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Hong Kong protest organizers free on bail before sentencing

A Hong Kong court has extended bail for nine pro-democracy protest organizers convicted of public nuisance offences as they await sentencing.

The guilty verdicts handed down Tuesday against the nine were condemned by rights activists as a likely sign of more restrictions on free expression in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

The defendants left court on Wednesday and will be sentenced April 24.

The nine were leaders of 2014's nonviolent "Occupy Central" campaign, also known as the "Umbrella Movement" after a key symbol of defiance against police adopted by the street protests that shut down parts of the financial hub for 79 days.

Protesters demanded the right to choose Hong Kong's own leader rather than merely approve a candidate picked by Beijing but failed to win any concessions from the government.

Source: Fox News World

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Summitry Night Fever: Decoding the Brexit showdown

FILE PHOTO: Journalists work in the main media hall at the European Union summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Journalists work in the main media hall at the European Union summit in Brussels October 27, 2011. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

April 8, 2019

By Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European summits, jaded Englishmen have said, are like soccer: they go into extra-time, and the Germans always win.

For the journalists covering them, it is like commentating live on a match played behind closed doors: only partial information leaks out from self-promoting rival players, and even when it’s over, the final score is often far from clear.

Another high-stakes summit coming up on Wednesday is likely to be a replay of the same fixture 10 days ago, when British Prime Minister Theresa May sat in late-night talks with fellow EU leaders trying to delay Brexit until June.

Hundreds of journalists were gathered in the cavernous atrium of the Justus Lipsius Building, home to the European Council of EU national leaders.

For Reuters, the game starts days before such summits begin. Reporters tap their sources in capitals across Europe and EU institutions in Brussels, trying to work out who wants what from the meeting.

When the leaders file in, talking to cameras without translators in the 24 EU languages, our multilingual team relays their words instantly.

Once they’re in, the summit match starts in earnest.

Last month, May began the closed-door meeting by explaining her plans and taking questions from peers. She was looking for an extension to the Brexit deadline to give her more time to try to win backing from Britain’s parliament for her plan to exit the European Union.

The first sign of a story was that May’s presentation before she had to leave the room lasted well over an hour, much longer than previous such sessions. But was that good or bad for Theresa May?

One UK government source told us it had gone “OK”. But our sources among EU officials and national diplomats made clear in hushed conversations and text messages that it had gone “very badly” for her indeed.

A flurry of contradictory messages and rumors began to emerge. This is when reporters need to hold their nerve, when the urge to be quick can compete with the need to be right.

As the other 27 discussed May’s pitch among themselves, French President Emmanuel Macron was pushing to end the agony and get Britain out almost immediately. German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged caution. Europe’s power couple huddled with summit chair Donald Tusk, drafting and redrafting a response to Britain.

Outside the room, Bulgaria’s ambassador tweeted a picture, worthy of Caravaggio, of envoys crowding round one version on a screen. (https://twitter.com/DTzantchev/status/1108807850397261826)

Hours later, as reporters started preparing for yet another all-nighter, Reuters got word from upstairs of the breakthrough: a two-stage approach that might mean Brexit in May, or April. First word from one source a little after 10 p.m. meant rapid checks with others.

At nearly midnight, all was confirmed in a flurry of news conferences. By 2 a.m. our final stories were published, a much earlier finish than some EU summits.

The days that followed brought the after-match analysis. British lawmakers and others denounced the beleaguered prime minister’s performance. May had managed to take the summit into extra time. But it was the French who took the initiative early on and, again, the Germans who ran out winners.

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald @macdonaldrtr; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: OANN

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Poll: More Voters Favor Popular Vote Over Electoral College

Fifty percent of voters prefer electing the president by popular vote, compared to 34 percent who think the results should be based on the Electoral College, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll reveals.

Sixteen percent had no opinion on the election system.

Here are the highlights from the survey:

  • 30 percent of Republican voters favor presidential elections being based on the national popular vote, compared to 57 percent who prefer the Electoral College.
  • 72 percent of Democrats prefer basing presidential elections on the national popular vote, while 16 percent favor the Electoral College.
  • 46 percent of independents favor basing presidential elections on the popular vote, compared to 29 percent who prefer the Electoral College.
  • 42 percent of voters approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as president, compared to 55 percent who do not.
  • 36 percent of all those polled said they would either probably or definitely vote to re-elect Trump if the presidential election was held today, compared to 55 percent who probably or definitely would vote for someone else.

