Republican investigators on the House Intelligence Committee formally requested former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s work-related text messages as part of their surveillance abuse inquiry last March, but they were denied, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The sources questioned whether the rejection amounted to an obstruction of congressional oversight, after Fox News on Friday published previously unseen texts between then-FBI Deputy Director McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page discussing numerous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) matters.
An attorney for McCabe, the FBI, and the DOJ did not respond to Fox News' requests for comment following the publication of the texts on Friday.
In their document request, dated March 23, 2018, House investigators demanded the DOJ and FBI promptly turn over "all documents and communications, including emails and text messages" in which Page, McCabe, and seven others "discussed, referenced, or undertook work regarding [British ex-spy] Christopher Steele, the Steele dossier, related FISA applications and the application process."
Other individuals included in the House GOP's request for information were former FBI Director James Comey, then-Special Agent Peter Strzok, and senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr -- who became a back channel between Steele and the FBI, after Steele was fired by the bureau on the eve of the 2016 presidential election over his contacts with the media.
“The answer from DOJ was, 'We’re working on this' -- kicking the can down the road was a constant theme,” one source explained.
On Thursday, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, speaking during a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., confirmed that his office is continuing to probe potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses.
Former FBI director James Comey speaks during the Canada 2020 Conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 5, 2018. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)
“We have a FISA-related review that people might have heard about that the deputy attorney general asked us to take a look at," Horowitz said. "But I’m not going to dwell on that."
Fox News is told the IG's office is in the advanced stages of a probe not only into the FISA matters, but also into FBI media leaks and improper gifts received by FBI officials from reporters -- all of which were flagged as subjects for further review in the IG's initial report on DOJ and FBI misconduct last year.
Just nine days before the FBI applied for a FISA warrant to surveil a top Trump campaign aide, bureau officials were battling with a senior Justice Department official who had "continued concerns" about the "possible bias" of a source pivotal to the application, according to internal text messages obtained by Fox News and published on Friday.
Fox News is told the texts were connected to the ultimately successful Carter Page surveillance application, which relied in part on information from Steele – whose anti-Trump views are now well-documented – and cited Page’s suspected Russia ties. In its warrant application, the FBI incorrectly assured the FISA court on numerous occasions that other sources independently corroborated Steele's claims and did not clearly state that Steele worked for a firm hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign.
The 2016 messages also reveal that bureau brass circulated at least two anti-Trump blog articles, including a Lawfare blog post sent shortly after Election Day that called Trump possibly "among the major threats to the security of the country."
Another article, sent by Page in July 2016 as the FBI's counterintelligence probe into Russian election interference was kicking off, flatly called Trump a "useful idiot" for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Page told McCabe that then-FBI Director James Comey had "surely" read that piece. Both articles were authored in whole or part by Benjamin Wittes, a Comey friend.
Further, the texts show that on Sept. 12, 2016, Page forwarded to McCabe some "unsolicited comments" calling then-GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy a "total d--k." Gowdy, at the time, was grilling FBI congressional affairs director Jason Herring at a hearing on the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
Responding to the texts, Mark Meadows, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus; wrote on Twitter: "Remember: as FBI and DOJ officials sought to surveil the Trump campaign through a FISA, they were well aware of anti-Trump bias involved with their 'pivotal' sources. They knew. But they proceeded anyway. They were determined to target Trump."
Mohammad Rafiq, 18, poses with his parents inside their house in Ahmedabad, India, April 17, 2019. Picture taken April 17, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave
April 23, 2019
By Rupam Jain
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – On the night of February 28, 2002, two toddlers living in adjacent alleys were dragged out of a slum district in Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat that had been set ablaze by a mob in one of India’s worst ever Hindu-Muslim riots.
The attack in the Naroda Patiya area of the state’s biggest city was among scores of clashes in which more than 800 Muslims and 255 Hindus were killed in the month-long violence in the home state of Narendra Modi. He had just become its chief minister and would rule there until becoming India’s prime minister in 2014.
Rights groups say about 2,000 people were killed, mostly Muslims, and including scores of children.
The toddlers who survived, a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl, were both one-year-olds at the time of the riots. Now, 17 years later, they are among an estimated 15 million first-time voters in a general election in which Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are seeking a second term on a platform that, critics say, marginalises Muslims in favor of the nation’s majority Hindus.
