok to appear for a deposition next week.
Goodlatte issued the subpoena even though Strzok’s attorney said that Strzok is willing to testify voluntarily before Congress.
“We regret that the Committee felt it necessary to issue a subpoena when we repeatedly informed them that Pete was willing to testify voluntarily,” Strzok lawyer Aitan Goelman said in a statement after Goodlatte issued the subpoena.
A statement on the Judiciary Committee’s website said that the panel has “repeatedly requested to interview Mr. Strzok regarding his role in certain decisions, but he has yet to appear.”
As the FBI’s deputy chief of counterintelligence, Strzok oversaw the bureau’s investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to the Russian government. He was also a top investigator on the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton email probe. (RELATED: Strzok: ‘We’ll Stop’ Trump Presidency)
While working on the Trump-Russia matter, Strzok sent numerous text messages criticizing the then-presidential candidate. In one Aug. 8, 2016 text message, Strzok told FBI attorney Lisa Page that “we’ll stop” Trump’s presidency.
A Department of Justice inspector general’s report released June 14 blasted Strzok over the text messages, saying that the messages indicated a “biased state of mind” and implied “a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.”
Strzok was escorted from FBI headquarters June 15. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Thursday that Strzok no longer has his security clearance. (RELATED: Strzok Loses Security Clearance)
Goelman said that his client “intends to answer any question put to him, and he intends to defend the integrity of the Clinton email investigation, the Russia collusion investigation to the extent that that’s a topic, and his own integrity,” in a letter sent to Goodlatte on Saturday.
Goelman said that Strzok “wants the chance to clear his name and tell his story.”
How In The Hell Can Anyone Not See This Corruption?
Remember Anthony Weiner, also known as “Carlos Danger” — the former congressman who kept texting people pictures of well, umm, that part of his name? It all made quite the splash because he is married to Hillary Clinton’s consigliere and constant sidekick, Huma Abedin.
Turns out that Anthony was such a perp — and so enthralled with his own — that he was sexting with a minor. That is a federal offense carrying up to 10 years in prison. So, he got raided by the New York Police Department and the New York office of the FBI.
They seized his laptop computer. It would have been bad enough if it had only had contained all his porn. But it posed a huge problem for the FBI, DOJ and Mrs. Clinton.
Comey had already exonerated Hillary of her blatant Espionage Act violations and obstruction of justice violations two months before — in time for her to wrap up the election they all expected and wanted her to win.
Peter Strzok and the Trump-hating key players in the Clinton email “investigation” were already well into crafting and leaking the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
Only a few hours after the New York office of the FBI took possession of the Weiner laptop, on September 26, 2016, the FBI computer expert discovered it contained more than 140,000 emails involving Hillary Clinton. They were from multiple domain names: State.gov, Clintonemail.com, ClintonFoundation.org, HillaryClinton.com and Blackberry devices. The agent had what he told the inspector general was an “oh shit moment” — recognizing that he had found evidence important to the most important investigation — and he immediately reported it up the chain.
We already knew that President Barack Obama was emailing her on her unsecure server at Clintonemail.com, and Cheryl Mills had written an email noting how “obvious” it was to anyone that this was not State.gov and therefore unsecure. The president jolly-well knew it was not a secure communication as he used an alias.
This was a gargantuan problem for the FBI and for Mrs. Clinton. Other people knew about it, too.
Indeed, according to the inspector general, 39 high-ranking FBI agents knew of it, along with the New York office and people in the New York U.S. Attorney’s office. The New York FBI informed them all during a secure video-conference on September 28 — chaired by Andrew McCabe.
One agent said the announcement of finding hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop was “like dropping a bomb in the middle of the meeting.”
The New York agent Sweeney followed up with two calls to McCabe later that evening — after McCabe did not call him as promised.
So . . . what did McCabe, Comey and Strzok do? They sat on it until police officers in New York and FBI agents in New York threatened to expose them.