The poll, conducted March 22-24, surveyed 1,994 registered voters.  It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx defends Jussie Smollett decision

Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx defended her office's decision to dismiss charges against Jussie Smollett, claiming the "Empire" star didn't receive special treatment.

"I have been asking myself for the last two weeks what is this really about," Foxx said at the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.'s Rainbow Push Coalition on Saturday. "As someone who has lived in this city [Chicago], who came up in the projects of this city to serve as the first African American woman in this role, it is disheartening to me ... that when we get in these positions somehow the goalposts change."

She also said she'd run for re-election when her current term is complete.

JUSSIE SMOLLETT'S ALLEGED HATE CRIME HOAX: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS

Foxx reportedly mentioned in her speech that she welcomes an independent investigation into her handling of the case, saying that nearly 6,000 other "low-level defendants" received the same treatment with deferred prosecution, adding that under the law, Smollett could've been fined a maximum of $10,000 — which he effectively paid when he forfeited his bond for the same amount.

Foxx recused herself from Smollett's case after communicating with one of his relatives during the police investigation into whether or not the musician and actor staged an alleged hate crime against himself. Her office later said she never actually formally recused herself from the case.

DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER DEFENDS JUSSIE SMOLLETT, LORI LOUGHLIN

Smollett's attorney said that his case was not one of deferred prosecution when she announced that the charges against him had been dropped.

In January, Smollett told police that two masked men attacked him, put a rope around his neck and poured bleach on him as he was walking home from a Subway restaurant. The actor, who is black and openly gay, said the masked men beat him, made racist and homophobic comments and yelled, "This is MAGA country" before fleeing the scene.

JUSSIE SMOLLETT'S LAWYER THREATENS CHICAGO PD IF THEY GO AFTER ACTOR FOR CASH

However, the Chicago Police Department alleged that Smollett paid the two men, Abel and Ola Osundairo, by check for a "phony attack" in order to take "advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career." The brothers were allegedly caught on surveillance footage purchasing the rope used in the staged "attack" on Smollett.

JUSSIE SMOLLETT'S DEADLINE TO REPAY INVESTIGATIVE COSTS LOOMS

The "Sum of my Music" singer was later arrested for allegedly filing a false police report and released on a $10,000 bond. Smollett pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of disorderly conduct stemming from the alleged hoax. All charges against Smollett were dropped in late March in a move that legal experts claimed was "almost unheard of."

Still, the star isn't entirely out of the woods yet: The FBI is investigating whether Smollett sent himself a threatening hate letter to the "Empire" set, which could potentially land him behind bars for a decade for mail fraud — a federal offense.

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Smollett has maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal. His attorneys previously told Fox News they've "witnessed an organized law enforcement spectacle that has no place in the American legal system. The presumption of innocence, a bedrock in the search for justice, was trampled upon at the expense of Mr. Smollett and notably, on the eve of a Mayoral election. Mr. Smollett is a young man of impeccable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence betrayed by a system that apparently wants to skip due process and proceed directly to sentencing.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Mueller Verdict Is In, But Dems Say They'll Keep Investigating

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After nearly two years of alternating White House angst and Democratic anticipation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and final report set off a frenzy in Washington over the weekend but provided neither closure nor solace for a divided nation.

Indeed, it seemed to cement America’s dueling split-screen political realities in place for years to come.

In anticipation of the “big reveal,” Fox News’ Sean Hannity ran a banner headline Friday night: “Collusion Delusion.” Meanwhile, Neal Katyal, the acting solicitor general under President Obama, promised on MSNBC that Democrats would sink their teeth in further.

“Today what happened was the end of the beginning,” Katyal predicted.

He was one of the first in a long line of Democrats to vigorously denounce the findings as inconclusive and promise to use their House majority status to launch a long series of overlapping investigations to re-litigate the probe.

The report’s mixed messages – finding no actionable evidence of collusion but leaving the decision of pursuing obstruction of justice charges to the attorney general – left the door wide open for wildly divergent partisan interpretation.

