FBI Said To Move To "Likely Indictment" Of Clinton Foundation, Fox News Reports

 

FBI Said To Move To "Likely Indictment" Of Clinton Foundation, Fox News Reports

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-03 05:18

Roughly at the same time that the WSJ reported of what is now a clear "civil war" between (and within) the FBI and the DOJ, Fox News anchor Bret Baier reported that the FBI's investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year has now taken a "very high priority." He added that FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case, which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.  

The FBI's White Collar Crime Division is handling the investigation, which will continue, as "there is a lot of evidence. And barring some obstruction in some way, they believe they will continue to likely an indictment."

I said sources described an "avalanche of evidence" in case & barring obstruction they'd likely continue 2 push to try for an indictment" https://t.co/2TjzxdJod1

— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) November 2, 2016

The news was cited by various traders as the catalyst that pressured the USD when it come out late on Wednesday.

"There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day," one source told Fox News, who added some of the new information is coming from the WikiLeaks documents and new emails.

He added that FBI agents are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case," and will be going back and interviewing the same people again, some for the third time, sources said. Agents are also going through what Clinton and top aides have said in previous interviews and the FBI 302, documents agents use to report interviews they conduct, to make sure notes line up, according to sources.

Here are the key highlights from his report, as summarized by Real Clear Politics:

• The Clinton Foundation investigation is far more expansive than anybody has reported so far and has been going on for more than a year.
• The laptops of Clinton aides Cherryl Mills and Heather Samuelson have not been destroyed, and agents are currently combing through them. The investigation has interviewed several people twice, and plans to interview some for a third time.
• Agents have found emails believed to have originated on Hillary Clinton's secret server on Anthony Weiner's laptop. They say the emails are not duplicates and could potentially be classified in nature.
• Sources within the FBI have told him that an indictment is "likely" in the case of pay-for-play at the Clinton Foundation, "barring some obstruction in some way" from the Justice Department.
• FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton's server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information had been taken from it.

A transcript of his statement:

BRET BAIER: Breaking news tonight -- two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations into the Clinton emails and the Clinton Foundation tell Fox the following:

 

The investigation looking into possible pay-for-play interaction between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Foundation has been going on for more than a year. Led by the white collar crime division, public corruption branch of the criminal investigative division of the FBI.

 

The Clinton Foundation investigation is a, quote, "very high priority." Agents have interviewed and reinterviewed multiple people about the Foundation case, and even before the WikiLeaks dumps, agents say they have collected a great deal of evidence. Pressed on that, one sources said, quote, "a lot of it," and "there is an avalanche of new information coming every day."

 

Some of it from WikiLeaks, some of it from new emails. The agents are actively and aggressively pursuing this case. They will be going back to interview the same people again, some for the third time.

 

As a result of the limited immunity deals to top aides, including Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, the Justice Department had tentatively agreed that the FBI would destroy those laptops after a narrow review. We are told definitively that has not happened. Those devices are currently in the FBI field office here in Washington, D.C. and are being exploited.

 

The source points out that any immunity deal is null and void if any subject lied at any point in the investigation.

 

Meantime, the classified e-mail investigation is being run by the National Security division of the FBI. They are currently combing through former Democratic Congressman Anthony Wiener's laptop and have found e-mails that they believe came from Hillary Clinton's server that appear to be new, as in not duplicates.

 

Whether they contain classified material or not is not yet known. It will likely be known soon. All of this just as we move inside one week until election day.

Baier gave more details to Fox News Channel's Brit Hume:

BRET BAIER: Here's the deal: We talked to two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations. One: The Clinton Foundation investigation is far more expansive than anybody has reported so far... Several offices separately have been doing their own investigations.

 

Two: The immunity deal that Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, two top aides to Hillary Clinton, got from the Justice Department in which it was beleived that the laptops they had, after a narrow review for classified materials, were going to be destroyed. We have been told that those have not been destroyed -- they are at the FBI field office here on Washington and are being exploited. .

