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SuperiorMan wrote:The US misses Trump. Trump is what they need right now not Biden and his mutt Harris.
Trump-Russia Steele dossier analyst charged with lying to FBI
A Russian analyst who worked on a dossier that made unsubstantiated claims linking Donald Trump to the Kremlin has been arrested in the US.
The Department of Justice charged Igor Danchenko, 43, with lying to the FBI.
He was detained as part of an inquiry into the origins of baseless claims that Mr Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
The so-called Steele Dossier was used by the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants on a top Trump aide.
The document was held up by Democrats to paint Mr Trump as a Russian puppet, a narrative amplified in a feedback loop by most US media for much of the president's four years in office.
A lawyer for the Russian analyst did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters news agency reports.
Mr Danchenko worked with ex-British spy Christopher Steele on the dossier.
Published by Buzzfeed 10 days before Mr Trump took office, the Steele Dossier made a number of explosive claims linking Mr Trump to the Kremlin - including that Russia had compromising material on the Republican candidate. Mr Trump always dismissed the allegations as a hoax.
Mr Steele was hired to conduct the research through a law firm on behalf of Mr Trump's political opponents, including the campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in the 2016 election.
Mr Steele has previously defended his work, but recently acknowledged to ABC News that "not everything in the dossier is 100% accurate".
According to the federal indictment, a US-based public relations executive "who was a long-time participant in Democratic Party politics" was "a contributor of information" to the dossier.
Mr Danchenko, it is alleged, lied to agents when he said he had never communicated with this unnamed PR executive about the dossier allegations.
A statement released by the US Department of Justice says Mr Danchenko was charged with making false statements to the FBI five times in 2017, "regarding the sources of certain information that he provided to a UK investigative firm".
The Russian national appeared briefly before a judge on Thursday in Alexandria, Virginia.
As early as July 2016, US investigators began to examine whether there were any links between Mr Trump and the Kremlin. This led the following year to a major investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The dossier was the basis for a wiretap on Trump adviser Carter Page. A former FBI lawyer who worked on the Carter Page case later pleaded guilty to altering an email related to the surveillance application.
In 2019, the Mueller investigation concluded that it could not determine any criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
It also found that Russia had interfered in the election "in sweeping and systematic fashion", and outlined 10 times when Mr Trump possibly impeded the investigation.
Following this, the Trump administration announced an investigation into the origins of the inquiry into Russian interference. Mr Trump had long called for such a probe.
Then-Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham, a US attorney in Connecticut, as the senior federal prosecutor.
This is the latest arrest under the investigation. In September officials under Mr Durham charged a prominent lawyer for allegedly making false statements to the FBI.
They got the leader they deserveSuperiorMan wrote:The US misses Trump. Trump is what they need right now not Biden and his mutt Harris.
SuperiorMan wrote:
redmanjp wrote:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59168626Trump-Russia Steele dossier analyst charged with lying to FBI
A Russian analyst who worked on a dossier that made unsubstantiated claims linking Donald Trump to the Kremlin has been arrested in the US.
The Department of Justice charged Igor Danchenko, 43, with lying to the FBI.
He was detained as part of an inquiry into the origins of baseless claims that Mr Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
The so-called Steele Dossier was used by the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants on a top Trump aide.
The document was held up by Democrats to paint Mr Trump as a Russian puppet, a narrative amplified in a feedback loop by most US media for much of the president's four years in office.
A lawyer for the Russian analyst did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters news agency reports.
Mr Danchenko worked with ex-British spy Christopher Steele on the dossier.
Published by Buzzfeed 10 days before Mr Trump took office, the Steele Dossier made a number of explosive claims linking Mr Trump to the Kremlin - including that Russia had compromising material on the Republican candidate. Mr Trump always dismissed the allegations as a hoax.
Mr Steele was hired to conduct the research through a law firm on behalf of Mr Trump's political opponents, including the campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in the 2016 election.
Mr Steele has previously defended his work, but recently acknowledged to ABC News that "not everything in the dossier is 100% accurate".
According to the federal indictment, a US-based public relations executive "who was a long-time participant in Democratic Party politics" was "a contributor of information" to the dossier.
Mr Danchenko, it is alleged, lied to agents when he said he had never communicated with this unnamed PR executive about the dossier allegations.
A statement released by the US Department of Justice says Mr Danchenko was charged with making false statements to the FBI five times in 2017, "regarding the sources of certain information that he provided to a UK investigative firm".
The Russian national appeared briefly before a judge on Thursday in Alexandria, Virginia.