“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Mueller said in the report, according to a four-page summary released by Attorney General William Barr.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, on Sunday took issue with the report’s ambiguity regarding whether President Trump and his team worked to obstruct justice during the investigation.

Citing “very concerning discrepancies and final decision-making at the Justice Department,” Nadler announced on Twitter plans to haul Barr before Congress “in the near future” to look into every detail of Mueller’s investigation.

“There must be full transparency in what Special Counsel Mueller uncovered to not exonerate the President from wrongdoing,” he tweeted. “DOJ owed the public more than just a brief synopsis and decision not to go any further in their work.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told fellow Democrats on a conference call Saturday she wouldn’t accept a private, classified briefing on Mueller’s report. Instead, she said she would demand that Mueller and his team provide the information to Congress in a way that allows them to discuss all the details publicly.

Six Democratic committee chairs and senior members of the delegation also reiterated their push to force Mueller to release the full report and all the underlying documents used to reach his conclusions.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee, rejected the five-page summary from Barr, arguing that it didn’t reveal enough about Mueller’s deliberations. “The American people deserve the Mueller report, not just the Barr report. Indeed, this set of summary conclusions hardly constitutes a report,” he said.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, went even further, calling the summary from Barr “crib notes” that desperately need fleshing out.

“We don’t want to see simply crib notes, we don’t want to see an outline, we don’t want to see an executive summary,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation” before the Sunday afternoon release of the Barr summary. “We need to see everything so that the American people can draw conclusions on their own.”

Trump was clearly relieved and reinvigorated after Barr concluded that the special counsel’s evidence of obstruction of justice was “not sufficient” to pursue charges against the president or any current or former members of his team.

Speaking to reporters in Florida, he labeled the report “a total exoneration.”

“There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction,” he said.

When returning to the White House later Sunday, Trump was even more ebullient. “I just want to tell you, America is the greatest place on earth – the greatest place on earth,” he told reporters before proceeding into the White House’s South Portico without taking questions.

Fellow Republicans backed him up, blasting Democrats’ plans to pore over every detail of the probe in open hearings. GOP leaders argued that two years of investigations hanging over Trump’s presidency was enough, and that it’s time to move on. They pointed to the probe’s 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, nearly 50 wiretaps and 500 interviews.

“Now that this investigation is over, Democrats need to finally end their baseless investigations and political crusade against President Trump for the good of the country,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.

Still, it was clear that Republicans, too, weren’t ready to let the issue go and miss the opportunity to investigate the investigators.

Top Republicans promised to resurrect the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails and launch their own aggressive investigations into allegations that the FBI and Obama Justice Department colluded to change the narrative and take down Trump.

Former FBI Director James Comey reacted to the Mueller report Sunday evening by tersely tweeting, “So many questions.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee chairman and Trump’s most powerful ally in the Senate, fired back: “I could not agree with you more. See you soon.”

On Friday night, one of the most pivotal moments for Trump as he awaited the results of the Mueller probe, Graham was at Mar-a-Lago for a Florida GOP fundraiser. He vowed to fully investigate the alleged anti-Trump biases of Comey and other Justice Department officials and whether they concocted a plot to force him from office.

The earlier news of no indictments was enough to buoy Trump supporters. During remarks to the crowd, Graham called for an investigation into Hillary Clinton and the origins of the infamous dossier that served as the basis for the FBI’s Russia collusion investigation.

“Lock her up!” the Trump supporters chanted cheerfully, as Trump looked on from a side table in the ballroom. That echo of the 2016 campaign seemed to underscore the “Groundhog Day” nature of national politics, a permanent state in which acrimony and distrust circle back in an endless feedback loop.

Susan Crabtree is a veteran Washington reporter who has spent two decades covering the White House and Congress.

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CNN: Dems Want Overhaul of US Government

Some Democrats are pushing for a complete overhaul of the U.S. government – from lowering the voting age to expanding the size of the Supreme Court, CNN is reporting.

The list of reforms being proposed by prominent Democrats goes far beyond climate change and healthcare, the news network said in an analysis posted Thursday.

