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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chao-china-state-department-inappropriate-ethics-question

NYT: Elaine Chao’s China Trip Was Canceled After ‘Alarmingly Inappropriate’ Requests

Transportation Department Secretary Elaine Chao reportedly made a series of abnormal requests to accommodate her family members ahead of an official visit to China in October 2017. The trip was then abruptly canceled after an official at the U.S. embassy in Beijing contacted the State Department with an “ethics question” about her asks, The New York Times reported.

The requests were to have federal officials arrange travel for at least one Chao family member. She also reportedly asked to have family members in government meetings, according to emails obtained by the Times.

“She had these relatives who were fairly wealthy and connected to the shipping industry,” according to a State Department official involved in planning the visit. “Their business interests were potentially affected by meetings.”

Another State Department official, David Rank, told the Times the requests were considered “alarmingly inappropriate.” Chao reportedly cancelled the trip abruptly after the ethical questions were relayed to the State Department and the Department of Transportation via media requests from the Times and others.

It’s not the first time Chao’s ethics have been questioned in recent months. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that she still owns shares in a construction materials company she vowed to divest from. It was also revealed earlier this year that Chao — who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — met with Kentucky politicians and business officials at least 10 times after her husband’s office made the requests.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/roger-stone-john-brennan-hung-treason

Stone Demands Ex-CIA Director Be ‘Hung For Treason’ In Instagram Post


GOP operative Roger Stone demanded that former CIA Director John Brennan be “hung for treason” in a Sunday Instagram post, which has since been removed from the website.


Stone, a longtime Trump associate, shared a picture of Brennan with text saying that “This psycho must be charged, tried, convicted…and hung for treason.”

The 66-year old has been under a gag order imposed by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in February. Berman Jackson is no stranger to Stone’s use of Instagram: She banned Stone from commenting on his case after he posted a picture of her with crosshairs on his Instagram account.

Stone is awaiting trial on charges of witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to Congress in the final charges brought by the Mueller investigation.

CNN reporter Brian Stelter first flagged the Sunday post in which Stone demanded that Brennan face the noose.



CNN national security analyst and former National Security Council adviser Sam Vinograd reported the post to Instagram. She received a message from Instagram saying that the social network had removed the post.



Stone’s Sunday post comes as Trump has ramped up his bid to investigate those who have investigated the President for the past two years. Trump gave Attorney General Bill Barr sweeping powers last month to declassify records from the intelligence committee as part of his review of the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

Brennan is a central character in right-wing narratives of a supposed “deep state conspiracy” that saw the CIA, FBI, and others team up with the Obama administration in 2016 to thwart Trump’s presidency.

Last week, Stone — a seasoned conspiracy monger himself — jumped into the fray, posting a picture on Instagram that served as a precursor to his hanging threat against Brennan.

“Criminal psychopath Brennan Is trying to mount this phony ‘ national security’ defense because he knows he is busted and they are coming for him (sic),” Stone wrote in a caption accompanying the post.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bannon-italy-monastery-populist-bootcamp

Italy Puts The Kibosh On Bannon’s Monastery Turned Populist Bootcamp

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon saw his dreams dashed Friday, when the Italian government revoked the lease for his monastery turned rightwing training center.

According to the Daily Beast, the culture ministry blamed paperwork issues as the rationale, specifically a lack of planning for preservation of the 800-year-old structure.

Bannon’s grand plan has already been met with protests by the locals.

“I think the populist nationalist sovereignty movement is about the reinforcement of the traditional Judeo-Christian West,” he told MSNBC’s Richard Engel back in April. “What we’re saying is let’s have an academy that brings the best thinkers together and can actually train what we call ‘modern gladiators.’”

Team Bannon plans to appeal the Italian government’s decision.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...gher-war-crimes-kill-hundreds-civilian-iraqis

Hunter Defends Alleged War Criminal: My Unit Probably Killed ‘Hundreds Of Civilians’

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) defended a U.S. soldier accused of war crimes again last week on the basis that Hunter’s unit in the military had killed “probably hundred of civilians” while touring in Iraq.