As early as July 2016, US investigators began to examine whether there were any links between Mr Trump and the Kremlin. This led the following year to a major investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The dossier was the basis for a wiretap on Trump adviser Carter Page. A former FBI lawyer who worked on the Carter Page case later pleaded guilty to altering an email related to the surveillance application.
In 2019, the Mueller investigation concluded that it could not determine any criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
It also found that Russia had interfered in the election "in sweeping and systematic fashion", and outlined 10 times when Mr Trump possibly impeded the investigation.
Following this, the Trump administration announced an investigation into the origins of the inquiry into Russian interference. Mr Trump had long called for such a probe.
Then-Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham, a US attorney in Connecticut, as the senior federal prosecutor.
This is the latest arrest under the investigation. In September officials under Mr Durham charged a prominent lawyer for allegedly making false statements to the FBI.
Ex-Director of National Intelligence claims Biden and Obama KNEW ABOUT Hillary campaign plot to hack Trump servers: 'Enough evidence in Durham's Russia probe to indict MULTIPLE people'
John Ratcliffe told Special Counsel John Durham that there is 'enough evidence' to indict 'multiple people' connected to the origins of the Trump-Russia probe
The former Director of National Intelligence met with Durham more than once
Ratcliffe's pointed Durham to a declassified CIA memo of Clinton approving looking into Trump's Russia ties as a way of distracting from her email scandal
The report was sent directly to then FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok
New bombshell reports now reveal Clinton paid people to hack servers at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign and White House servers following the election
A poll taken before those reports came out show that now even Democrats want Clinton questioned over her role in the Russian secret server scandal
44% of party loyalists believed she should be interrogated last October, but the number jumped to 66% in a January polling
By KATELYN CARALLE, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER and MICHELLE THOMPSON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 13:44 GMT, 14 February 2022 | UPDATED: 22:24 GMT, 14 February 2022
Trump era Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe says Joe Biden and Barack Obama knew Hillary Clinton's campaign was trying to hack into Trump's servers to try and find links to the Kremlin.
Ratcliffe said former CIA Director John Brennan told Obama and the then-president and Vice President Biden in 2016 about allegations Clinton was trying to fabricate Trump's links to Russia to distract from the scandal over her deleted emails.
The former DNI also told Fox News Digital on Monday there is 'enough evidence' to indict 'multiple people' in Special Counsel John Durham's probe into the origins of the Russia investigation into ex-President Doanld Trump.
It follows Durham's bombshell claims in legal filings over the weekend that Clinton's campaign paid a firm to target servers in Trump Tower to create a fake scandal while he was still in office.
Clinton allegedly approved in the 2016 election 'a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server,' according to a CIA Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL) first revealed when a heavily-redacted version became declassified in October 2020.
The September 2016 memo was forwarded from the CIA to the FBI to the attention of then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok - the 'FBI lover' who had a relationship with Lisa Page.
Trump sent a short statement Monday morning with feelings of vindication after Durham's filing revealed Clinton's plot to link him to Russia.
'I was proven right about the spying, and I will be proven right about 2020!' he wrote, insisting his claims of fraud and meddling in the 2020 presidential election will also be confirmed.
'What did John Brennan tell President Obama in the Oval Office in 2016?' Fox News' Bill Hemmer asked Ratcliffe during an interview Monday.
'Well, I can talk about this because this part has been declassified,' he prefaced. 'He briefed President Obama and Vice President Biden and other members of the national security team about this specific intelligence that John Durham now has about a Hillary Clinton plan to falsely accuse and vilify Donald Trump with a scandal, and the discussion around that and whether or not it was good intelligence.'
'And so everything that happened after that is one of the reasons that John Durham is investigating,' Ratcliffe added.
'Those are the issues that John Durham is looking at and I think there will be many more,' he said. 'I would expect there to be quite a few more indictments because of that. There wasn't a proper predicate to begin that investigation and John Durham has said that publicly already.'
DailyMail.com reached out to an Obama spokesperson regarding the alleged briefing but did not get a response.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the Ratcliffe claims during Monday's briefing and referred reporters to the Justice Department for all questions related to the Durham report.