Here are some of the changes being floated by the Democrats:

  • Overhauling the election system:  Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a presidential candidate, has endorsed abandoning the Electoral College.
  • Expanding the size of the Supreme Court: Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Warren – all presidential candidates -- told Politico they would consider increasing the number of justices on the high court.
  • Addition of a new state: CNN noted every Democrat making a bid for the White House, who serves in the House or Senate, has endorsed making Washington D.C. a state.
  • Lowering the voting age: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has endorsed lowering the voting age to 16, which would require a constitutional amendment.

    CNN noted the idea have little or no chance of becoming reality in the near future. And President Donald Trump commented on the proposals on Wednesday calling the Democrats "strange" for pushing them.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Mnuchin says hopes U.S.-China trade talks nearing ‘final round’

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin leaves the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' meeting at the IMF and World Bank's 2019 Annual Spring Meetings, in Washington, April 12, 2019. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

April 13, 2019

By David Lawder and Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday a U.S.-China trade agreement would go “way beyond” previous efforts to open China’s markets to U.S. companies and hoped that the two sides were “close to the final round” of negotiations.

Mnuchin, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings, said that he and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would hold two calls next week with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The officials also were discussing whether more in-person meetings were necessary to conclude an agreement.

“I think we’re hopeful that we’re getting close to the final round of concluding issues,” Mnuchin said.

Beijing and Washington are seeking a deal to end a bitter trade war marked by tit-for-tat tariffs that have cost the world’s two largest economies billions of dollars, disrupted supply chains and rattled financial markets.

Among the issues under discussion are U.S. demands that China open more sectors of its economy to foreign and U.S. firms. Asked whether such an opening would go beyond what was contemplated in the 2016 Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations, he replied:

“We are making progress, I want to be careful. This is not a public negotiation … this is a very, very detailed agreement covering issues that have never been dealt with before,” Mnuchin said. “This is way beyond anything that looked like a bilateral investment treaty.

The BIT talks, pursued by former President Barack Obama’s administration, stalled as China refused to satisfy U.S. demands to open significant sectors of its economy to foreign investment. The talks were not taken up by the Trump administration, which pursued tariffs on Chinese goods instead, leading to the current talks.

Mnuchin called the agreement under negotiation “the most significant change in the trading relationship in 40 years,” adding that it would have “real enforcement on both sides.”

(Reporting by David Lawder and Pete Schroeder; Editing by Paul Simao)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Naqvi Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos
FILE PHOTO: Arif Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive of Abraaj Group attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Arnold

LONDON (Reuters) – A London court case to extradite Arif Naqvi, founder of collapsed private equity firm Abraaj Group, to the United States on fraud charges was adjourned until May 24, a court official said on Friday.

Naqvi was remanded in custody until that date, the official said. A former managing partner of Dubai-based Abraaj, Sev Vettivetpillai, was released on conditional bail to appear again at Westminster Magistrates Court on June 12, the official said.

Under the U.S. charges, both men are accused of defrauding U.S. investors by inflating positions held by Abraaj in order to attract greater funds from them, causing them financial loss, the official said.

Vettivetpillai could not be reached for a comment.

Naqvi, in a statement released through a PR firm, has pleaded innocent.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Naqvi and his firm raised money for the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund, collecting more than $100 million over three years from U.S.-based charitable organizations and other U.S. investors.

Naqvi and Vettivetpillai were arrested in Britain earlier this month. Another executive, Mustafa Abdel-Wadood was arrested at a New York hotel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Griswold said at a hearing in Manhattan federal court on April 11.

Abdel-Wadood appeared at the Manhattan hearing and pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy charges.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

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Former Vice President Joe Biden announces his 2020 candidacy
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in this still image taken from a video released April 25, 2019. BIDEN CAMPAIGN HANDOUT via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in his first interview as a Democratic presidential candidate, said on Friday that he does not believe he treated law professor Anita Hill badly during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Biden had joined the burgeoning 2020 Democratic field a day earlier.

Biden’s conduct during those hearings, when he was chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, became a renewed subject of controversy after the New York Times reported that Biden had called Hill earlier this month in the run-up to his presidential bid and that Hill was dissatisfied with Biden’s expression of regret.

Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Biden largely defended his actions as a senator almost 30 years ago, saying he believed Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment levied at Thomas and tried to derail his confirmation.

Activists have long been unhappy that Hill was questioned in graphic detail by the all-white, all-male committee chaired by Biden.