 

Three: The Clinton Foundation investigation is so expansive, they have interviewed and re-interviewed many people. They described the evidence they have as 'a lot of it' and said there is an 'avalanche coming in every day.' WikiLeaks and the new emails.

 

They are "actively and aggressively pursuing this case." Remember the Foundation case is about accusations of pay-for-play... They are taking the new information and some of them are going back to interview people for the third time. As opposed to what has been written about the Clinton Foundation investigation, it is expansive.

 

The classified e-mail investigation is being run by the National Security division of the FBI. They are currently combing through Anthony Weiner's laptop. They are having some success -- finding what they believe to be new emaisls, not duplicates, that have been transported through Hillary Clinton's server.

 

Finally, we learned there is a confidence from these sources that her server had been hacked. And that it was a 99% accuracy that it had been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that things had been taken from that...

 

There has been some angst about Attorney General Loretta Lynch -- what she has done or not done. She obviously did not impanel, or go to a grand jury at the beginning. They also have a problem, these sources do, with what President Obama said today and back in October of 2015...

 

I pressed again and again on this very issue... The investigations will continue, there is a lot of evidence. And barring some obstruction in some way, they believe they will continue to likely an indictment.

 

Will the FBI stun the world and announce yet another probe is being opened into the Clinton foundation, or will the DOJ successfully stifle this and at least push it until after the elections? As we concluded last night, the last few days before the election are shaping up as very interesting.

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State Department Denies Asian Countries Are Aligning With China, Awkward Moment Follows

 

State Department Denies Asian Countries Are Aligning With China, Awkward Moment Follows

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-02 17:00

Associated Press reporter Matt Lee has once again exposed the ignorance and propaganda spewing of the State Deparment as spokesman John Kirby struggled Tuesday when he debated over the number of Asian countries that are now aligning with China instead of the United States.

As The Washington Free Beacon's Jack Heretik reports, after Malaysia signed multiple new deals with China this week, including the purchase of ships and a railroad line, questions began to swirl if Malaysia was aligning more with China. The Philippines announced last month its intention to forge closer ties with China and move away from the U.S........

DOJ Responds To Kadzik's Email To Clinton Campaign; Finds Nothing Wrong

 

DOJ Responds To Kadzik's Email To Clinton Campaign; Finds Nothing Wrong

by Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2016-11-02 14:24

After the revelation that the DOJ's assistant attorney general, Peter Kadzik, was exposed as sending information about upcoming DOJ events to his friend, Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta, from a private, non-government gmail account, many were confused, asking if this is i) legal and ii) grounds for termination, if not criminal proceedings.

As a reminder, on May 19, 2015, from his personal gmail account, Peter Kadzik emailed the gmail account of John Podesta (who then promptly forwarded it onward to everyone on the Clinton campaign) the following:

Heads Up

 

There is a HJC oversight hearing today where the head of our Civil Division will testify. Likely to get questions on State Department emails. Another filing in the FOIA case went in last night or will go in this am that indicates it will be awhile (2016) before the State Department posts the emails.

Perhaps it was the clearly laid out partisan intent to assist the Clinton campaign, coupled with the obvious dissemination of DOJ information using un-FOIAble methods, namely a private email account, that prompted Americans to demand an answer from the DOJ regarding the fate of Kadzik.

However, at least according to an initial statement from the DOJ, absolutely nothing will emerge from today's leak.As the Daily Caller reports, a spokesman for the Justice Department who reached out to the website, downplayed the significance of the email.

He argued that Kadzik was not using his Gmail account for work-related business because, the spokesman said, he was sharing public information in a personal capacity. The congressional hearing under discussion was in the public domain for several weeks and the FOIA request was publicized in a news article the night before Kadzik's email, the spokesman asserted.

Furthermore, the flak added that the email is also not evidence that Kadzik was back-channeling to the Clinton campaign because it did not contain any new or confidential information.