Hunter appeared on a military podcast called Zero Blog Thirty on Tuesday to discuss his stance on Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL chief who allegedly slit a teen ISIS fighter’s throat and posed with the corpse. Gallagher is also accused of shooting civilians. President Donald Trump is apparently considering giving Gallagher a pardon.

“I frankly don’t care if he was killed,” Hunter said of the ISIS militant. “Even if everything the prosecutors say is true in this case, Eddie Gallagher should still be given a break, I think.”

One of the hosts asked, “So you’re saying that even if he did take a knife to the throat of this ISIS fighter, even though that goes against our rules—”

“Yeah,” said Hunter. “I think this guy was gonna die anyway.”

“I was an artillery officer and we fired hundreds of rounds into Fallujah,” the GOP congressman continued. “Killed probably hundreds of civilians, if not scores if not hundreds of civilians, probably killed women and children, if there were any left in the city when we invaded, so do I get judged too?”

Hunter made similarly eyebrow-raising defenses of Gallagher last week when the congressman admitted that he had taken pictures of dead enemy combatants and “saying something stupid” while he was in Iraq.
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https://www.mediaite.com/print/trump-transition-associate-indicted-by-feds-on-child-porn-charges/

Trump Transition Associate Indicted by Feds on Child Porn Charges

A former liaison between President Donald Trump‘s transition team and foreign officials has been indicted by federal officials over child pornography charges.

George Nader, a Lebanese-American business executive, has been under scrutiny for some time because of his reported connections with the Middle East and Russians who wanted to make early contact with 2017 transition officials. Nader served as a key witness to the special counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation, and according to court documents obtained on Monday by the Washington Post, he is now facing indictment in federal court in Virginia.

According to the report, Nader was served a subpoena last year while he was detained by federal agents at Dulles International Airport. It isn’t clear exactly what child porn charges Nader faces, but this indictment comes 28 years after he was convicted of transporting child pornography. He was let off with a light sentence at the time because of his involvement with an effort to secure U.S. hostages held in Lebanon.

Nader has been described as cooperating with investigators and provided grand jury testimony about his interactions with Trump supporters. Even so, the Postreports that there are outstanding questions about the purpose of a meeting Nader set up between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian official close to Vladimir Putin.
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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/house-oversight-contempt-ross-barr-census

House Oversight To Vote On Contempt For Ross, Barr In Census Probe

The House Oversight Committee will vote to hold Attorney General Bill Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in civil contempt for their defiance of subpoenas in the committee’s Census citizenship question investigation.

Chairman Elijah Cummings sent Barr and Ross letters Monday informing them the committee was scheduling the contempt vote.

The letters give the two officials one last chance to, by June 6, produce the documents the committee demanded.

The committee in April issued subpoenas for 11 key documents related to the decision to add the question. It also sought the testimony from Justice Department official John Gore, who was involved in writing a Justice Department request that the question be added. Gore sat down for a voluntary interview with the committee earlier this year but declined to answer certain questions on the instruction of the DOJ lawyer. The committee subpoenaed him for the full testimony, but he did not show up for the deposition on the instructions of the Department, which objected to the committee’s refusal to let a DOJ attorney sit in on the deposition.

The letters reference new evidence unveiled last week by the groups who are legally challenging the question — evidence that further contradicts the administration’s official rationale for adding the question. Ross has said that he added it in response to a Justice Department request, authored by Gore, which claimed that it would enhance the department’s Voting Rights Act (VRA) enforcement. Internal documents released in the litigation revealed that Ross had been seeking the question well before the Justice Department’s official request, and last week the challengers put forward additional evidence that the VRA rationale was was not the administration’s true reason for adding the question.

According to the new evidence, Gore had received a draft of the request that was partially ghostwritten by a GOP gerrymandering guru who had previously studied how asking the question could facilitate a redistricting overhaul that would boost Republicans’ electoral advantage. Gore had admitted to receiving the draft in the committee interview, but declined to answer additional questions about it. The role the gerrymandering expert, who is now deceased, played in writing the draft was unknown until the challengers made it public last week
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