Mohammad Rafiq and Pooja Jadhav, now both 18, met for the first time during the Reuters interview. Jadhav hesitantly acknowledged Rafiq’s presence but said they were too shy to talk.
“I have many Muslim female friends but I don’t talk to Muslim boys,” she said in the presence of her mother.
But despite the silence between them, they have a lot in common.
Both are largely uneducated and work 10 hour-days in menial jobs to support their families, who fled with them from one-room homes on that fateful day. Both want to secure permanent employment but do not have the educational qualifications, and say they want to vote for a party that will resolve this problem.
They also want get married within their communities, move to better homes and forget the 2002 riots.
But both grew up in a world of communal anger and are wary of people from the other religion. That is also reflected in their politics.
“Even before I understood the word politics or elections, I was told that the BJP is an anti-Muslim political party,” said Rafiq who works at a factory printing election flags with symbols of the BJP and the main opposition party, Congress.
“RAGE” TOWARDS BJP
Rafiq’s family-run furniture shop and house were looted by Hindu men during the riots. His father was hit in the leg by a police bullet as he was fleeing the slum and his mother suffered head injuries when terrified people stampeded.
The family lived in a relief camp and later moved into a house situated next to Ahmedabad’s biggest garbage collection site.
“My rage towards the BJP is part of my life story. I can forgive but I cannot forget,” said Rafiq as he stood next to a huge black mound of garbage.
“If Modi ever cared for Muslims he could come to see how we have learned to live with the stench from the landfill. His disrespect for Muslims defines my political choice,” said Rafiq, who said he will be voting for the Congress party at the polls in Gujarat on Tuesday. The votes from a 39-day staggered election will be counted on May 23.
Back in 2002, at least 97 people, mostly Muslims, living in Naroda Patiya were killed and 950 houses and shops were set on fire in less than 10 hours.
Modi, the state’s chief minister at the time, has faced allegations of allowing, or even encouraging, the Hindu attacks on Muslims, but he has vehemently denied the charges and a court-appointed investigation panel found no evidence to prosecute him.
The attacks were in retaliation for the death of at least 59 Hindus after a train carriage carrying hundreds of pilgrims caught fire following a scuffle between Hindus and Muslims at a railway station in Gujarat.
Demarcation along religious lines has become pronounced in Ahmedabad since the riots. Hindus refused to sell houses to Muslims, forcing them to set up ghettos on the edges of the prosperous city.
Rafiq’s father sold the house in Naroda Patiya and used the money to start a metal trade business, and buy clothes and items for their new home, which was given to them by a Muslim charity organization.
“We had a choice to go back and live in the house where my neighbors were killed or live near this garbage site. My father chose the garbage site,” said Rafiq.
Rafiq traveled with Reuters to his old home in Naroda Patiya for the first time in two years. He met his relatives and stood near the house now owned by Muslims not known to him.
“The air is better here. There is no stench. I would have been happier if we lived here,” said Rafiq.
COMFORTED BY MODI
By contrast, Jadhav’s family returned to their partially damaged house in Naroda Patiya after the riots to live among Muslim neighbors.
“We had no choice. Muslim victims left this area and new Muslims came to live here. We are stuck,” she said.
Over a dozen members of 37 Hindu families in Naroda Patiya interviewed by Reuters said they want to live in a Hindu neighborhood but they lack the financial resources to move.
When Modi became prime minister in 2014, Jadhav said her mother, a widow, celebrated his victory.
“Seeing her happy made me happy too. I have nothing against Muslims, but I like Modi,” said Jadhav, who works as a domestic helper.
Jadhav says she is comforted by BJP rule, especially living among Muslims. But she declined to say who she will vote for.
“We live in a country ruled by the BJP and Muslims know that they cannot behave badly with us. No one wants riots again,” said Jadhav. She says she enjoys listening to Modi’s speeches emphasizing his pro-Hindu brand of nationalism.
“I have heard about the riots and since then I know Muslims and Hindus should not engage after a point. There has to be a boundary forever,” she said.
The teenagers are both products of angry times.
“Children read comic books, fairy tales but we have grown up listening about Hindu, Muslim riots. My vote will be my reaction to our painful past,” said Rafiq as he scanned his mobile phone to play and sing the latest Bollywood hip hop song.
