Wednesday, June 28, 2017

This is FNN: Fake News Network White House correspondent apparently wants to be on tv, doesn't like audio only press conferences-Rush Limbaugh

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6/27/17, "Could Donald Trump Be the End of CNN?" Rush Limbaugh

(scroll down): "RUSH: This Jim Acosta guy, little Jim Acosta, CNN....He lost it yesterday at the press briefing because once again cameras were not permitted. Little Jim is a White House correspondent for the Fake News Network, CNN. He was...heckling the press secretary, Sean Spicer, about the fact that the cameras were not turned on
....
There are kids in kindergarten who have more maturity than Jim Acosta. He threw a fit in the briefing room because it was audio only.

He claimed the Constitution was imperiled. He claimed that the nation was hanging on the precipice because Spicer and Trump wouldn’t let the TV cameras be turned on yesterday. Spicer was calling on other people and Acosta kept interrupting. He was heckling him. We put together a montage for him.

ACOSTA: (crosstalk) Maybe we should turn the cameras on, Sean.
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA: Why don’t we…
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA:…turn the cameras on?
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA: Why don’t we turn the cameras on?
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA: Why not turn the cameras on…
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA:…Sean? They’re…
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA:…in the room, the lights (crosstalk) are on.
SPICER: Doug?
ACOSTA: Why are the cameras off, Sean?
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA: Why are they — why did you…
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA:…turn them off? Can you just…
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA:…give us an answer to that? Can you…
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA:…tell us why you turned the cameras off? Why are they off? It’s a legitimate question.
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA: Can you at least give us an explanation as to why the cameras are off?
SPICER: There’s no camera on, Jim....

As far as the talent [tv reporters] is concerned, the objective is to get rid of Trump. They are failing, and it’s got to be frustrating them to no end, and we had one of them boil over yesterday, Acosta."...

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Added: Christopher Steele is the source for most of alleged Trump/Russian collusion narrative, including that Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed in Moscow, none of which has been confirmed: 

"(Former British spy Christopher) Steele’s most sensational allegations [about Trump and Russia] remain unconfirmed. For instance, his claim that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen held a “clandestine meeting” on the alleged hacking scheme in Prague with “Kremlin officials” in August 2016 unraveled when Cohen denied ever visiting Prague, his passport showed no stamps showing he left or entered the US at the time, witnesses accounted for his presence here, and Czech authorities found no evidence Cohen went to Prague.

Steele hadn’t worked in Moscow since the 1990s and didn’t actually travel there to gather intelligence on Trump firsthand. He relied on third-hand “friend of friend” sourcing. In fact, most of his claimed Russian sources spoke not directly to him but “in confidence to a trusted compatriot” who, in turn, spoke to Steele — and always anonymously.

But his main source may have been Google. Most of the information branded as “intelligence” was merely rehashed from news headlines or cut and pasted replete with errors — from Wikipedia.

In fact, much of the seemingly cloak-and-dagger information connecting Trump and his campaign advisers to Russia had already been reported in the media at the time Steele wrote his monthly reports."...

6/24/17, "Sketchy firm behind Trump dossier is stalling investigators," NY Post, Paul Sperry

"A secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump is stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections....

The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS (which hired Christopher Steele), after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal."...

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Added: In Oct. 2016 meeting, FBI told Trump/Russia "Golden Showers" dossier author that they'd pay him $50,000 if he could get solid corroboration of his reports-NY Times:

4/22/17, "Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. from Politics. Then He Shaped an Election." NY Times, Matt Apuzzo, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau 

(subhead): ‘Exceptional Circumstances’... 

(parag. 7): Just a few weeks later, in late September (2016), Mr. Steele, the former British agent, finally heard back from his contact at the F.B.I. It had been months, but the agency wanted to see the material he had collected “right away,” according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. What prompted this message remains unclear. 

Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October (2016), bringing a stack of new intelligence reports.... 

The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid."...
 
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Added: Fusion GPS refuses to disclose to US Senate Judiciary Committee who paid for "Golden Showers" dossier:

4/24/17, "[Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles] Grassley takes methodical approach, follows the money to find source of 'dodgy dossier," Washington Times, Dan Boylan 

"Lawyers from the Washington firm Cunningham, Levy, Muse LLP, which represents Fusion (GPS), cited confidentiality agreements as a reason not to divulge who paid for Mr. Steele’s work.

When Mr. Grassley’s staff followed up and asked if Fusion’s clients were willing to waive the confidentiality agreements, the firm’s lawyers replied that the clients have opted not to be known."

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Fusion GPS "Golden Showers" dossier claimed Trump hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed in Moscow:

1/10/17, "Trump, Russian Spies and the Infamous 'Golden Shower Memos'," Newsweek, Jeff Stein

"Now, according to a leaked annex to the combined U.S. intelligence agencies’ report on Kremlin intrigues in the American elections, Russian security agents watched Trump engaging in “perverted sexual acts” that were “arranged/monitored by the FSB,” the Kremlin’s leading spy agency. The FSB, it said, employed a number of  prostitutes to perform a golden showers (urination) show in front of him.”"...