Finally, he declined to speculate on whether Kadzik used Gmail for work-related matters, or Kadzik's personal inference that "it will be awhile before the State department posts the emails", something which certainly not in the public domain.

In other words, nothing to see here, move along, and meanwhile Kadzik - who appears to have no intention of recusing himself - may be one of the key DOJ officials supervising the department's probe into Huma Abedin emails, despite his extensive and ongoing relationship with John Podesta and the Clinton Campaign.

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Russians Discover Secret Abandoned Arctic Nazi Base

 

Russians Discover Secret Abandoned Arctic Nazi Base

by Kristen Lee on Foxtrot Alpha, shared by Adam Clark Estes to Gizmodo

Gizmodo / 2016-11-02 13:41

Screengrab via YouTube

If you've ever looked a map of the Arctic and thought, "There's probably nothing up there but polar bears and ice," you'd be wrong! At one point in time, there were Nazis up there. But not anymore, thankfully.

Russian researchers have discovered the secret Nazi base in the Arctic after it was abandoned during World War II. The base, called "Schatzgraber" or "Treasure Hunter," was supposedly a weather station. It sits on Alexandra Land in the Franz Josef Archipelago in the Arctic Circle, reports Russian news outlet Regnum. It is a Russian territory and, as you would expect of a piece of land so far north, quite isolated.

After researchers started exploring the island, they came across over 500 relics, according to the Daily Express. They found "the ruins of bunkers, discarded petrol canisters and even paper documents." Everything had been preserved by the island's icy climate.

It's believed to have been built in 1942 under orders from Adolf Hitler himself, a year after the Nazis invaded Russia. And then:

It was then in service from 1943, before being abandoned in July 1944 when its crew were all poisoned after being forced to eat raw polar bear meat infected with roundworms while running low on supplies. The men became seriously ill, and survivors had to be rescued by a German U-boat.

The website English Russia also adds that half of the crew died from the illnesses.

The Daily Express points out that up until now, Schatzgraber was more or less a myth that only existed on written sources. This discovery proves that it was real. Everything found will be taken back to Russia, where hopefully they will one day be put on public display.

You can watch a news report on the discovery here, via Russian news outlet Russia 24.

Nowhere in the sources I read did I find mention of the Tesseract discovery, however. It seems the secret is safe still.

Hail Hydra.

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High-Ranking Justice Official Involved In Email Investigation Found To Have Close Friendship and Ties With Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta

 

High-Ranking Justice Official Involved In Email Investigation Found To Have Close Friendship and Ties With Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta

by jonathanturley

JONATHAN TURLEY / 2016-11-02 13:07

The Justice Department is under fire for allowing the involvement in the investigation of a high-ranking official with close ties to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Now, in the latest disclosure of emails, it appears that Peter Kadzik, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, proved tips to Podesta on developments in the email controversy......

First discovery of 50,000-year-old human settlements in Australian interior

 

First discovery of 50,000-year-old human settlements in Australian interior

by Annalee Newitz

Ars Technica / 2016-11-02 13:05

In a stunning discovery, a team of archaeologists in Australia has found extensive remains of a sophisticated human community living 50,000 years ago. The remains were found in a rock shelter in the continent's arid southern interior. Packed with a range of tools, decorative pigments, and animal bones, the shelter is a wide, roomy space located in the Flinders Ranges, which are the ancestral lands of the Adnyamathanha. The find overturns previous hypotheses of how humans colonized Australia, and it also proves that they interacted with now-extinct megafauna that ranged across the continent.

Dubbed the Warratyi site, the rock shelter sits above a landscape criss-crossed with deep gorges that would have flowed with water when Paleolithic humans lived here. From extensive excavations conducted last year, the archaeologists estimate that people occupied Warratyi on and off for 40,000 years, finally abandoning the site just 10,000 years ago.

