"I'm not Trump" Lol, we know! That's why we didn't vote for you. My name is ....... * blankly stares into the camera, looks down at campaign badge "Damn it's upside down."
INVESTIGATIVE GROUP Hillary Clinton speaks to the Childrenís Defense Fund in Washington, U.S., November 16, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts - RTX2U1G4 Senate Committee Launches First New Clinton Corruption Investigation RICHARD POLLOCK Reporter 7:26 PM 06/04/2017 14806 4838 Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has launched a new investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s effort to thwart a Bangladesh government corruption probe of Muhammad Yunus, a Clinton Foundation donor and close friend of the Clintons. The Iowa Republican’s effort is the first new official inquiry of Clinton since her unexpected loss in the 2016 presidential election to President Donald Trump. Trump’s supporters often chanted “lock her up” during his many boisterous campaign rallies. But upon assuming the presidency, Trump and leaders of the Republican-majority Congress displayed little appetite for reopening investigations of Clinton’s tenure as the chief U.S. diplomat and multiple persistent allegations of “pay-to-play” corruption involving the Clinton Foundation. Until now. The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF) Investigative Group exclusively reported in May that Clinton sent top U.S. diplomats to pressure Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina and her son Sajeeb Wazed in an effort to kill that country’s corruption investigation of Yunus and Grameen Bank. Yunus was then managing director of the state-owned Bangladesh bank. Sponsored Content Sponsored Links by In a June 1, 2017, letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Grassley repeated TheDCNF charge that Clinton threatened Wazed with an IRS tax audit if his mother did not back away from the corruption probe. Wazed has lived in the U.S. for 17 years. “If the Secretary of State used her position to intervene in an independent investigation by a sovereign government simply because of a personal and financial relationship stemming from the Clinton Foundation rather than the legitimate foreign policy interests of the United States, then that would be unacceptable,” Grassley told Tillerson. “Co-mingling her official position as Secretary of State with her family foundation would be similarly inappropriate. It is vital to determine whether the State Department had any role in the threat of an IRS audit against the son of the Prime Minister in retaliation for this investigation,” Grassley continued. Grassley described how U.S. ambassadors James Moriarty and Dan Mozena, as well as Jon Danilowica, the Deputy Chief of Mission, met with Wazed in the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, on numerous occasions while the corruption investigation was underway. All three are career diplomats. Another official, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah also met with Wazed. Shah’s agency awarded $13 million to Yunus organizations and another $11 million to allied Yunus organizations during Clinton’s tenure. The Department of State oversees USAID programs. As TheDCNF previously reported, Clinton’s aid to Yunus included 18 grants, contracts and loans awarded to two of his America-based foundations, the Grameen Foundation USA and Grameen America, according to USASpending.gov. Yunus was stripped of his directorship of the state owned Grameen Bank in 2011 as a result of the Bangladesh government’s review of his financial mismanagement of the bank and its “micro-credit” loan program for poor peasants, mainly women. A Norwegian documentary charging Yunus personally diverted $100 million intended for Grameen Bank and for the poor to his other organizations triggered the initial investigation against him. The pocketing of funds shocked many in poverty-stricken Bangladesh where the annual per capita income is about $3,600, according to the World Bank. Yunus eventually returned the money to Grameen Bank, but the government’s investigation exposed serious financial mismanagement and found the micro-loan program failed to lift recipients out of poverty. He was forced to resign under a law making 60 the maximum age for the bank’s top position. Yunus was 70 at the time. Interest rates and payback amounts of the micro-loans sometimes resulted in more poverty, not less. Rather than re-paying the loans, a number of recipients in Bangladesh and India committed suicide. Clinton’s support for Yunus dates to former President Bill Clinton’s years as Arkansas governor. Both Clintons became micro-credit loan advocates and enthusiastic backers of Yunus, who invented the lending scheme. Bill Clinton reportedly lobbied the Nobel Prize Committee on behalf of Yunus. The committee awarded him the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. From 2008 onward, Yunus was a featured speaker at the glitzy Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting. He donated between $100,000-$250,000 to CGI and $25,000-$50,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to the Clinton Foundation website. Wazed told TheDCNF it was “astounding and mind boggling” to him that between 2010 and 2012 senior State Department officials repeatedly pressured him to influence his mother to drop the Grameen Bank investigation. “They threatened me with the possibility of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service,” Wazed said. “They would say over and over again, ‘Yunus