“Our time will also come,” he sang in the Hindi language and smiled at Jadhav. She hesitantly smiled back as she stood at door of her home.
(Reporting by Rupam Jain; Editing by Martin Howell and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
President Donald Trump threw some jabs at former Vice President Joe Biden during a speech Tuesday night in regards to allegations Biden has acted inappropriately with several women over the years.
"We're going into the war with some socialists. And it looks like the only non sort of heavy socialist, he's being taken care of pretty well by the socialists," Trump said, according to The Hill.
"They got to him. I was going to call him. I don't know him well. I was going to say, 'Welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe? Are you having a good time?'"
Trump was likely referring to the sexual misconduct allegations that have been leveled at him in the past.
Biden has been seen on camera countless times getting close to women who are not his wife, sometimes coming up behind them and kissing their head and other times approaching from the front and either hugging or kissing them.
Two women came forward in the past several days to say Biden acted that way with them and it made them feel uncomfortable. Tuesday night, The New York Times revealed the stories of two additional women who said Biden made them feel uncomfortable during a physical interaction.
Biden is expected to announce his candidacy for president in the near future.
Tensions between the traditional rivals escalated in mid-February after over 40 Indian soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack in Pulwama in Kashmir, India. While Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for the attack, the Indian government blamed the Pakistani government for sponsoring terror activities in India.
New Delhi (Sputnik): Pakistan has reiterated that the situation at the border with India remains on high alert and that its forces will remain on alert, as directed by Prime Minister Imran Khan last week.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Dr. Muhammad Faisal said on Wednesday that the Pakistanis wished for de-escalation of border tensions vis-a-vis India.
“There is a difficult situation with India. We wish for de-escalation and are taking steps for this. The situation like the prime minister said remains on alert”, Dr. Faisal said in a video at Geo News.
Meanwhile, cross-LoC (Line of Control) trade on the Poonch-Rawalakot route was suspended following the deterioration of the situation on Tuesday, when four army men, three Pakistani and one Indian, were killed in different incidents of cross-border firings while over a dozen civilians were injured.
In the post-Pulwama border attack escalation, the Indian Air Force (IAF) had conducted an aerial strike in Balakot inside Pakistan and claimed to have destroyed terror infrastructure operated by Jaish-e-Mohammed. A day later, Pakistan claimed shooting down two Indian aircraft, while the Indian side stated that its MiG-21 Bison had shoot down an F-16 jet of Pakistan before it crashed inside Pakistan territory.
During a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security on Tuesday, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the three branches of the country’s defense forces — army, air force, and navy — were ready for another action against Pakistan, India TV News reported.
In his turn, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has voiced his belief that the possibility of an armed conflict with India is not yet over.
Alex Jones gives his personal view on how the United States should intervene in South America with the collapsing socialist utopia known as Venezuela, and he urges President Trump to pay attention to the Chinese troops being deployed to help maintain Nicolás Maduro’s wrongful rule over his own people.
Late Sen. John McCain was President Donald Trump's "kryptonite in life" and he's still his "kryptonite in death," Meghan McCain said Monday while pushing back against the president after he attacked her father on Twitter over the weekend.
"Listen, he spends his weekend obsessing over great men because he knows it, and I know it, and all of you know it: he will never be a great man," McCain, a co-host of ABC's "The View," said during the program, while commenting that rather than spending time with his family and friends, the president spends it on waging attacks.
"All of us have love and families, and when my father was alive, up until adulthood, we would spend our time together cooking, hiking, fishing, really celebrating life, and I think it's because he almost died," McCain said. "And I just thought, 'your life is spent on the weekend not with your family, not with your friends, but you're obsessing, obsessing over great men you could never live up to.' That tells you everything you need to know about his pathetic life right now."
McCain died in 2018 after a year-long battle with brain cancer. Over the weekend, Trump attacked him for his ties to a dossier linking the president with Russia, and about his vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act. He also said that McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years, was "last in his class" at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Meghan McCain over the weekend tweeted to Trump that "no one will ever love you the way they loved my father."
A person in an Easter Bunny costume looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump attends the 2019 White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington, U.S., April 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
April 24, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s main eavesdropping agency on Wednesday said allegations that it had been asked by the Obama administration to spy on Donald Trump after the 2016 presidential election were utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.