By analyzing layers of earth in the shelter, the scientists were able to construct a timeline of settlement in the space. They used carbon dating on nuggets of hearth charcoal and eggshells to discover that the shelter was first occupied about 50,000 years ago. They also used a a dating technique called optically simulated luminescence (OSL) on buried grains of quartz. This technique determines when those quartz grains last saw sunlight and heat. Both techniques returned similar dates, adding to the researchers' confidence in their findings.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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San Diego Police Seize Family’s Bank Accounts Because the Dad Ran a Medical Marijuana Business

 

San Diego Police Seize Family's Bank Accounts Because the Dad Ran a Medical Marijuana Business

by C.J. Ciaramella

Reason.com Full Feed / 2016-11-02 12:15

James Slatic, a California medical marijuana business owner, found out all his family's bank accounts had been seized by the government one day in January when his 19-year-old daughter tried to buy lunch at the San Jose State University cafeteria and her card was declined.

Slatic's wife tried to transfer money to their daughter, figuring she had simply overdrawn her account, as teenagers are wont to do, but her account wouldn't work, either. What the Slatics soon learned was the San Diego police had frozen all of their bank accounts: $55,258 from Slatic's personal checking and savings account; $34,175 from his wife Annette's account; and a combined $11,260 from the savings accounts of their two teenage daughters, Penny and Lily.

"Just imagine what it's like when you're a 57-year-old business man with three kids and a house, and supporting elderly parents, and all the sudden all your money is gone," Slatic says in an interview with Reason. "It's disappeared. Your car payment bounces, your insurance doesn't go through."

The Slatics' crimes? None. Or at least, the San Diego District Attorney's Office hasn't charged them with any in the nine months since it seized their accounts.

On Tuesday the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm, filed a motion in California district court seeking the return of roughly $100,000 of the Slatic family's money. The Institute for Justice argues the seizure was a brazen and illegal use of civil asset forfeiture, a practice that allows police to seize property they suspect is connected to a crime. The owner often does not have to be convicted or even charged with a crime.

"I've not come across an abusive civil forfeiture this shocking," says Wesley Hottot, an attorney for the Institute for Justice. "We decided to become involved because his family's plight illustrates the power of civil forfeiture. Even when you've got rules in place, like in California, to protect property owners, police can still seize virtually everything you own based on one officer's suspicion."

Law enforcement groups say asset forfeiture is a vital tool to disrupt drug traffickers by cutting off their ill-gotten proceeds, but civil liberties groups argue the perverse profit incentives lead police to target everyday citizens, who then must prove their innocence to get their own property back.

The trouble for James Slatic began five days before his family's accounts were frozen, when around 30 San Diego police officers and DEA agents raided Slatic's medical marijuana business, Med-West Distribution, and seized nearly $325,000 in cash from a safe.

Slatic says he worked with the city to obtain all the necessary permits for his business, which refined marijuana oils for use in vaporizers and topical ointments. He is also politically involved in California's marijuana regulations and served on the boards of the Marijuana Policy Project and the California Cannabis Industry Association

"I had heard of [asset forfeiture] before but naively thought it was for people who don't pay their taxes or some other tawdry thing, not people who create jobs and pay taxes and are involved in the political process," Slatic says. "I didn't consider myself to be a potential target, but I was wrong."

Surveillance video shows the heavily armed law enforcement officers breaching the door and detaining Med-West employees at gunpoint.

The raid was a crushing blow to Slatic—not to mention his 35 employees, who lost their jobs and benefits without notice—but he never thought the police would go after his family's money as well. Slatic says they've been relying on help from family and friends, credit cards, as well as an online fundraising campaign, although that hasn't made much a dent in the roughly $70,000 in legal fees he's accrued so far.

The Institute for Justice argues there was no probable cause to raid Med-West. According to the warrant, law enforcement suspected Med-West was illegally producing hash oil and violating a California statute that bans the chemical extraction of controlled substances. The problem, Slatic and the Institute for Justice argue, is that Med-West only refined THC oil, not extracted it, using laboratory equipment—a far cry from a clandestine, combustible drug lab.

