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Fox News host Sean Hannity declared that the "witch hunt" against President Trump headed up by special counsel Robert Mueller is "over" in the wake of a memo circulating among lawmakers that reportedly details surveillance abuses by the U.S. government. In the monologue of his show Thursday night, Hannity said that news of the memo, which has not yet been released publicly, was a major obstacle for Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. "I have a message tonight for the special counsel, Robert Mueller," Hannity said, opening his show. "Your witch hunt is now over....

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said. It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections. It’s unclear how long the Torshin inquiry has been ongoing, but the...

US President Donald Trump has denied using crude words attributed to him about Haiti, El Salvador and African countries. Reports that he had called them “s---hole countries” in an Oval Office meeting generated a backlash worldwide. One UN official called the remarks racist and said they opened “the door to humanity’s worst side”. But Mr. Trump has tweeted that “this was not the language” he used in a meeting about immigration. He wrote that the language he used was “tough, but this was not the language used”. The Washington Post, the New York Times, Politico and the Wall Street Journal...

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said on Thursday that people close to President Trump told him during the campaign that Trump has "early stages of dementia." During MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Scarborough said Trump is "completely detached from reality." "You have somebody inside the White House that the New York Daily News says is mentally unfit," Scarborough said.

President Donald Trump believes his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, is giving him bad advice, according to a Vanity Fair report. The report Wednesday, citing sources “briefed on Trump’s thinking,” said Trump has confided in two right-wing provocateurs, Roger Stone and Stephen Bannon, that he no longer trusts Kushner. Bannon for the first eight months of Trump’s presidency was his top strategic adviser and reportedly clashed frequently with Kushner. According to the article, Trump blames Kushner for decisions that have led to a probe into connections between his campaign and Russia, among them the firing of his first national...

Sources are reporting on an email letter focused on unseating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent by Senate Conservatives Action, a political action committee. The letter was signed by the former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccineli, who is now president of the PAC. NBC reported that political operative, pundit, and author Roger Stone circulated the letter, which NBC reported on but did not include a link to or a copy of the letter. BC reported. “It calls McConnell a creature of the swamp.’ Jim Clayton, who writes for Conservative News Daily, reported on Monday that he was sent the letter,...

Just heard this from a reliable source but still qualifies only as RumInt: Anyone else hear this..? Since Drudge has boycotted all Awan-related stories I suspect this story will never be linked there. I was not told whether the member of Congress was a man or a woman.

Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican

In a move that stunned many members of the media, on Thursday night Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia probe due to Jeff Sessions’ recusal and who earlier this week confirmed only he has authority to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, released an unorthodox statement to be “skeptical about anonymous allegations” following the relentless barrage of news reports emerging from the WaPo and the NYT about the evolving probe into Russia’s “election interference” and possible collusion with Trump, all based on “anonymous sources.” “Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous...

In the days and hours leading up to a hearing of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBC, and NBC) were giddy at the prospect of two heads of U.S. intelligence agencies fingering President Trump in a plot to shut down the Russian investigation. But after the two and a half hour long hearing, they weren’t kicking themselves for getting their hopes up, they were kicking Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Michael Rogers for not giving them what they wanted. .. The anonymous claims about Trump pressuring high-ranking intelligence officials were...

President Donald Trump has filed for an extension on his 2016 tax return, a White House official said Saturday. The official did not provide information on when Trump sought the extension or why. The official was not authorized to discuss the president’s taxes and insisted on anonymity.Tax Day this year was on April 18. The Internal Revenue Service allows individuals and businesses to apply for a six-month extension to get more time to file a return. An extension does not provide more time to pay taxes. …

Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan says anonymous sources provide a better foundation to a news story than official sources. Sullivan was speaking to CBC News Saturday about how the Washington Post used 30 anonymous sources to write its article this week on President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. The story, which alleged sinister motives on behalf of Trump, was composed by four reporters and was pieced together from “the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other...

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement. Mr. Comey made the request on Saturday after Mr. Trump leveled his allegation on Twitter. Mr. Comey has been working to get the Justice Department to knock down Mr. Trump’s claim because there is no evidence to...

The deadly Jan. 28 commando raid in Yemen in which Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens died hasn't so far yielded any significant intelligence, NBC News reported Monday night. Although Pentagon officials have said the raid produced "actionable intelligence," unnamed senior officials said they were unaware of any, NBC News reported.

On every new article featuring leaks about the White House, editors should place a disclaimer: Anonymous officials cited in this piece stopped short of justifying the havoc this story is about to create. A flurry of would-be bombshell reports over the last week appeared to show more ties between President Trump and Russia or further demonstrate the supposed ineptitude of the Trump administration. The stories depended entirely on anonymous "current and former U.S officials" who share a lot of tantalizing information then, strangely, clam up just as things are about to get good. The news media spin every "leak" into...

President Donald Trump is plagued by insecurities about his coverage in the media, aides who were not authorized to speak to the press revealed to The Associated Press anonymously. Trump's aides think they have a solution, though: Get the president to watch less TV. It's easier said than done: After relishing in Friday's inaugural festivities, the new president grew increasingly upset the next day by what he felt was "biased" media coverage of women's marches across the globe protesting his election, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Trump was particularly enraged with CNN, which he thought was "gloating"...

According to eyewitness reports ISIS sex slaves are reportedly being sold in Saudi Arabia. Jihad Watch reported: It isn’t news that the Islamic State has long been abusing and trafficking sex slaves – especially Yazidi girls – but it has been now discovered that the sex slaves of IS are being “sold in horrifying auctions to UK ally Saudi Arabia.” An eyewitness reported: Dozens of women were being held in a large room, and it was not only Iraqis and Syrians trading women but also Saudis and Westerners, whose actual nationality was not clear. Western women have also been reported...

The growing scandal over cooked ISIS intelligence just got much worse. Now, analysts are saying they’re being forced out for not toeing the Obama administration’s line on the war. Two senior intelligence analysts at U.S. Central Command say the military has forced them out of their jobs because of their skeptical reporting on U.S.-backed rebel groups in Syria, three sources with knowledge of their claim told The Daily Beast. It’s the first known instance of possible reprisals against CENTCOM personnel after analysts accused their bosses of manipulating intelligence reports about the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS in order to paint a...

On Thursday's edition of Special Report, Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard revealed he has met several Iowans who are now "former Trump supporters" because he decided not to participate in tonight's debate hosted by the FOX News Channel. "I talked to a couple of Trump supporters who are now former Trump supporters," Hayes said. "Precisely because they thought that his sitting out this one in particular was a slap in the face of Iowans." "I talked to one woman last night who was not a Trump supporter, she was going to caucus for Rubio or Cruz. She said,...

In short, this (anonymous) person said, the Republican Party had been a stool supported by three legs: national defense, free-market economics, and social values. But the person said that thanks mostly to President George W. Bush, the party has failed on the first two legs. The country has shifted significantly on the last one, and there's nothing a Republican candidate can do to change it. As a result the Republican Party is in disarray, and Trump is taking advantage.