“I’m sorry she was treated the way she was treated,” Biden said, but later, he asserted, “I don’t think I treated her badly. … How do you stop people from asking inflammatory questions?”

“There were a lot of mistakes made across the board and for those I apologize,” he said.

Biden praised Hill as “remarkable” and said she is “one of the reasons we have the #MeToo movement.”

Asked why he had not reached out to Hill earlier, Biden said he had previously publicly stated he had regrets about her treatment and that he “didn’t want to quote invade her space.”

That seemed to be a reference to another controversy that looms over Biden’s presidential run: allegations by several women that he made them uncomfortable by touching them at political events.

Biden also addressed that criticism, saying he was now more “cognizant” about a woman’s “private space.” But he maintained that he had been “trying to bring solace.”

He suggested he was still trying to sort out the guidelines for his conduct going forward.

“I should be able to read better,” he said. “I have to be more careful.”

Pressed by the show’s panel for an apology to his accusers, Biden would not entirely capitulate.

“So, I invaded your space,” he replied. “I mean, I’m sorry this happened. But I’m not sorry in a sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate.”

Biden, 76, served as former President Barack Obama’s vice president for two terms. He is competing with 19 others for the Democratic presidential nomination and the chance to likely face President Donald Trump next year in the general election.

His first public event as a presidential candidate is scheduled for Monday in Pittsburgh.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei, Taiwan August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla Inc’s stock slumped over 4% on Friday to its lowest price in two years, rounding out a rough week that included worse-than-expected quarterly results and a pitch by Chief Executive Elon Musk on autonomous cars that failed to win over investors.

With investors betting Tesla will soon raise capital, the stock has fallen 13% for the week to its lowest level since January 2017, before the launch of the Model 3 sedan aimed at making the electric car maker profitable.

One positive development for Tesla: a U.S. District Court judge on Friday granted a request by Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission for a second extension to resolve a dispute over Musk’s use of Twitter.

On Wednesday, Tesla posted a worse-than-expected loss of $702 million for the March quarter. Musk said Tesla would return to profit in the third quarter and that there was “some merit” to raising capital.

Musk is still battling to convince investors that demand for the Model 3, the company’s first car aimed at the mass consumer market, is “insanely” high, and that it can be delivered efficiently to customers around the world.

Tesla ended its first quarter with $2.2 billion, down from $3.7 billion in the prior quarter, and the company is planning expansions including a Shanghai factory, an upcoming Model Y SUV, and other projects.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s cash – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DyJjX6)

On Monday, Musk hosted a self-driving event, where he predicted Tesla would have over a million autonomous vehicles by next year. Some analysts perceived the presentation as a way to deflect attention from questions about demand, margin pressure, increasing competition and even Musk’s ongoing battle with U.S. regulators.

Tesla’s stock has now fallen 29 percent in 2019 and the company’s market capitalization has declined to $41 billion from $63 billion in mid-December.

(GRAPHIC: Tesla’s declining market cap – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dwd62r)

Analysts now expect Tesla’s revenue to expand 19% in 2019, compared with 83% growth in 2018 and 68% growth in 2017, according to Refinitiv.

Following Tesla’s quarterly report, 12 analysts recommend selling the stock, while 11 recommend buying and eight are neutral. The median analyst price target is $275, up 16% from the stock’s current price of $236. Berenberg analyst Alexander Haissl has the most optimistic price target, at $500, while Cowen and Company’s Jeffrey Osborne has the lowest, at $160, according to Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s rare public criticism of the Obama administration was a “soft” way of accusing the previous administration of covering up Russia’s attempts at hacking the 2016 presidential election.

While speaking Thursday in New York at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association, Rosenstein said that the Obama administration “chose not to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls and how they relate to Russia’s broader strategy to undermine America.”

During an appearance on “America’s Newsroom” Friday morning, Huckabee called the comments an “unusually candid moment for Rosenstein.”

“I thought it was a soft way of him saying there was a cover-up,” Huckabee said. “They knew the Russians were attempting to influence the election and attempting to hack the election but they didn’t fully disclose that to the American people and certainly didn’t disclose it to the Trump campaign.

SWALWELL NOT CERTAIN TRUMP ISN’T A ‘RUSSIAN ASSET’

“Instead they tried to set a trap for them. It failed. The Trump team did not take the bait. And that’s the one conclusion that we can certainly come away with from the $35 million worth of investigation,” Huckabee continued.