By October 28, it was only 11 days before the election. Comey panicked. The jig was up. They had been hiding it for three weeks. Comey’s guilt and concern for his own career caused him to realize he could not keep it quiet any longer.
Everything exploded when Comey wrote a letter to Congress vaguely reporting the discovery of “additional emails that appear to be related to the investigation.” He wrote further, “the FBI cannot assess at this time whether or not the material may be significant.”
Comey’s words to Congress are belied by the inspector general’s report who bought none of their excuses for the multi-week delay in addressing the emails.
On October 30, 2016, The Daily Caller reported that the Department of Justice had not even sought a warrant for review of the 350,000 Clinton emails.
Breitbart reported on November 4, 2016 that the New York Police Department officers who had seen the evidence on Weiner’s laptop had threatened to blow the whistle. Remarkably, the “Justice Department” shut them down by allegedly threatening to indict NYPD officers on the two-year old death of Eric Gardner if the NYPD disclosed it.
In a stunning assertion, Director Comey told the Inspector General he did not know Anthony Weiner was married to Huma Abedin. Perhaps they should have told him it was “Carlos Danger?”
Either Comey was bald-faced lying, which is punishable under 18 U.S.C. §1001, or the level of ignorance and incompetence inherent in that representation alone warranted his termination.
Moreover, if Comey’s claim were true, then Comey, McCabe and Strzok should have flown into action at the mere thought of a perverted stranger in a sexual offense investigation having 350,000 emails of the secretary of state including highly classified information — covering her entire tenure there.
From the FBI’s and DOJ’s “handling” of the “Weiner problem,” there is more than enough evidence to demand immediate production of the Weiner laptop and all emails should be obtained from NSA or otherwise to be given to an independent special prosecutor for a full and thorough investigation.
In addition, all of this raises scores upon scores of additional questions.
Here are just 10 such questions:
1. What are the names of all the people the FBI has identified as having emailed Hillary Clinton on her obvious unsecured server at Clintonemail.com? (We already know Obama emailed her on it under an alias. Which other high-ranking officials also emailed Clinton at her unsecured server? What about Robert Mueller? What about Eric Holder?
2. Did the inspector general ask Lynch about threats to NYPD to prosecute officers if they didn’t back down on exposing the email cover-up? Why not?
3. Did the FBI show Hillary the email by Cheryl Mills stating it was “obvious” Clintonemail.com was not secure?
4. Who are the three — just three — FBI agents who reviewed the Weiner laptop and conducted the miraculous de-duping and review in only a few days of 350,000 emails that covered her entire tenure as Secretary of State?
5. Who in the Department of Justice reviewed the 350,000 Clinton emails on Weiner laptop?
6. Who in Department of Justice talked to the New York office about the Weiner laptop?
7. How many classified, top-secret and even more secret chains were found from Clinton’s own production on Weiner’s laptop?
8. Who stripped the classified and confidential markings from the documents Mrs. Clinton received before sending them to her?
9. Where is Weiner’s laptop right now?
10. Who made that phone call from the Department of Justice to the New York Police Department? Exactly what was said?
President Donald Trump blamed the establishment media on Tuesday for criticizing his tough enforcement of immigration and asylum laws.
He reminded Americans during a speech at the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) 75th-anniversary celebration in Washington, DC, that people who legally applied for asylum at the ports of entry were not prosecuted.
“The fake news media back there doesn’t talk about that. They are fake,” Trump said, pointing at reporters in the room. “They are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe. They know it, they know exactly what they’re doing, and it should be stopped.”
The president suggested that the media was focusing on the border crisis and purposefully ignoring the congressional hearings about the Justice Department Inspector General report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton.
“They want to keep the cameras away from the hearings,” Trump said. “Because those hearings are not good for them. In fact, they’re a disaster for them. The whole thing is a scam.”
Trump said traffickers were using the current weak system of immigration laws to infiltrate the country, claiming that trafficking of women and children was currently the worst in history.
“They game the system. It’s so easy for them. They’re smart,” he said, and added, “These smugglers know these rules and regulations better than the people that drew them.”