redmanjp wrote:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10511033/Ex-DNI-told-Durham-evidence-indict-MULTIPLE-people-Trump-Russia-probe.htmlEx-Director of National Intelligence claims Biden and Obama KNEW ABOUT Hillary campaign plot to hack Trump servers: 'Enough evidence in Durham's Russia probe to indict MULTIPLE people'
John Ratcliffe told Special Counsel John Durham that there is 'enough evidence' to indict 'multiple people' connected to the origins of the Trump-Russia probe
The former Director of National Intelligence met with Durham more than once
Ratcliffe's pointed Durham to a declassified CIA memo of Clinton approving looking into Trump's Russia ties as a way of distracting from her email scandal
The report was sent directly to then FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok
New bombshell reports now reveal Clinton paid people to hack servers at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign and White House servers following the election
A poll taken before those reports came out show that now even Democrats want Clinton questioned over her role in the Russian secret server scandal
44% of party loyalists believed she should be interrogated last October, but the number jumped to 66% in a January polling
By KATELYN CARALLE, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER and MICHELLE THOMPSON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 13:44 GMT, 14 February 2022 | UPDATED: 22:24 GMT, 14 February 2022
Trump era Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe says Joe Biden and Barack Obama knew Hillary Clinton's campaign was trying to hack into Trump's servers to try and find links to the Kremlin.
Ratcliffe said former CIA Director John Brennan told Obama and the then-president and Vice President Biden in 2016 about allegations Clinton was trying to fabricate Trump's links to Russia to distract from the scandal over her deleted emails.
The former DNI also told Fox News Digital on Monday there is 'enough evidence' to indict 'multiple people' in Special Counsel John Durham's probe into the origins of the Russia investigation into ex-President Doanld Trump.
It follows Durham's bombshell claims in legal filings over the weekend that Clinton's campaign paid a firm to target servers in Trump Tower to create a fake scandal while he was still in office.
Clinton allegedly approved in the 2016 election 'a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server,' according to a CIA Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL) first revealed when a heavily-redacted version became declassified in October 2020.
The September 2016 memo was forwarded from the CIA to the FBI to the attention of then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok - the 'FBI lover' who had a relationship with Lisa Page.
Trump sent a short statement Monday morning with feelings of vindication after Durham's filing revealed Clinton's plot to link him to Russia.
'I was proven right about the spying, and I will be proven right about 2020!' he wrote, insisting his claims of fraud and meddling in the 2020 presidential election will also be confirmed.
'What did John Brennan tell President Obama in the Oval Office in 2016?' Fox News' Bill Hemmer asked Ratcliffe during an interview Monday.
'Well, I can talk about this because this part has been declassified,' he prefaced. 'He briefed President Obama and Vice President Biden and other members of the national security team about this specific intelligence that John Durham now has about a Hillary Clinton plan to falsely accuse and vilify Donald Trump with a scandal, and the discussion around that and whether or not it was good intelligence.'
'And so everything that happened after that is one of the reasons that John Durham is investigating,' Ratcliffe added.
'Those are the issues that John Durham is looking at and I think there will be many more,' he said. 'I would expect there to be quite a few more indictments because of that. There wasn't a proper predicate to begin that investigation and John Durham has said that publicly already.'
DailyMail.com reached out to an Obama spokesperson regarding the alleged briefing but did not get a response.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the Ratcliffe claims during Monday's briefing and referred reporters to the Justice Department for all questions related to the Durham report.
The_Honourable wrote:De Dragon wrote:redmanjp wrote:De Dragon wrote:EFFECTIC DESIGNS wrote:Is it true that Jussie Smollett was found innocent and as such all charges were dropped?
Since America is typically a country without high level corruption I am doubting that this is all some conspiracy about him being friends with Obama who has influence over judges and stuff. Maybe that one is just right wing conspiracy nonsense.
Hmm so maybe he was telling the truth all along and he was infact brutally attacked by Nazis in Chicago? maybe these guys did indeed tell him that "this is MAGA country" before beating him
I know every Evidence points to him lying about this but you never know. Maybe those tears he cried wasn't make believe and it was real?
No, he was not found innocent. The charges were dropped after he did community service and forfeited his $10,000 bond to the city of Chicago.
who ever heard of getting off of sixteen felony charges, not misdemeanors, not 2 or 3 felonies but 16- just for doing 2 days community service? and doing it in advance!
Several legal analysts on cable news say that based on his age, reputation in the community etc, it was not unusual, and in fact 16 felonies might have been excessive to start with. what they mainly seem to have an issue with it how it was communicated to the Chicago P.D., Mayor's Office and John Public.
FBI and DOJ to review the case
Jussie Smollett sentenced to 150 days in jail for staging hate crime
Suzy Byrne and Taryn Ryder
Thu, March 10, 2022, 9:05 PM·6 min read
Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation for staging a hate crime against himself. The actor — who received support from some Hollywood friends but failed to sway an obviously displeased judge — faced a maximum sentence of three years in state prison.
The ruling was handed down to the erstwhile Empire star, 39, by Judge James B. Linn at Chicago's George N. Leighton Criminal Courthouse on Thursday. The judge did not hold back when sentencing the actor, whom he called "profoundly arrogant," "selfish" and a "narcissistic," at the end of a wild hearing that took almost six hours. The marathon session ended with an outburst from Smollett, who maintained his innocence throughout, before he was taken immediately to jail.
