President Barack Obama was caught on camera on Monday assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.
Obama, during talks in Seoul, urged Moscow to give him “space” until after the November ballot, and Medvedev said he would relay the message to incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The unusually frank exchange came as Obama and Medvedev huddled together on the eve of a global nuclear security summit in the South Korean capital, unaware their words were being picked up by microphones as reporters were led into the room.
U.S. plans for an anti-missile shield have bedeviled relations between Washington and Moscow despite Obama’s “reset” in ties between the former Cold War foes. Obama’s Republican opponents have accused him of being too open to concessions to Russia on the issue.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seized on Obama’s comment, calling it “alarming and troubling.”
“This is no time for our president to be pulling his punches with the American people,” Romney said in a campaign speech in San Diego.
As he was leaning toward Medvedev in Seoul, Obama was overheard asking for time – “particularly with missile defense” – until he is in a better position politically to resolve such issues.
“I understand your message about space,” replied Medvedev, who will hand over the presidency to Putin in May.
“This is my last election … After my election I have more flexibility,” Obama said, expressing confidence that he would win a second term.
“I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” said Medvedev, Putin’s protégé and long considered number two in Moscow’s power structure.
The exchange, parts of it inaudible, was monitored by a White House pool of television journalists as well as Russian reporters listening live from their press center.
The United States and NATO have offered Russia a role in the project to create an anti-ballistic shield which includes participation by Romania, Poland, Turkey and Spain.
But Moscow says it fears the system could weaken Russia by gaining the capability to shoot down the nuclear missiles it relies on as a deterrent.
It wants a legally binding pledge from the United States that Russia’s nuclear forces would not be targeted by the system and joint control of how it is used.
The White House, initially caught off-guard by questions about the leaders’ exchange, later released a statement recommitting to implementing missile defense “which we’ve repeatedly said is not aimed at Russia” but also acknowledging election-year obstacles on the issue.
“Since 2012 is an election year in both countries, with an election and leadership transition in Russia and an election in the United States, it is clearly not a year in which we are going to achieve a breakthrough,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.
“Therefore, President Obama and President Medvedev agreed that it was best to instruct our technical experts to do the work of better understanding our respective positions, providing space for continued discussions on missile defense cooperation going forward,” he said.
Rod Rosenstein looks like a creepy child molester. But were is the Trump and Russian collusion?
Twelve Russian military intelligence officers hacked into the Clinton presidential campaign and Democratic Party, releasing tens of thousands of stolen and politically damaging communications, in a sweeping conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election, according to a grand jury indictment announced days before President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The indictment stands as special counsel Robert Mueller’s first allegation implicating the Russian government directly in criminal behavior meant to sway the presidential election.
U.S. intelligence agencies have said the meddling was aimed at helping the Trump campaign and harming the election bid of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The effort also included bogus Facebook ads and social media postings that prosecutors say were aimed at influencing public opinion and sowing discord on hot-button social issues.
The indictment lays out a broad, coordinated effort starting in March 2016 to break into key Democratic email accounts, such as those belonging to the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Among those targeted was John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman.
The Kremlin denied anew that it tried to sway the election. “The Russian state has never interfered and has no intention of interfering in the U.S. elections,” Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Friday.
But the indictment identifies the defendants as officers with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU. It accuses them of covertly monitoring the computers of dozens of Democratic officials and volunteers, implanting malicious computer code known as malware and using phishing emails to gain control of the accounts of people associated with the Clinton campaign.
By June 2016, the defendants began planning the release of tens of thousands of stolen emails and documents, the indictment alleges. The messages were released through fictitious personas like DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0.
The charges come as Mueller continues to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the presidential election. The indictment does not allege that Trump campaign associates were involved in the hacking efforts or that any American was knowingly in contact with Russian intelligence officers.
The indictment also does not allege that any vote tallies were altered by hacking.
Still, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the internet “allows foreign adversaries to attack Americans in new and unexpected ways. Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious and there will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide and conquer us.”
A White House statement offered no condemnation of the alleged Russian conspiracy. Instead it focused on the fact that no Trump campaign officials or Americans were implicated in the new indictment. Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said on Twitter that it was time to end the Mueller investigation since “no Americans are involved.”
But with Mueller still investigating, it’s not known whether further indictments are taking shape or will.
Before Friday, 20 people and three companies had been charged in the Mueller investigation. The 20 are four former Trump campaign and White House aides, three of whom have pleaded guilty to different crimes and agreed to cooperate, and 13 Russians accused of participating in a hidden but powerful social media campaign to sway U.S. public opinion in the 2016 election.
If the involvement of the GRU officers in the hacking effort is proved, it would shatter the Kremlin denials of the Russian state’s involvement in the U.S. elections.
The GRU, which answers to the Russian military’s General Staff, is part of the state machine and its involvement would indicate that the orders to interfere in the U.S. election came from the very top.
One attempt at interference noted in the indictment came hours after Trump, in a July 27, 2016, speech, suggested Russians look for emails that Clinton said she had deleted from her tenure as secretary of state.
“Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”
That evening, the indictment says, the Russians attempted to break into email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office, along with 76 Clinton campaign email addresses.
Hours before the Justice Department announcement, Trump complained anew that the special counsel’s investigation is complicating his efforts to forge a better working relationship with Russia. Trump and Putin are scheduled to hold talks Monday in Finland, a meeting largely sought by Trump.
After the indictments were announced, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer called on Trump to cancel his meeting with Putin until Russia takes steps to prove it won’t interfere in future elections. He said the indictments are “further proof of what everyone but the president seems to understand: President Putin is an adversary who interfered in our elections to help President Trump win.”
Trump complained about “stupidity” when asked about Mueller’s probe earlier Friday, at a news conference in Britain with Prime Minister Theresa May.
“We do have a — a political problem where — you know in the United States we have this stupidity going on,” he said. “Pure stupidity. But it makes it very hard to do something with Russia. Anything you do, it’s always going to be, ‘Oh, Russia, he loves Russia.'”
“I love the United States,” Trump continued. “But I love getting along with Russia and China and other countries.”
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.
Putin says U.S. gripped by fabricated spymania, praises Trump
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the United States was in the grip of a fabricated spymania whipped up by President Donald Trump’s opponents but he thought battered U.S.-Russia relations would recover one day.
Putin, who said he was on first name terms with Trump, also praised the U.S. president for what he said were his achievements.
“I’m not the one to evaluate the president’s work. That needs to be done by the voters, the American people,” Putin told his annual news conference in Moscow, in answer to a question.
“(But) we are objectively seeing that there have been some major accomplishments, even in the short time he has been working. Look at how the markets have grown. This speaks to investors’ trust in the American economy.”
Trump took office in January, saying he was keen to mend ties which had fallen to a post-Cold War low. But since then, ties have soured further after U.S. intelligence officials said Russia meddled in the presidential election, something Moscow denies.
Congress is also investigating alleged contacts between the Trump election campaign and Russian officials amid allegations that Moscow may have tried to exercise improper influence.
Putin dismissed those allegations and the idea of a Russia connection as “fabricated.” He shrugged off accusations that Russia’s ambassador to the United States had done something wrong by having contacts with Trump campaign figures saying it was “international practice” for diplomats to try to have contacts with all candidates in an election.
“What did someone see that was egregious about this? Why does it all have to take on some tint of spymania?,” said Putin.
“This is all invented by people who oppose Trump to give his work an illegitimate character. The people who do this are dealing a blow to the state of (U.S.) domestic politics,” he added, saying the accusations were disrespectful to U.S. voters.
Moscow understood that Trump’s scope for improving ties with Russia was limited by the scandal, said Putin, but remained keen to try to improve relations.
“COMMON THREATS”
Washington and Moscow had many common interests, he said, citing the Middle East, North Korea, international terrorism, environmental problems and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
“You have to ask him (Trump) if he has such a desire (to improve ties) … or whether it has disappeared. I hope that he has such a desire,” said Putin.
“We will normalize our relations and will develop (them) and overcome common threats.”
However, Putin lashed out at U.S. policy on North Korea, warning a U.S. strike there would have catastrophic consequences.
In one of the most dramatic moments of the news conference, Ksenia Sobchak, a TV personality who has said she plans to run against Putin in a presidential election in March, asked him about what she said was the lack of political competition.
Putin, 65, has been in power, either as president or prime minister, since the end of 1999.
In particular, Sobchak asked about the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny who looks unlikely to be allowed to run in the election due to what Navalny says is a trumped up criminal case.
Putin, who polls suggest will be comfortably re-elected, warned that candidates like Navalny would destabilize Russia and usher in chaos if elected.
“Do you want attempted coups d’etat? We’ve lived through all that. Do you really want to go back to all that? I am sure that the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens do not want this.”
Putin said the authorities were not afraid of genuine political competition and promised it would exist.
Navalny, commenting on social media, said Putin’s response showed that barring him from taking part in next year’s presidential election was “a political decision.”
“It’s like he’s saying we’re in power and we’ve decided that it (Navalny running) is a bad idea,” Navalny said.
Putin disclosed he planned to run as an independent candidate and garner support from more than one party, in a sign the former KGB officer may be keen to strengthen his image as a “father of the nation” rather than as a party political figure.
Putin named as priority issues nurturing a high-tech economy, improving infrastructure, healthcare, education and productivity and increasing people’s real incomes.
He coughed his way through the first part of the news conference at times, and misread a placard held up by a journalist which he incorrectly thought said “Bye Bye Putin,” an error he quipped was due to age affecting his eyesight.
CNN Botches Major ‘Bombshell’ Alleging Contacts Between Don Jr. And WikiLeaks
CNN misreported key details of an offer made to Donald Trump Jr. last year of a batch of stolen Wikileaks documents.
The story, which CNN published on Friday and covered extensively on TV, was touted as the first evidence that the Trump campaign was given a heads-up about documents stolen from Democrats.
But the story appears to have been riddled with errors, while also lacking key context.
