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CNN)President Joe Biden will hold a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday afternoon "to discuss a range of topics, including upcoming diplomatic engagements with Russia," National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne told CNN. The call was requested by Putin...

A basic rule of international relations is that you do not impose sanctions without an end state in mind. You also need to be able to muster strong international support by providing clear proof of the charges you are bringing. Does the U.S. have that support? When you levy charges against another country and then apply sanctions, there will invariably be pushback. The situation can easily escalate into a major crisis. Has Biden thought through his dealings with Russia and President Vladimir Putin? What does he intend to accomplish with the latest round of sanctions against the Russian Federation? In...

“The latest round of U.S. sanctions was a mostly symbolic exercise,” Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC on Friday. “Sanctions on Russian individuals and companies are irrelevant, as these people and firms have no ties to the US and probably no intention to ever use the U.S. dollar or to have bank accounts in the U.S.” Demarais added that the sanctions on sovereign debt are less stringent than the initial market reaction would suggest, since they only target the primary debt market and can therefore “easily be circumvented via the secondary market.”

Stefan Halper's story of Flynn trip with Russian woman deemed 'not plausible … not accurate.' Five days before the FBI formally opened the Michael Flynn probe in summer 2016, a confidential informant alleged to agents that Donald Trump's national security adviser had left a 2014 foreign meeting alone with a Russian woman. Agents ultimately deemed the account "not plausible" and "not accurate" but proceeded to investigate Flynn anyway, newly declassified documents show. FBI confidential human source (CHS) reports show Stefan Halper, an academic who long worked for the bureau as a trusted informant, was the original source of a story...

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - The Biden administration is not inviting Russia to join the G7 group of world leaders, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Friday, backing away from former President Donald Trump’s push for Moscow’s membership. Any invitation for Russia to join the G7 would be made in partnership with all of the group’s members, she told reporters, speaking aboard Air Force One.

The very day in January 2017 that then-FBI Director James Comey signed a FISA surveillance warrant application declaring content from Christopher Steele's dossier had been "verified," he wrote President Obama's outgoing intelligence community chief with a very different assessment of the British spy's intelligence on Russia collusion, a newly released memo shows. "We are not able to sufficiently corroborate the reporting," Comey wrote in a Jan. 12, 2017 email to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that was declassified and made public through an open records lawsuit by the Southeastern Legal Foundation. The memo recounts an internal debate inside the...

Demonstrations are being held across the U.S. calling for the immediate release of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. ... “Well, they should free him,” a demonstrator stated. “Yeah and maybe listen to him at least a little bit and to their people because Navalny, no matter what you think about him, he doesn’t deserve to be murdered, poisoned or being imprisoned.”Demonstrators could be seen chanting and holding signs, demanding the Kremlin critic’s release.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on winning the US presidential election — after weeks of holding out until the vote was officially confirmed. “For my part, I am ready for interaction and contact with you,” Putin’s message for the former vice president said, according to a statement released by the Kremlin on Tuesday. The message came a day after the Electoral College affirmed Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 3. The Russian president previously said he would not recognize Biden as the president-elect until the results were “confirmed in a legitimate, legal way.” In...

Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said that China is a "top" security concern and claimed there is "much more" to U.S.-Chinese relations.

President Trump kicked off his rally Tuesday night at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla., announcing he was formally running for re-election in 2020 and touching on a number of subjects including trade deals and the tariffs imposed on China. ..." The president told supporters the U.S. helped rebuild China and “they took us for suckers, and that includes (former President Barack) Obama and (former Vice President Joe) Biden.” Trump said he was fighting for them and would continue to do so. “I have news for Democrats who want to return us to the bitter failures and betrayals of the...

Today’s Campaign Update, Part II (Because The Campaign Never Ends) If William Barr achieves nothing else in his go-round at DOJ, he has already shown just how important it is for our country to have a real, actual, fully-functioning Attorney General. That reality was emphasized yet again in the bombshell new report from the New York Times – base solely on anonymous “sources”, of course, because it is the NYTimes, after all – that claims that John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the whole “Spygate” scandal will include interviews with “at least one senior counterintelligence official and a senior...