has powerful friends’ and we all knew they were talking of Secretary Clinton. Everybody knew it was Mrs. Clinton.” Grassley noted in his letter to Tillerson that Wazed recounted for Senate investigators “two conversations with then-Deputy Chief of Mission to Bangladesh Jon Danilowicz during which Danilowicz mentioned that Wazed may be audited by the IRS if he failed to use his influence to get his mother to drop the investigation into Yunus.” Grassley added new details stating, “Furthermore, he was told by these same officials that Yunus was communicating with Secretary Clinton and her staff for assistance and, in turn, Secretary Clinton’s staff put pressure on the Embassy in Bangladesh to intercede on Yunus’ behalf.” The World Bank also unexpectedly decided during Clinton’s tenure in 2012 to rescind a $1.2 billion loan to Bangladesh while the IRS was pressuring Wazed. The funds were sought to build a key bridge near Dhaka. Clinton’s inner circle of State Department aides kept her apprised of developments throughout the probe. When Clinton confident Melanne Verveer told her of Yunus’ resignation on May 14, 2011, the former secretary of state described it as “sad indeed.” In 2016, Grassley complained about the Clinton Foundation to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and to the FBI regarding public corruption charges. However, this is the first time since Trump took office that Grassley renewed an investigation into Clinton, this time for her retaliatory actions against Bangladesh on behalf of Yunus. Grassley requested that Tillerson provide the judicial panel with all related emails and State Department records or communications by June 15. The senator also asked if the matter had been referred to the Department of Justice or the State Department’s Inspector General. “If not, why not?” Grassley asked Tillerson. Follow Richard on Twitter Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contactlicensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Here is the definitive analysis on this Trump Jr business. It's from Gregg Jarrett (attorney) at Fox News. I agree with this analysis wholeheartedly because it's accurate. Extra Goat Roper and Phony Snark are ridiculously off base (and are not attorneys even though they purport to be). --- By Gregg Jarrett Published July 11, 2017 Erasmus, the noted classical scholar, described lawyers this way: A most learned species of profoundly ignorant men. He had a point. How else do you explain the wild pronouncements of lawyers like Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter and Senator Tim Kaine, D-Virginia? Each have suggested Donald Trump Jr. committed treason by meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. All three lawyers earned their degrees at Harvard or Yale. Yet, they appear to have slept through their class on constitutional law. Treason? Preposterous Treason is defined in Article 3 of the Constitution and codified in 18 USC 2381: “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, either levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort with the U.S. or elsewhere.” Meeting with a Russian lawyer is not treason. The U.S. is not at war with Russia. Even if the president’s son received information from the Russian government or otherwise collaborated with foreign officials, it constitutes neither waging war against the U.S. nor aiding the enemy. If it were otherwise, a myriad of Republican and Democratic Senators who admit meeting with the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, might be somehow guilty of treason. In these meetings, information is surely exchanged. No one has ever suggested it rises to the level of criminality. Indeed, it is what diplomats and foreign officials do. It is what our own officials do in foreign lands. Collusion has nothing to do with elections and political campaigns. Which renders special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation meaningless. He is tasked with finding a crime that does not exist in the law. It is a legal impossibility. Even if the Trump campaign had acted on information provided by the Russian lawyer, it would still not constitute treason. Even conspiring to subvert the government does not rise to the level of treason. Under our Constitution, Americans are permitted to speak against the government, undermine political opponents, support harmful policies or even place the interests of another nation ahead of those of the U.S. You would think these lawyers, however misguided by their political prejudices, would nevertheless comprehend such a fundamental principle of constitutional and statutory law. Clearly, they do not. Each harbor their own biases which have blinded them to the law. Tribe and Painter sued President Trump within days of his taking office. They claim his many business dealings violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Their case is without merit. Kaine might be described as a “sore loser,” having lost the presidential election as Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate. Before perpetuating the treason canard, these lawyers should reread the famous 1953 case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were convicted of espionage after providing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. They were not charged with treason because the U.S. was not “at war” with the Soviets. So let’s dispense with all this silliness over treason. Collusion? No Such Thing Now, amid the cacophony of claims that the Trump campaign