Next week, Attorney General William Barr will testify before Congress and is expected to answer questions about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump, which found that there was not adequate evidence to conclude that President Trump and his administration colluded with Russia, though the president could not be exonerated in terms of the possibility that he obstructed justice.

Barr will testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee next Wednesday and to the House Judiciary Committee the following day.

TRUMP ASSESSES 2020 DEMS; TAKES SWIPES AT BIDEN, SANDERS; DISMISSES HARRIS, O’ROURKE; SAYS HE’S ROOTING FOR BUTTIGIEG 

“It is going to be a theater, an absolute show,” Huckabee said of the hearings. “Just like the Kavanaugh hearings were and like everything else is in Congress. We ought to close the curtain on them and can’t come back until after the election. They aren’t doing their job anyway. We aren’t paying them because they’re doing a wonderful service to the country and spare us the hypocrisy of thinking they’re interested in getting to the bottom of the facts,” he continued.

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Ultimately, Huckabee argued, if Americans “took their partisan hats off,” they would see that President Trump was exonerated by the investigation.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Sri Lanka's former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake
Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa greets his supporters after his return from the United States, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

April 26, 2019

By Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s former wartime defense chief, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, said on Friday he would run for president in elections this year and would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and surveilling citizens.

Gotabaya, as he is popularly known, is the younger brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the two led the country to a crushing defeat of separatist Tamil rebels a decade ago after a 26-year civil war.

More than 250 people were killed in bomb attacks on hotels and churches on Easter Sunday that the government has blamed on Islamist militants and that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for.

Gotabaya said the attacks could have been prevented if the island’s current government had not dismantled the intelligence network and extensive surveillance capabilities that he built up during the war and later on.

“Because the government was not prepared, that’s why you see a panic situation,” he said in an interview with Reuters.

Gotabaya said he would be a candidate “100 percent”, firming up months of speculation that he plans to run in the elections, which are due by December.

He was critical of the government’s response to the bombings. Since the attacks, the government has struggled to provide clear information about how they were staged, who was behind them and how serious the threat is from Islamic State to the country.

“Various people are blaming various people, not giving exactly the details as to what happened, even people expect the names, what organization did this, and how they came up to this level, that explanation was not given,” he said.

On Friday, President Maithripala Sirisena said the government led by premier Ranil Wickremesinghe should take responsibility for the attacks and that prior information warning of attacks was not shared with him.

Wickremesinghe said earlier he was not advised about warnings that came from India’s spy service either, presenting a picture of a government still in disarray since the two leaders fell out last October.

Gotabaya is facing lawsuits in the United States, where he is a dual citizen, over his role in the war and afterwards.

The South Africa-based International Truth and Justice Project, in partnership with U.S. law firm Hausfeld, filed a civil case in California this month against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor.

In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, filed a complaint for damages in the same U.S. District Court in California for allegedly instigating and authorizing the extrajudicial killing of her father.

Gotabaya said the cases were baseless and only a “little distraction” as he prepared for the election campaign. He said he had asked U.S. authorities to renounce his citizenship and that process was nearly done, clearing the way for his candidature.

‘DISMANTLE THE NETWORKS’

He said that if he won, his immediate focus would to be tackle the threat from radical Islam and to rebuild the security set-up.

“It’s a serious problem, you have to go deep into the groups, dismantle the networks,” he said, adding he would give the military a mandate to collect intelligence from the ground and to mount surveillance of groups turning to extremism.

Gotabaya said that a military intelligence cell he had set up in 2011 of 5,000 people, some of them with Arabic language skills and that was tracking the bent towards extremist ideology some of the Islamist groups were taking in eastern Sri Lanka was disbanded by the current government.

“They did not give priority to national security, there was a mix-up. They were talking about ethnic reconciliation, then they were talking about human rights issues, they were talking about individual freedoms,” he said.

President Sirisena’s government sought to forge reconciliation with minority Tamils and close the wounds of the war and launched investigations into allegations of rights abuse and torture against military officers.

Officials said many of these secret intelligence cells were disbanded because they faced allegations of abuse, including torture and extra judicial killings.

Muslims make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Source: OANN

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