****Communities Digital News: ROME, ITALY: The Prime Minister of Italy has fired two of the countries most powerful intelligence chiefs in a major shake-up. It was directly attributed to their participation with John Brennan and the CIA in using Joseph Mifsud to set up George Papadopoulos as a pretext for launching the great Russia Hoax of 2016.*** . . . "Russian agent" Joseph Mifsud is actually an American Asset The use of Italian intelligence agencies to spy on members of the Trump campaign have roiled the internal workings of the Italian government at the highest levels. Simply put, Joseph Mifsud,...

FULL TITLE: Shocking New Information On Hillary Clinton Investigations Revealed By AG Barr In CBS Interview, Downplayed And Ignored By Liberal Media ====================================================================== Conservative media and former federal prosecutors are highlighting a portion of the recent CBS News interview with Attorney General William Barr, where Barr informed the public that after U.S. Attorney John Huber was tapped to investigate the FISA applications to target the Trump campaign for spying and the subsequent electronic surveillance of Carter Page, Huber "stood back and put that on hold while the Office of Inspector General was conducting its review." Coverage of that statement has...

As the spygate scandal unraveled early last year, “Stefan Halper” is a name that wouldn’t stop popping up.Having previously been involved in a CIA spying scandal in the 1980s, Halper got another spy gig in the 2016 election in which he attempted to infiltrate the Trump campaign. In a prior article I extensively detailed Halper’s involvement in trying to entrap various Trump campaign team members.Even after the election, Halper pitched himself as an ambassador to China for the Trump team after his presidential victory. In other words, even after Trump’s victory, a spy was nearly embedded within the Trump team. Thanks...

Russian “Bear” bombers flew near Alaska under fighter escort for the second time in two days. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it had to scramble two pair of U.S. F-22 fighter jets to intercept the Russian formation on Tuesday. “The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and at no time entered U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace,” NORAD said in a statement posted on social media. The incident occurred just a day after four nuclear-capable Russian bombers and two Russian fighter jets were intercepted off the west coast of Alaska by U.S. aircraft.NORAD said Monday that its...

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has flatly accused former FBI Director James Comey of mischaracterizing her statements by repeatedly alleging, under oath, that Lynch privately instructed him to call the Hillary Clinton email probe a "matter" instead of an "investigation."

Dan Bongino lays out very well in fine detail the sophisticated plot devised by the DEMOCRATS and Russia!For LOTS more on the FACTS of DEMOCRAT-RUSSIA collusion, including DEM-RUSSIA collusion via the Ukraine, see my FR Profile page.http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/

Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine emerge as 2020 issue for Joe BidenMay 15, 2019 - Fox News GIULIANI: (continuing) It’s a case that is crying out to be investigated.If it doesn’t get investigated, we just don’t have equal justice in this country.Biden’s son took millions of dollars out of the Ukraine, and over a billion dollars out of China.Well, Joe Biden was vice president, was really directing the relief for Ukraine, the loan guarantees, well over a billion dollars of loan guarantees.His son then got under investigation, for good reason.He was working for the most corrupt company in the Ukraine...

The U.S. attorney appointed to examine the origins of the Russia investigation has been working on his review “for weeks,” a person familiar with the process told Fox News on Tuesday, to probe "all intelligence collection activities" related to the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Fox News reported on Monday that Attorney General Bill Barr had assigned John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to conduct the inquiry into alleged misconduct and alleged improper government surveillance on the Trump campaign in 2016 as well as whether Democrats were the ones who improperly colluded with foreign actors.appointed to examine...

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday that Congress should take up legislation banning political campaigns from working with foreign governments in an effort to influence U.S. elections. **SNIP** “Going after his son is just a method of going after someone the president believes is his most formidable opponent,” Schiff said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “So, yes, let the president go after him, but don't seek the help of a foreign government in your election.” Giuliani had said last week that he would travel to Kiev in coming days to urge the government to investigate...