committed the criminal offense of “collusion” with the Russians, no one has managed to point to a statute that makes colluding with a foreign government in a political campaign a crime. Why? Because it cannot be found anywhere in America’s criminal codes. As explained in an earlier column, “collusion” is a loaded word conjuring all manner of incriminating behavior. Yet, it exists only in anti-trust laws which forbid price fixing and other anti-competitive activities under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Collusion has nothing whatsoever to do with elections and political campaigns. Of course, that inconvenient fact has not stopped politicians, pundits and journalists from either misunderstanding the concept and/or misconstruing its application to the Trump-Russia hysteria. It also renders special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation meaningless. He is tasked with finding a crime that does not exist in the law. It is a legal impossibility. The only conceivable crime tangentially related to collusion is found at 18 USC 371, entitled “Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.” It makes it a felony for two or more persons to enter into an agreement to interfere or obstruct a lawful function of the government. An election would be a lawful government function. However, it must be done by “deceitful or dishonest means.” So let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Russian lawyer provided information damaging to the Clinton campaign and the Trump campaign then acted on the material by disseminating it to the public. How is that deceitful or dishonest? It is not. But this is not what happened, as best we know. According to Trump Jr., the lawyer offered no information at all. Indeed, the lawyer insists the subject of the campaign was never broached. Let’s play another “what if.” What if the Russian lawyer handed Trump Jr. a file and said, “here is information which we hacked from the DNC and the Clinton campaign?” If the president’s son accepted the file, then he could be accused of knowingly receiving stolen property. But again, there is no evidence this ever happened. It is worth remembering that the hacked information was not made public by Wikileaks until after the June 9th meeting. Months later, in October, the U.S. government officially acknowledged Russian interference in the election. There is one final law to be considered. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, soliciting and/or receiving foreign donations is prohibited (11 CFR 110.20). This includes “money or other thing of value.” Is information, by itself, a “thing of value?” One could attempt to make that argument, but it has never been interpreted that way. Moreover, campaign election laws are rarely the subject of criminal prosecutions. The vast majority of cases are civil violations resulting in fines. But again, both Trump Jr. and the Russian lawyer agree that no information related to the presidential campaign was conveyed. If true, this statute is inapplicable. As much as President Trump’s opponents may wish it to be, it is not a crime to meet with a Russian. Nor is it a crime to meet with a Russian lawyer or government official. Even gathering information from a foreign source is permissible. Unwise and ill-advised, yes. Illegal, no. Until such time as Congress decides to pass a bill – and the president signs it into law – criminalizing “collusion” with a foreign government in an American political campaign … no law has been broken here. Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News Anchor and former defense attorney.
I was thinking of Session's lame reply to Congressman Biggs yesterday. Biggs asked him how he would decide if a special counsel was needed. Sessions replied that he would rely on the advice of of his deputies. Biggs then asked if it were not possible that they McCabe/Rosenthal were conflicted. So sessions says that he will rely on the advice of ethics counsel in the department. Wrong fucking answer. Have a goddam view yourself dildo. Anyway, yes, I made that same point yesterday so, so shoot me. But the little thing that popped into my mind earlier today was that this would be the same goddam internal ethics lawyers who were okay with Comey putting McCabe in charge of the Hillary investigation while his wife was on the take from the dem party. oy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rosenthal is running the AG's office and he is crooked and part of the swamp and needs to be investigated himself, particularly in regard to his uranium investigation. If Rosenthal tells Sessions that they can handle any investigations of Hillary internally without a special counsel, then shit-for-brains Sessions will be there in a second. The only saving grace would be if the oversight committee continues to slap him around and make him conclude that he needs to think about some of this shit because probably the views of the oversight committee and the president are more important to his future than mccabes and Rosenthal's. Keeping my expectations..........lowwwwwwwwwwwwww. Very low. But allowing for some chance. An internal investigation is just giving it all to Rosenthal to do what he and maccabe did under Loretta. Full disclosure: I suppose the new fbi director could be a factor and I don't know a damn thing about him- good or bad. So that is wild card. It does help to have comey gone. We know that Sessions does not do any original thinking, so it is just a matter of who he is surrounded by.