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David Kramer, an associate of Senator John McCain, invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not testify to Congress in connection to his role in distribution of the fake Russia dossier to the FBI. Kramer was briefed by the Russian dossier author Christopher Steele in London in 2016. Kramer then returned back to the US and delivered the phony dossier to John McCain. McCain handed the document over to the FBI.

WASHINGTON The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election. It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White...

The police officer who jumped into action during a 2016 attack at Crossroads Center in St. Cloud was honored on Thursday. Avon police Officer Jason Falconer received a Congressional Badge of Bravery for his actions on that September 2016 day. Falconer was off duty when 22-year-old Dahir Adan stabbed and injured 10 people at the mall. Falconer shot and killed Adan to stop the attack. "Actually, I thought (the recognition) was all said and done and over – then we have this," Falconer said. "I just want to thank everybody." Falconer is the first Minnesotan to receive the Congressional Badge...

American once touted as possible ambassador to EU tells of being detained at Boston airport and subpoenaed by Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia inquiry {snip} In a statement sent to the Guardian, Malloch, who described himself as a policy wonk and defender of Trump, said the FBI also asked him about his relationship with Roger Stone, the Republican strategist, and whether he had ever visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has resided for nearly six years. In a detailed statement about the experience, which he described as bewildering and intimidating at times, Malloch said the federal...

A judge sentenced a Rendon woman to five years in prison Wednesday for voting illegally in the 2016 presidential election while she was on supervised release from a 2011 fraud conviction. Crystal Mason, 43, waived her right to a jury trial and chose to have state District Judge Ruben Gonzalez assess her sentence. J. Warren St. John, her defense attorney, said after the verdict was rendered that an appeal had already been filed and he is hopeful his client will soon be released on bond. "I find it amazing that the government feels she made this up," St. John told...

Strains of HIV are becoming resistant to an antiretroviral drug commonly used to prevent and fight the virus, research has suggested. HIV was resistant to the drug Tenofovir in 60% of selected cases in some African countries, according to the study, which covered a 17-year period. The research, led by University College London, looked at 1,920 HIV patients worldwide who had treatment failure. Lead author Dr Ravi Gupta said the results were "extremely concerning".

You'll probably want to turn down the volume on the last half.

Alexander Downer — the Australian diplomat whose tip to the FBI about a London pub conversation led to the massive probe of allegations of collusions between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia — is himself closely tied to a Chinese firm experts say is deeply involved in espionage against America. Just last month, all six top U.S. intelligence bosses warned Americans against using digital telecommunications equipment produced by Chinese smartphone producer Huawei.

Prime minister says it's not up to him to determine who the Aga Khan invites to his residences Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he and former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry talked about the then-incoming Trump administration and the general state of the world when the two of them were on the Aga Khan's private island in late 2016. During an interview this week with The Canadian Press, Trudeau shed a bit more light on his direct interactions with Kerry, who happened to be at the spiritual leader's island in the Bahamas at the same time as the prime...

Erdogan was initially on the roster of speakers on the funeral — a list that includes a number of famous names, such as former president Bill Clinton and comedian Billy Crystal. However, on Monday, Ali family spokesman Bob Gunnell had said that two unnamed speakers had been added to the program, meaning that foreign guests Erdogan and King Abdullah II of Jordan would no longer be able to make an address. Gunnell told reporters that the two world leaders had been “gracious and understood.” But there were a number of suggestions that perhaps Erdogan had been removed from the list...

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s preparations to take over the government if they’re elected are now in high gear, and their transition teams are working out of the same building a block from the White House at 1717 Pennsylvania Ave. It’s the first time in history that two presidential campaigns have worked to set up their governments in miniature literally side-by-side, riding the same elevators to adjacent floors of the tony, marble-floored building as they plan to govern. Now that Clinton has announced her five-person, day-to-day transition team led by former Interior secretary and Colorado senator Ken Salazar and Trump has...

Cape Town, South Africa, July 9 “Day Zero.” That’s when water taps throughout the city are expected to go dry before Israel declared statehood in 1948, its leaders focused on water security as closely as they did military preparedness. Israel is in the fifth year of drought, today citizens can reliably count on abundant water. Cape Town another story. reservoirs began receding more than two years ago. This problem turned into a crisis because of subsidy-distorted water pricing, inefficient irrigation, and a lack of desalination facilities and a long-term plan. In 2016 officials from Israel’s Foreign Ministry recognized the problem...

A well-known conservative lobbyist was sprayed with a “caustic substance” by a masked attacker outside his Arlington home Tuesday, according to local police. Jack Burkman, who made headlines again in 2016 by offering a $130,000 reward for information on the mysterious murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, was reportedly attacked Tuesday. Local police told The Washington Post they have not yet determined the perpetrator’s identity. Burkman told WaPo he was returning from the grocery store when a man wearing a ski mask jumped out of a black SUV, sprayed him in the face with what appeared to be pepper spray,...

In one of the undercover video segments released by O'Keefe, one of Creamer’s consultants, Scott Foval ⸺who in 2011 established a consulting firm called the Foval Group ⸺provided key details about the Democrat bird-dogging strategy. Specifically, Foval explained that the operation was structured in a manner that ⸺if the public were ever to find out about it⸺ would allow the DNC and the Clinton campaign to pretend that they knew nothing of it. “The thing that we have to watch is making sure there’s a double-blind between the actual campaign and the actual DNC and what we’re doing,” said Foval....

@HillaryClinton Happy birthday to this future president.

No candidate has ever received so few endorsements. So what were the Waxahachie Daily Light, the Santa Barbara News-Press and others thinking? On Sunday, October 16, the residents of St. Joseph, a fairly ordinary town of 75,000 in northwestern Missouri, awoke to discover that their local, family-owned newspaper had made history, in a manner of speaking. That day the St. Joseph News-Press became only the second newspaper in the nation to endorse Donald Trump, writing that the GOP candidate “represents something different for a broad swath of America that is serious about wanting a less intrusive government, a more robust...

Good Morning/Afternoon,MEGARushTalksAboutHisInterviewAndOtherIssuesDITTOS!

As the Wall Street Journal observes in the related editorial today (behind the Journal’s paywall): “The 37-page indictment contains no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, but it does show a systematic effort to discredit the result of the 2016 election. On the evidence so far, President Trump has been the biggest victim of that effort, and he ought to be furious at Vladimir Putin.” The Journal editorial asks a good question: “The indictment also makes us wonder what the Obama Administration was doing amid all of this. Where were top Obama spooks James Clapper and John...

On a Monday night (February 12th, 2018) episode of Tucker Carlson a democrat member of the House Intelligence committee said something interesting that almost everyone missed. Appearing on the show to joust with Tucker, HPSCI member Eric Swalwell stated: “the House Intel Committee has not interviewed a single witness in over a month”. [Video Here, quote @03:47] This statement is rather enlightening. A month earlier, January 4th, 2018, an agreement was finally made between House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and DOJ Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for complete disclosure of all unreadacted documents.....AND a list of witnesses who Nunes...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz signaled a bruising fight Thursday if the White House pushes ahead with the nominee for a coveted Caribbean diplomatic post who spread unfounded conspiracy theories about him during the 2016 campaign. As an ardent cheerleader for Donald Trump, beauty supply executive Leandro Rizzuto Jr. used Twitter to promote an unsubstantiated allegation that Cruz cheated on his wife, and other claims that Heidi Cruz herself was part of a cabal seeking to unite North America under one government. "I don't know the fellow. He seems to have unusual views," Cruz said Thursday through an aide. "I...