Perhaps the most jarring error in the CNN report is the date on which Trump Jr. was sent the email. The network reported that a person named Mike Erickson emailed Trump Jr. and others on the Trump campaign on Sept. 4, 2016, with a link to Wikileaks documents as well as a decryption key to access them.
The email also offered access to emails that had been stolen from former Sec. of State Colin Powell, according to CNN.
But a copy of the email provided to The Daily Caller shows that Erickson sent the email on Sept. 14.
That date is significant because WikiLeaks had released a batch of stolen documents on Sept. 13. The group touted its release of the DNC documents, which were published by Guccifer 2.0.
The email shows that Erickson messaged Trump Jr. stating that “Wikileaks has uploaded another (huge 678 mb) archive of files from the DNC.”
“It is too big for me to send you by e-mail attachments, but you can download it yourselves,” he added, providing a link to the same website cited by Wikileaks the day before.
He also included a link to a decryption key that could be used to access the documents.
The Washington Post first reported on the true date and wording of the Erickson email.
The site that Erickson linked to leads to a page where a file with the same file name referenced in the Wikileaks tweet could be downloaded.
Powell’s emails were also published online on Sept. 13. DC Leaks, a group that has been affiliated with the Russian government, published the documents online. The group granted access to the documents to several news organizations, including The Daily Caller. How CNN got its report so wrong is unclear.
The article states that its information was based on a read-out of the Trump Jr. email provided by an unnamed source. Trump Jr.’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, speculated on Friday that the source was on the Democratic side of the House Intelligence Committee, which interviewed Trump Jr. earlier this week.
Erickson also appears not to be a super-secret Kremlin agent. The Post identified him as the president of an aviation management company.
Attempts made by The Daily Caller to contact him were unsuccessful.
Futerfas, the lawyer for Trump Jr., said that the real estate executive received “tons of unsolicited emails” during the campaign.
“The email was never read or responded to — and the House Intelligence Committee knows this,” he said in a statement.
“This email arrived after published media reports disclosed 12 hours earlier that hacked documents had been posted. The suggestion that this information was not public is false.”
Futerfas blasted the House Intelligence Committee over what he says is its leak of the story.
“It is profoundly disappointing that members of the House Intelligence Committee would deliberately leak a document, with the misleading suggestion that the information was not public, when they know that there is not a scintilla of evidence that Mr. Trump Jr. read or responded to the email,” he said.
Trump lawyer: ‘The president cannot obstruct justice’
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, revealed Monday a potential legal defense in the ongoing Russia probe, claiming that a president cannot obstruct justice.
“The president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under (the Constitution’s Article II) and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd told NBC News Monday.
Dowd added that the president’s weekend tweet — which many have argued strengthened a potential obstruction of justice case for special counsel Robert Mueller — “did not admit obstruction.”
“That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion,” Dowd said.
His comments were first reported by Axios and came two days after Trump tweeted, “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI.”
“He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” Trump wrote in his Saturday tweet — his first public comments about his former national security adviser after Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about speaking with Russian officials.
The tweet caused an uproar in Washington because it implied Trump knew Flynn had committed a felony — lying to the FBI — when he told then-FBI director James Comey to go easy on Flynn the day after the firing.
Interfering in the FBI’s investigation could be construed as obstructing justice, potentially creating legal jeopardy for Trump, some experts argued.
But within a few hours of the Saturday post, Dowd stepped in to say that he wrote the tweet, not the president.
Meanwhile, several lawmakers and legal experts immediately weighed in Monday morning to express their disagreement with Dowd’s position that the president cannot obstruct justice.
“I hope my Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate will take the lead on this issue and also on obstruction of justice. There is a credible case of obstruction of justice against Donald Trump,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“If you take the president’s own statement, his tweet that he knew Michael Flynn was lying to the FBI when he fired him, which means that he knew Michael Flynn committed a felony when he asked Comey to stop the investigation of him, and when he fired Comey when he refused to do so, and when he fired Sally Yates and when he called Michael Flynn in April to tell him to stay strong, all of these acts are to impede and obstruct justice,” he explained.
Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump, acknowledged in an interview with NPR that charging a president with obstruction “is a very high bar, it’s a very high threshold, it’s a difficult thing, it’s never been done before.”
“But the mere fact that the president is the president doesn’t immunize him from an accusation of obstruction,” Bharara said.
The articles of impeachment against both former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton included charges of obstruction of justice.
But another prominent legal expert defended Dowd’s theory.
“You cannot charge a president with obstruction of justice for exercising his constitutional right to fire Comey and his constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department who to investigate, who not to investigate,” Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Fox News Channel on Monday. “For obstruction of justice by the president, you need clearly illegal acts.”
“The president could’ve pardoned Flynn if he were really thinking about trying to end this investigation. He would’ve pardoned Flynn and then Flynn wouldn’t be cooperating with the other side and the president would’ve had the complete authority to do so,” he added. “So I think the fact that the president hasn’t pardoned Flynn even though he has the power to do so is very good evidence that there’s no obstruction of justice going on here.”