Likewise, the Institute for Justice says there is no traceable line between the alleged criminal activity and the personal bank accounts of Slatic's wife and daughter.

"You have to directly tie every dollar to a particularized allegation, and they've done none of that," Hottot said. "It's as if they think they have a blank check to take everything from a legal medical marijuana business owner's family. Even if we were to accept that the District Attorney has a legitimate investigation, they still don't have reason to take everything from this family and leave them nothing."

In a statement, a spokesperson for the San Diego District Attorney's Office says "the investigation related to this DEA task force raid is ongoing and the case remains under review for potential criminal charges."

"In addition, the primary mission of the asset forfeiture program is to enhance public safety by removing the proceeds of crime and other assets relied upon by criminals to perpetuate their criminal activity," the spokesperson continues. "When it comes to spending the funds, we're obligated to follow nationwide policies, procedures and guidelines set up by the Department of Justice."

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and the city have been particularly aggressive in policing medical marijuana businesses.

Although the police were working as part of a Drug Enforcement Administration task force, federal prosecutors were blocked from going after Slatic by legislation, authored by California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, that restricts Justice Department funds from being used to prosecute people who are in compliance with state medical marijuana laws.

"Asset forfeiture is and of itself theft and is a crime against ordinary people by their own government," Rohrabacher says in an interview with Reason.

"My bill wouldn't cover what happened in San Diego unless it's dealing with a federal agency," Rohrabacher continued. "But the fact is in California people voted to make medical marijuana legal a long time ago. On the face of it, this seems to be contrary to the wishes of the people, and it's time that law enforcement wakes up and realizes they can't get away with this anymore."

Earlier this year, the California legislature also passed an asset forfeiture reform bill that requires a criminal conviction for prosecutors to seize under $40,000 from someone, which would have protected Slatic's wife and daughters from having their bank accounts frozen. The law goes into effect in January.

As it so happens, Slatic worked to get that legislation passed. He says the $40,000 cap was added to the bill at the last minute at the insistence of law enforcement groups, who said it was needed to preserve their abilities to go after cartels and large criminal organizations.

Now, even if the law applies retroactively, it won't protect Slatic.

"We either capped it or weren't going to get passage, so we took it," Slatic says. "It was better than nothing, but once again [law enforcement] kept their hand in the cookie jar. It has nothing to do with cartels, it just gave them the ability to go after bigger companies like mine."

California vote on a ballot initiative next week that would make recreational marijuana legal in the state.

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White girls: Stop wearing nameplate necklaces | Fusion

This is truly one of the biggest wastes of words that I have ever read.  Truly, a ridiculous argument.



White girls: Stop wearing nameplate necklaces | Fusion

"For black Americans, names can be a form of resistance to white supremacy. Plucked from our homes in West Africa and forced into chattel slavery, bodily autonomy wasn’t the only thing stolen from us. Our names were stolen, too.

After more than 200 years of slavery and decades of Jim Crow laws, black Americans began to subvert whiteness by coming up with our own names. “The diversification of baby names in America started in the late 1960s during a larger sociocultural shift that emphasized individuality, and that’s where names for black and white Americans began to diverge,” Morgan Jerkins wrote in the New York Times.

Today, in some areas of the United States, “nearly a third of African-American girls are given a name belonging to no one else in the state (boys’ names tend to be somewhat more conservative),” David Zax wrote in Salon. So when black and brown girls and women wear nameplates, it’s not just an aesthetic choice—it’s political."

Wikileaks Exposes Collusion Between Clinton Campaign And DOJ's Peter Kadzik

Wikileaks Exposes Collusion Between Clinton Campaign And DOJ's Peter Kadzik:

Yesterday we noted that Podesta's friend Peter Kadzik was the DOJ representative chosen to head up the "thorough" review of the new Huma Abedin emails as revealed by a letter he wrote to Congress.  Given Kadzik's personal relationship with Podesta, it seemed like a "convenient" choice for the Clinton campaign. 