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Added: In Feb. 2017 a US businessman sued Christopher Steele in UK court for false claims of internet hacking related to Steele's Trump/Russia dossier: "In his final December (2016) dossier memo — his 16th — Mr. Steele accused Mr. Gubarev and his web-hosting companies of hacking the Democratic Party computer networks with pornography and bugging devices. Mr. Gubarev calls the charge fiction and filed a lawsuit in February." Mr. Steele is author of the 'Golden Showers' anti-Trump dossier.  

April 25, 2017, "Ex-spy admits anti-Trump dossier unverified, blames Buzzfeed for publishing," Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough 

"Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the infamous anti-Donald Trump ['Golden Showers'] dossier, acknowledges that a sensational charge his sources made about a tech company CEO and Democratic Party hacking is unverified. 

In a court filing, Mr. Steele also says his accusations against the president and his aides about a supposed Russian hacking conspiracy were never supposed to be made public, much less posted in full on a website for the world to see on Jan. 10. 

He defends himself by saying he was betrayed by his client and that he followed proper internal channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to alert the U.S. government. 

Mr. Steele has not spoken publicly about his disputed opposition research project, but for the first time he is being forced to talk in a London court through his attorneys. 

Barristers for Mr. Steele and his Orbis Business Intelligence firm filed their first defense against a defamation lawsuit brought by Aleksej Gubarev, chief executive of the network solutions firm XBT Holdings. 

Mr. Steele acknowledges that the part of the 35-page dossier that identified Mr. Gubarev as a rogue hacker came from “unsolicited intelligence” and “raw intelligence” that “needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified. 

Democrats in Washington have embraced the unproven dossier as an argument for appointing a high- powered commission to investigate President Trump and his aides. 

In his final December (2016) dossier memo — his 16th — Mr. Steele accused Mr. Gubarev and his web-hosting companies of hacking the Democratic Party computer networks with pornography and bugging devices. Mr. Gubarev calls the charge fiction and filed a lawsuit in February. 

Mr. Steele’s court filing portrays him as a victim of Fusion GPS--the Washington firm that hired him with money from a Hillary Clinton backer. 

Fusion specializes in opposition research for Democrats and circulated the Steele dossier among reporters in an effort to injure the Trump candidacy and presidency. Mr. Steele said he never authorized Fusion to do that. 

“The defendants did not provide any of the pre-election memoranda to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so,” Mr. Steele said through his attorney. “Nor did they provide the confidential December memorandum to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so.” 

“At all material times Fusion was subject to an obligation not to disclose to third parties confidential intelligence material provided” by Mr. Steele and his firm Orbis, the court filing reads.

 
Mr. Steele personally signed the seven-page filing. He is represented by two London barristers who specialize in defamation cases: Gavin Millar and Edward Craven. 

Mr. Steele says the ultimate responsibility lies with BuzzFeed, the liberal news website whose editor, Ben Smith, decided to post the entire 35 pages — memos from June to December — on Jan. 10 even though Mr. Smith said he doubted the far-flung accusations were true. 

That momentous web posting sent Mr. Steele into hiding. He re-emerged March 7 in London, made a brief statement to the press and went inside his Orbis office. 

The Steele dossier’s major charge is that the Trump campaign entered into an elaborate conspiracy with Russian agents to hack Democratic Party computers. 

The Trump White House denies the charge, as do at least four people whom Mr. Steele's unidentified sources accused of breaking the law. 

The final Steel memo in December targets Mr. Gubarev and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney. 

That memo, after accusing Mr. Gubarev, then recounts from previous memos a supposed trip Mr. Cohen took to Prague in late August to meet with Russian agents and devise a plan to cover up the purported Trump team’s role in the hacking. 

Mr. Cohen calls the dossier “fabricated.” He has shown that he was in California at the time and has never been to Prague. He told The Washington Times that he has instructed his attorneys to investigate a lawsuit against Mr. Steele. 

The fact that Mr. Steele acknowledges that he put unverified “raw intelligence” into his December memo casts further doubt on his research techniques for the entire 35-page dossier. 

Although Mr. Steele portrays himself as a victim of Fusion and BuzzFeed, he acknowledges in his court filing that he provided “off-the-record briefings to a small number of journalists about the pre-election memoranda in late summer/autumn 2016.” 

The narration of the involvement of Mr. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, reads like a spy novel. 

Andrew Wood is a former British ambassador to Moscow and is an associate at the Orbis firm. After the Nov. 8 presidential election, Mr. Wood met with Mr. McCain and David J. Kramer, a former assistant secretary of state who is director of human rights and democracy at The McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. By that time, Mr. Steele had written 15 memos for the dossier. 

As a result, Mr. Wood arranged for Mr. Kramer to meet with Mr. Steele “in order to show him the pre-election memoranda on a confidential basis,” the court filing says. The meeting occurred on Nov. 28 in Surrey, England."... 


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