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Special counsel Robert Mueller has charged 13 Russian nationals for conspiring against the U.S. They are accused of interfering with our elections. BREAKING: A federal grand jury has indicted 13 Russian nationals “accused of violating US criminal laws in order to interfere with US elections and political processes.” Here it is: https://t.co/4T824L01yk pic.twitter.com/k9nyOicheb— Matt Viser (@mviser) February 16, 2018 "The nationals had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election," the 37-page document reads.The nationals spent about $1.2 mil for its interference operation, the document continues, reportedly to "support" the Trump...

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said that former White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon will likely be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with them. He has refused to answer several questions about the investigation into Russian collusion, Schiff said. "I think it's likely that he will face a contempt citation," Schiff said Thursday at a Council on Foreign Relations event.Instead of offering information, Bannon has been citing executive privilege on behalf of President Trump.“The only questions he would answer were questions that had been scripted, literally scripted for him by the...

The recent gas tax hike in California enacted to fund transportation projects could face tough sledding in the face of a repeal effort. Likely voters were nearly evenly split on the issue with 47% saying they favor repeal, while 48% said they oppose it, in a poll released Feb. 7 by the Public Policy Institute of California. The creator of the initiative to repeal a gas tax hike and vehicle fee increase approved by the state legislature last year to support transportation projects said signature gathering efforts are right on track. (You need to pay if you want to know...

Before Nikolas Cruz carried out his mass killing at a Florida high school this week, police responded to his home 39 times over a seven-year period, according to disturbing new documents. Details about the calls to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office — obtained from police records by CNN — were not immediately available and it was impossible to determine if all involved Cruz. But the nature of the emergencies at his Parkland home included “mentally ill person,” “child/elderly abuse,” “domestic disturbance” and “missing person,” KTLA reported. And a schoolmate, Brody Speno, told the network that cops were called to Cruz’s...

On February 15, the Washington Post responded to widespread reports of “18 school shootings in 2018” and declared the claim is “horrifying” but “it is wrong.” The Post went on to demonstrate that the figure of “18” arises from a Michael Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety tally that includes a suicide by a 31-year-old man who parked in a school parking lot to kill himself. Everytown also included a “1 a.m. [incident in which] a man was shot at a sorority event on the campus of Wake Forest University,” an occasion on which someone shot several rounds in the air...

House GOP leaders are forging ahead with their own hardline immigration bill, as the Senate threw in the towel Thursday on legislation to protect hundreds of thousands of young, undocumented immigrants from deportation. The main author of the House bill, Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), said Thursday that he’s building support for his measure, even as other GOP colleagues said an initial vote tally this week was well below the 218 votes needed to pass the bill. Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) “instructions to me are ‘get this bill done,’ and we’re working hard to accomplish that,” Goodlatte said in an...

PARKLAND, Fla. 4:30 p.m. A law enforcement official says he knows of “no known ties” between the suspect who confessed to a deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school and a white supremacist group. Lt. Grady Jordan is a spokesman for the Leon County Sheriff’s Office in Tallahassee, where the white nationalist militia known as the Republic of Florida is based. Jordan said Thursday that his office has arrested militia leader Jordan Jereb at least four times since January 2014 and has been monitoring the group’s membership. He says his office has “very solid” information on the group and...

House Republican leaders are weighing “further steps” to force former top White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon to answer investigators’ questions in their probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election — including potentially declaring him in contempt of Congress — after a Thursday interview they called “frustrating.” Bannon came to speak with the House Intelligence Committee under a subpoena the panel issued on the spot last month, when he refused to answer questions related to the transition period and his tenure in the White House. The interview came after Bannon met with investigators in special counsel Robert S. Mueller...

WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon, who served as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller over multiple days this week, NBC News has learned from two sources familiar with the proceedings. Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours in conversations with the team led by Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as other issues that have arisen around the probe.

A divided 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday held as unconstitutional President Donald Trump's anti-terrorist travel ban from eight countries, six of them majority-Muslim with a total population of 150 million. In a 9-4 vote, the Richmond-based court upheld a Maryland district judge's preliminary injunction against the ban taking full effect and ruled that the travel restrictions violate the Constitution's Establishment Clause, which bars the government establishment of a religion. “In sum, the face of the Proclamation, read in the context of President Trump’s official statements, fails to demonstrate a primarily secular purpose. To the objective observer, the...