In the letter to Congress, the DOJ writes that it “will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,” assistant attorney General Peter J. Kadzik writes in letters to House and Senate lawmakers.

"Ironically", that is the same Peter Kadzik who has proven his "impartiality" in multiple WikiLeaks emails including this newly released bombshell in today's dump in which Kadzik provides a very helpful "heads up" about Hillary's email server investigation.

Sure, who needs an independent investigator...this guy will do just fine.

Brazile Under Fire As More Emails Purport to Show Secret Leaks of Questions To Clinton

 

Brazile Under Fire As More Emails Purport to Show Secret Leaks of Questions To Clinton

by jonathanturley

JONATHAN TURLEY / 2016-11-01 10:08

We discussed earlier how Donna Brazile, the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, denied the legitimacy of emails that showed her leaking a question to Hillary Clinton that would be asked verbatim at the CNN downhill event. The media has largely declined to investigate the claim, including confirming the receipt of the earlier email from the Clinton staffer. Now additional emails allegedly show Brazile secretly feeding information to the Clinton campaign. Again, there has been relatively little media attention to the story and CNN issued a remarkably weak response that it was "uncomfortable" with the new disclosures on Brazile's actions while a CNN commentator. "Uncomfortable"? How about words like "unethical"?

There are now three troubling levels to this story. First, CNN maintained throughout the primary that Brazile (who was well known as a supporter of Hillary Clinton) was a "neutral" commentator. It was a facially ridiculous claim for anyone familiar with Washington. Second, Brazile then alleged passed along questions to Clinton in what would be a deeply unethical act. Third, Brazile then said that the emails were not real and that she could prove it.

The easiest way to confirm the earlier story is to ask the recipient campaign adviser Jennifer Palmieri who is readily available to the media. However, reporters have not pressed Palmieri. In the meantime, Brazile gave a rambling denial of the story that would normally trigger a feeding frenzy. In addition, some techies have posted a research that they say strongly support claims of authenticity, but the response of the media has been crickets.

Now, the latest email show that Brazile revealed to the Clinton campaign the name of the person who provided her with a question that was asked of Clinton at a March 13 town hall co-hosted by CNN and TV One. Brazile also shared a question from a debate hosted by CNN a week earlier. She allegedly named Roland Martin, a TV One host who co-moderated a March 13 town hall with CNN's Jake Tapper, as her source. The March 5th email shows Brazile sharing a question with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and communications director Jennifer Palmieri that was to be asked in a March 6 debate hosted by CNN in Flint, Mich.

In a March 12 exchange, Brazile again refers to Martin and offers to provide more than just the one town hall question: "I'll send a few more. Though some questions Roland submitted," Brazile wrote to Palmieri in the March 12 email thread, which is entitled "From time to time I get the questions in advance."

Now the emails contradict the denials of other CNN figures about sharing questions with Brazile.

In a March 5 email, Brazile reportedly leaked a question that was to be asked the next day at a debate that was hosted by CNN's Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper: "One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash . . . Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint."

Then in the debate a woman named Lee-Anne Walters did ask the question of both Clinton and Sanders:

"After my family, the city of Flint and the children in D.C. were poisoned by lead, will you make a personal promise to me right now that, as president, in your first 100 days in office, you will make it a requirement that all public water systems must remove all lead service lines throughout the entire United States, and notification made to the – the citizens that have said service lines,"

In response, CNN again denied sharing questions and said "We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor." CNN has cut all ties with Brazile, but of course she remains the DNC head after replacing Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who ironically was viewed as working to rig the primary for Clinton).

It would seem of more than passing interest for the media to determine if the head of the DNC, let alone a former CNN contributor, is lying. Yet, there appears to be a minimal level of coverage of the story.