Trump on Wednesday tweeted that a former CIA analyst, Larry Johnson, had accused Britain of spying on the Trump campaign. Trump said: “It is now just a question of time before the truth comes out, and when it does, it will be a beauty!”
When asked about the tweet, a GCHQ spokesman said: “The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then President Elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by Paul Sandle)
MANILA, Philippines – An official says the Philippines has protested the presence of about 275 Chinese vessels that were sighted from January to March near a Philippine-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea.
Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said Monday the Department of Foreign Affairs lodged the protest after the military monitored the Chinese vessels near Thitu island, which is called Pag-asa by Filipinos, in the Spratly chain of islands. Panelo met with the Chinese ambassador on Monday and raised the country's concern.
A diplomat says the Philippines sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy on Friday to express concern over the "swarming of Chinese boats" near Thitu.
China, the Philippines and four other governments have had territorial spats in the region for decades.
FILE PHOTO: Jet Airways aircraft are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Aditi Shah and Abhirup Roy
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – The grounding of India’s Jet Airways is turning into a quick windfall and long-term opportunity for international airlines keen to scoop up nearly a million outbound passengers from what was once the nation’s biggest airline.
Jet, which previously had a fleet of around 120 largely Boeing Co planes, was forced to indefinitely halt all flight operations on April 17 after its banks rejected the carrier’s plea for emergency funds.
The carrier’s descent into crisis has benefited international airlines in the form of rising fares and demand, data showed.
Fares from India to cities such as Dubai, London, New York, Singapore and Bali in the first quarter of 2019 rose between 4 percent and 32 percent from a year ago, according to Indian travel portal MakeMyTrip Ltd.
In the peak travel months of May and June, fares to London have spiked as much as 36 percent and tickets to San Francisco are up nearly 20 percent from a year ago, according to data from travel portal Yatra.com.
“For the next three months it’s actually bonanza time for international players,” said Ashish Nainan, a research analyst at CARE Ratings. “At least until the middle of June, the fares are not going to come down.”
Due to rising demand, even before Jet’s lessors grounded planes, carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Singapore Airlines Ltd and United Airlines saw an up to a 27 percent increase in passenger numbers from India in the last quarter of 2018, data from India’s aviation regulator showed. That is the latest period for which the data is available.
India is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, clocking 15-20 percent domestic growth in recent years. It has long had only two full-service long-haul carriers, state-run Air India and Jet.
Jet is now hoping to be bailed out by a new investor, with final bids due on May 10.
INCREASING CAPACITY
Before its grounding, Jet had the biggest share of India’s outbound international air traffic, carrying 12 percent of the 7.8 million passengers headed overseas in the Oct-Dec quarter, down from 14 percent a year earlier, data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation showed.
For an interactive graphic on Jet’s market share, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WvDQYi
For an interactive graphic on average daily flights by the airline, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2FeFDel
The total number of passengers traveling overseas with Jet fell 10 percent during the last quarter of 2018 even as the outbound travel market grew about 5 percent.
Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines posted a 27 percent increase in passengers from India, Cathay registered 17 percent growth and British Airways saw a 10 percent rise in the same period.
Cathay said the events at Jet combined with increasing demand for travel had led it to deploy larger aircraft with more seats on some Indian routes.
“In the long term we would certainly like to be able to offer more capacity into India, not just on our existing routes but by establishing new services to secondary cities,” Cathay said in a statement.
Singapore Airlines, in an email to Reuters, said the Indian market is “very promising” but declined to give details of airfare levels or demand patterns in the wake of Jet’s exit, citing a quiet period before the release of its annual results.
DOMESTIC GAINS
Jet’s grounding has also had a big impact on the domestic market, with inter-city air fares to major cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata soaring more than 20 percent in May and June, according to Yatra.com.
The spike in fares is expected to underpin strong earnings for IndiGo and SpiceJet Ltd, which are set to report results for the quarter ended March 31 in the coming weeks.
“Domestic Indian carriers are the main benefactors, but I suspect if Jet fails to be revived by May 10 then Vistara and other airlines that ply international routes, particularly the lucrative Gulf market, are the main winners,” said Shukor Yusof, the head of aviation consultancy Endau Analytics. Vistara is a joint venture of India’s Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines.