"I am not suicidal," Smollett yelled in the courtroom. "I am not suicidal. I am innocent and I am not suicidal. If I did this then it means I stuck my fist in the fears of Black Americans in this country for over 400 years, and the fears of the LGBT community. Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this and I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself and you must all know that. I respect you, your honor. I respect your decision. ... I am not suicidal."
Smollett will serve a total of five months in the Cook County Jail, not prison, which is typical for shorter sentences. He was also sentenced to 30 months' felony probation, ordered to pay $120,106 of restitution to the city of Chicago and pay $25,000 fine.
"I know that there his nothing that I will do here today that will come close to the damage you have done to your own life," the judge told Smollett. "You destroyed your life as you knew it."
Linn emphasized the jury got Smollett's verdict right. In December, the entertainer was convicted for repeatedly reporting to police that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime. Prosecutors say Smollett staged the January 2019 incident to garner sympathy and help his acting career.
"Frankly, I do not believe you did it for the money," the judge said, noting Smollett was making around $2 million a year. "The only thing I can find is that you really craved the attention."
The judge scolded Smollett for preying on a country "that was slowly trying to heal past injustices and current injustices."
"You wanted to make yourself more famous, and for a while it worked," the judge continued, calling out Smollett for throwing a "national pity party for yourself."
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, applauded the five-month jail sentence, saying in a statement, "The criminal conviction of Jussie Smollett by a jury of his peers and today’s sentencing should send a clear message to everyone in the city of Chicago that false claims and allegations will not be tolerated."
Smollett faced up to three years in prison for each of the five felony counts of disorderly conduct — for making false reports in the days following the incident — for which he was convicted and a $25,000 fine. He was acquitted on a sixth count — of lying to an investigator weeks after the incident.
Although Smollett did not address the court ahead of sentencing on the advice of his attorney, his grandmother was one of many emotional witnesses who spoke on his behalf, calling him a "justice warrior."
"Jussie is loved and respected by all who know him," she said, asking the judge not to send her grandson to prison. "If you do, send me along with him."
Smollett was not expected to serve time behind bars. Legal experts pointed to the fact that he does not have any prior felony convictions, and his conviction here is for a low-level, nonviolent crime. Also, no one was injured by his crime. Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and actress Alfre Woodard were among those to write letters to the judge asking for leniency.
However, the judge pointed to "ample factors" that made prison time reasonable, including Smollett's "premeditation" for the crime, the pain he caused "real victims of hate crimes," the damage to the city of Chicago and Smollett's "performance on the witness stand" in December as he said the actor committed "perjury."
Before Smollett's sentence was handed down, his attorneys tried to persuade the judge to overturn the conviction or retry the case, citing 13 different errors in the handling of the case. They argued Smollett should have had immunity after the original charges were initially dropped. They also said that a special prosecutor never should have been appointed in this case. They also took issue with the selection of the special prosecutor.
Smollett, who is Black and gay, claimed he was the victim of a hate crime when two men wearing ski masks poured bleach on him, put a noose around his neck and yelled racist and homophobic slurs on a freezing Chicago night. He claimed he had been walking home, on Jan. 29, 2019 at about 2 a.m., after getting food at a Subway. The police investigation led to two brothers, Abimbola ("Bola") and Olabinjo ("Ola") Osundairo, who were acquaintances of the actor. They testified at the December trial that Smollett paid them $3,500 in part to stage the attack.
Smollett testified that he did not recognize them the night of the attack — and didn't know why they attacked him. He said the $3,500 was paid to Bola for personal training services. The actor also claimed he and Bola had a sexual relationship with his attorney implying homophobia could have been a motive for the attack. (Bola denied a relationship.) The defense also alleged the brothers tried to get Smollett to pay them $1 million to not cooperate with prosecutors.
Smollett was initially indicted in March 2019 on 16 counts of felony disorderly conduct. However, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's office abruptly dropped all charges weeks later, keeping his $10,000 bond and saying community service he had completed was enough. A special prosecutor was appointed to look into it in August 2019 leading to new charges against Smollett, who was written off Empire, and ultimately the conviction.
Separately, the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against Smollett in 2019 after he refused to pay back the $130,106.15 for the police investigation. Smollett filed a countersuit. The city of Chicago vowed to pursue the lawsuit after Smollett's conviction.
Smollett's defense attorneys have said they intend to fight the verdict in appellate court.
I was only quarter hard before seeing this...SuperiorMan wrote:
MaxPower wrote:I don’t like that picture of my Commander Trump.
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