President Trump issued his first veto threat of the immigration debate on Thursday, with the White House saying the plan being offered by Senate Democratic leaders and a handful of GOP rebels would make border security worse, not better. In a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House said the plan would prevent agents from going after illegal immigrants unless they arrive after June 30, 2018. Analysts have said that creates an incentive for people to flood the border now, hoping to get into the U.S. before the deadline — and it also protects perhaps 10 million...

Teachers were warned in advance about the teenager who allegedly carried out a mass shooting at his former school in Florida, US media are reporting. Nikolas Cruz has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder following the deadliest shooting at a US school since 2012. A teacher said Mr Cruz was not allowed on campus with a backpack. Seventeen people were killed in the attack and many more injured. Several people are in a critical condition. Mr Cruz, 19, apparently left the scene of the shooting by blending in with fleeing students, but was arrested several miles away and...

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...

A broad bipartisan group of senators reached agreement Wednesday on a narrow rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws that would bolster border security and resolve the fate of the so-called Dreamers, even as President Trump suggested he would veto any plan that does not adhere to his harder-line approach. Their compromise legislation sets up a clash pitting the political center of the Senate against Mr. Trump and the Republican congressional leadership. Senators in both parties have been racing against a self-imposed end-of-the-week deadline to write legislation that could win wide support by increasing border security while at the same time...

Vice President Pence said Wednesday that he deliberately ignored North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister last week in order to send “a very clear message” during the Winter Olympics opening ceremonies. Mr. Pence and his wife were photographed standing just a few feet from Kim Yo-jong on Friday amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and the dictatorial regime. Asked during an Axios event in Washington whether he gave any consideration to greeting Ms. Kim, the vice president responded, “I did not.”

A fifth Republican is now running in the June primary for a chance to challenge Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia in November. News outlets reported Tuesday that Bert Mizusawa has entered the Republican primary and is expected to plan an announcement this week. He is a retired major general in the U.S. Army Reserve and foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports Mizusawa filed a statement of candidacy Friday. His campaign manager, Mike Wade, tells The Washington Post that frustration over the recent three-day government shutdown helped motivate Mizusawa to enter the race. Mizusawa...

President Trump on Wednesday called on lawmakers to oppose a series of bipartisan efforts to address immigration and resolve the fate of the so-called “Dreamers,” demanding fealty to his hard-line approach even as more moderate senators converged on a narrower approach. Senators in both parties are racing against a self-imposed, end-of-the-week deadline to write legislation that could win broad support by increasing border security while at the same time offering a path to citizenship for immigrants brought to the United States as children. Members of a bipartisan group calling itself the Common Sense Coalition said they have reached a deal...

The President will veto the Senate Democrats’ draft amnesty bills, a White House official told Axios.com. The site reported late on February 13: A senior administration official said Tuesday night that President Trump “will veto any bill that doesn’t advance his common-sense immigration reforms” — a hardening of the White House bargaining position as the Senate begins an epic debate … In discussing the White House’s strategic thinking, the administration official asserted confidence on immigration, saying Democrats who resist Trump’s approach will “be walking into a political suicide march.”

Congressman Todd Rokita, R-Ind., will introduce legislation that helps Americans keep more of the bonuses they receive by making them tax-free. The legislation, “Creating Relief and Useful Middle-Class Benefits and Savings”—known as the CRUMBS Act—also takes a swipe at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who has repeatedly downplayed the significance of the bonuses some Americans are receiving thanks to the GOP tax plan by referring to them as “crumbs.”“In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on — it’s so pathetic,” she told reporters last...

A Republican lawmaker is set to unveil legislation that would make most bonuses given out as a result of President Trump's tax reform plan tax-free -- and took a jab at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi with the bill's name. Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., has dubbed his bill the "Creating Relief and Useful Middle-Class Benefits and Savings" -- or "CRUMBS" Act. Pelosi, D-Calif., famously referred to the bonuses as "crumbs" in criticizing the tax plan last month. "Americans are receiving thousands of dollars in bonuses and more money in their paychecks thanks to President Trump's tax reform, but out-of-touch Democratic...