Inadequate bilateral traffic rights between India and other countries, however, could be an impediment to foreign carriers’ hopes of winning business lost by Jet, some analysts said.
“Even before Jet’s operational shutdown, international capacity was significantly constrained,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO for South Asia of consultancy CAPA. “We have now more serious capacity challenge … this is unlikely to be stabilized in the near term.”
A new national government likely to be in place sometime after elections end in May is expected to address the international capacity constraints, and once bilateral agreements are eased airlines including Emirates, Turkish and Qatar would immediately benefit, said Kaul.
“We would love to add more flights but we are at the limit of the allocation granted to us for traffic rights,” Emirates Chief Commercial Officer Thierry Antinori told reporters in Dubai on Wednesday.
(Additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai, Jamie Freed in Singapore and Tanvi Mehta in Mumbai; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
FILE PHOTO: The company logo for pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is displayed on a screen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
April 26, 2019
By Pushkala Aripaka and Ankur Banerjee
(Reuters) – AstraZeneca Plc beat first-quarter sales and earnings expectations on Friday as the British drugmaker benefited from a push into cancer drugs and emerging markets including China.
Newer treatments such as lung cancer drug Tagrisso, now the company’s top selling medicine, have helped the drugmaker’s return to growth after years of crumbling sales due to patent losses on older drugs.
Sales in China have shown explosive growth, more than doubling since 2012, but AstraZeneca executives on Friday said that may not be sustained.
“The enormous growth you currently see in China, 28 percent, probably is not sustainable, but we feel very bullish that the growth will continue to be at a pace of between 15 percent and 20 percent,” Ruud Dobber, executive vice president, BioPharma, told Reuters.
Shares of the company were down 0.2 percent at 5,878 pence at 1031 GMT.
The turnaround in AstraZeneca’s fortunes has been powered by a push into cancer treatments led by Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, who saw off a 2014 takeover bid from Pfizer in part by promising annual sales of $45 billion by 2023.
In the first quarter, sales from its oncology unit rose 59 percent to $1.89 billion, accounting for 35 percent of total product sales.
The company has moved deeper into cancer therapy market through wide-ranging deals, including those for immunotherapy and targeted therapy. Last month, it agreed a multi-billion dollar oncology deal with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd.
Interactive graphic on AZN’s top 10 drugs by sales – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W5XIRX
“We’re reaching that point where after years of having to keep faith, we have actually got something tangible to believe in,” Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Nicholas Hyett said.
AstraZeneca also backed its annual sales and earnings forecast and said it has extensively prepared for UK’s anticipated exit from the European Union, even in the event of a no-deal exit.
The company has already spent more than 40 million pounds ($52 million) on Brexit preparations, including stockpiling six weeks’ worth of drugs in the UK and four weeks in continental Europe to guard against shortages.
AstraZeneca said product sales rose 14 percent at constant currency to $5.47 billion in the quarter, led by its lung cancer drug Tagrisso and respiratory treatment Pulmicort.
Interactive graphic on AZN’s quarterly oncology sales – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W9tbCD
China sales increased by 28 percent to $1.24 billion in the quarter, accounting for nearly a quarter of overall product sales.
Core earnings came in at 89 cents per share in the quarter. Analysts on average were expecting core earnings of 85 cents per share and product sales of $5.29 billion, according to a company provided consensus of 19 analysts.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka and Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr/Keith Weir)
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It’s the type of crime that doesn’t happen every day.
Police in the suburbs of Philadelphia say three suspects broke into a medical facility in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, last Saturday and fled with 18 colonoscopies – devices used for examining the health of patients’ colons.
Suspects are seen leaving a medical facility in Wynnewood, Pa., allegedly carrying 18 colonoscopes worth about $450,000. (Lower Merion Police Department)
The devices were reportedly worth a total of about $450,000, authorities said.
But police were perplexed about what the suspects might have planned to do with the instruments.
“This is not something that a typical pawn shop might accept,” Lower Merion Police Detective Sergeant Michael Vice told Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV. “My feeling would be that it was some type of black market sales.”
Such a market apparently does exist, Lower Merion Police Superintendent Michael J. McGrath told Philly.com.
“They appeared to know precisely where to go, and they pried the door open,” McGrath said of the suspects, who were captured on surveillance video leaving the facility, carrying bulging backpacks.
Police are hoping the suspects will be caught in the end.
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