On Monday’s edition of CNN’s New Day, Chris Cuomo repeatedly accused the Russian state of waging “war” against America via “election hacking” in 2016. He offered his analysis while reporting from Helsinki, Finland, in anticipation of a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Cuomo said “meddling” is an insufficiently severe word to describe “election hacking.”
“The big, ugly white elephant in the room will be the U.S. election hacking,” said Cuomo. “We’ve been calling it meddling, but I’m trying to stay away from the word because it’s just way too mild. This is an act of war.”
Cuomo further framed his narrative of “election hacking” as “the truth”: “How does [Donald Trump] raise the act of war of the hacking and different attacks during the U.S. election when Vladimir Putin knows damn well that President Trump doesn’t really believe the truth and doesn’t put a whole lot of stock in the event itself?”
Putin’s mere arrival in Helsinki amounted to a “win” for the Russian president, assessed Cuomo: “It’s a win for Putin the moment he landed safely on the ground because he’s been given legitimacy by the U.S. president. Literally the world is waiting on him to get here. But the easy win for Putin is this happening at all. He’s been given legitimacy on the world stage. End of story.”
“Animus should be directed towards the Russian president [by Trump],” added Cuomo.
New Day co-anchor Alisyn Camerota implicitly advised Trump to publicly denounce Putin towards unspecified ends: “President Trump refused to condemn Putin as a ruthless leader or a foe in this new interview with ITV. … Furthermore, you know, he hasn’t really called Putin a bad guy. In other words, he doesn’t necessarily think that Putin’s a bad guy. In fact, I mean, here’s where his mindset was this morning.”
CNN International’s Christiane Amanpour concurred with Cuomo’s assertions of “election hacking” and “war.” She said, “Yes, it is an act of violation of sovereignty of the United States and the other European countries that have been cyber hacked on their electoral matters.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins appraised Trump’s rejection of the “election hacking” narrative as amounting to “repeating exactly what the Kremlin wants to hear.”
At no point did any of CNN’s anchors, correspondents, analysts, or guests qualify “election hacking.”
CNN markets itself as a non-partisan and politically objective news media outlet, branding itself “The Most Trusted Name In News.”
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.
If Russia is such a threat, why did she sell 20% of our uranium to them for $145m?
New evidence has emerged to confirm Peter Schweizer’s account in his bestselling book Clinton Cash about the corrupt tactics behind former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s approval of Russia’s purchase of 20 percent of U.S. uranium.
Josh Solomon and Alison Spann report in The Hill:
Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.
Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.
They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.
The racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.
Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefitting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.
As Breitbart News has previously reported, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was one of eight agencies to review and sign off on the sale of U.S. uranium to Russia. However, the then-Secretary of State Clinton was the only agency head whose family foundation received $145 million in donations from multiple people connected to the uranium deal, as reported by the New York Times.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov cancelled an upcoming meeting with the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas A. Shannon, Jr., according to AP, in retaliation to the Trump administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it has imposed sanctions on 38 Russian individuals and firms over Russian activities in Ukraine.
Ryabkov said that “the situation is not conducive to holding a round of this dialogue” that was scheduled for Friday and criticized the U.S. for “not having offered and not offering anything specific” to discuss.
“We have said from the very beginning of Washington’s exceptionally destructive policy in regard to applying anti-Russia sanctions, that [such measures] will not and cannot have an effect desired by the US on our individuals or entities,” Ryabkov told RIA Novosti Tuesday.
The decision to widen the list came as President Trump met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the White House.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it regrets the new U.S. sanctions against Russia and warned of possible retaliation. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the U.S. move wasn’t constructive, adding that “various options are being considered on expert level.”
Russia also said the new U.S. sanctions continue the “destructive trend” set by Obama administration.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced it has imposed additional sanctions on 38 Russian individuals and firms over Russian activities in Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the penalties are designed to “maintain pressure on Russia to work toward a diplomatic solution.” However, overnight Democrats were furious after House Republicans stalled the recently passed broader Senate bill expanding sanctions on Russia further – and which led to loud protests by European allies over potential fines over use of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline – stating the bill violated the origination clause of the Constitution.
ISIS beheads Putin’s spy and releases video on Russia’s Victory Day parade
ISLAMIC State claims it has beheaded a Russian spy captured in Syria.
The jihadists released a chilling 12 minute video of the killing boasting of its successes against Russian forces in Syria.
According to US-based SITE monitoring website, the video shows a man dressed in a black jumpsuit kneeling in the desert urging Russian agents to surrender.
The video, which also features images of Russian president Vladmir Putin, shows a bearded man wielding knife stands behind the man, said to be a Russian intelligence officer.
A narrator: “This idiot believed the promises of his state not to abandon him if he was captured.”
Moments later the man is beheaded.
The authenticity of the recording and the identity of the man could not immediately be verified, nor was it clear when the killing occurred.
Russian senator Viktor Ozerov, who heads the defence committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, said the defence ministry would check the authenticity of the video.
He told Russia’s Interfax news agency: “Even if it is a fake, it shouldn’t be left without attention. If it happened, then there will be hell to pay.”
Russian forces are backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his war with rebels and militants seeking to oust him.
The video showed scenes of what it described as the aftermath of Russian bombing raids in Syria.
The Russian defence ministry says about 30 Russian servicemen have been killed since the start of the Kremlin’s operation there in September 2015.
The FSB security service were not immediately available for comment.
It comes as Russia marks the 72nd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany with nationwide Victory Day parades in a show of military force.
ISIS has long released propaganda videos of militants beheading prisoners with aid workers, journalists and soldiers among their targets.
The terror group continue to lose ground in Syria with a group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by the US capturinga district of the town of Tabqa from ISIS on Monday.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been fighting ISIS in Tabqa for weeks, aiming to capture not just the town but its Euphrates dam, a vital strategic objective before assaulting the jihadists’ regional stronghold of Raqqa.
Russia’s defence ministry denied a Russian serviceman had been captured and executed by ISIS, Russian news agencies reported.
The Russian defence ministry did not reply to a Reuters request seeking comment.
