Quote:House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer moved Wednesday to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena requesting an informant file on an alleged $5 million bribery scheme involving President Biden.
“We have been clear that the FBI must produce the unclassified FD-1023 record to the custody of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability,” Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement accompanying his contempt resolution. “To date, the FBI has refused to comply with our lawfully issued subpoena and even refused to admit the record’s existence up until a week ago.”
Comer, 50, also accused Wray of “leaking a false narrative to the media” about the FD-1023 form, apparently referring to reports that the file originated in documents Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020.
...
“The case is not closed as the White House, Democrats, and the FBI would have the American people believe,” Comer responded in his statement Wednesday. “The FBI created this record based on information from a credible informant who has worked with the FBI for over a decade and paid six figures. The informant had first-hand conversations with the foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Biden.”
Comer later accused Raskin of having “lied to the American people” about the case and said he sat beside the ranking member as the FBI informed them “four times that this was part of an ongoing investigation” as they reviewed the FD-1023 form.
...
“It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down,” Barr told The Federalist, adding that it was “sent to Delaware for further investigation” by US Attorney David Weiss.
Quote:Eleven hours before the House Oversight Committee would assemble to vote on holding FBI Director Wray in Contempt of Congress, the FBI agreed to permit members of the Oversight Committee to review an unclassified informant file that allegedly links President Joe Biden to a $5 million bribery scheme.
Wednesday evening, Comer canceled the 9 a.m. Thursday vote to hold Wray in contempt. In exchange, the FBI finally agreed to allow the members to review the document, a demand on which Comer insisted from nearly the beginning of the negotiations.
“After weeks of refusing to even admit the FD-1023 record exists,” the committee stated in a press release, “the FBI has caved and is now allowing all members of the Oversight and Accountability Committee to review this unclassified record that memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Joe Biden.”
Quote:Hospitals along the United States-Mexico border are so packed with pregnant migrant women that American women are being forced to delay their scheduled deliveries, Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says.
As Breitbart News reported on Tuesday, Kennedy visited the southern border to bring awareness to the issue of illegal immigration, which has skyrocketed under President Joe Biden.
Kennedy said the illegal immigration problem under Biden is so straining for American border towns and beyond, pregnant American women are having to delay their scheduled deliveries so that pregnant migrant women can be readily cared for at their local hospitals.
“Moms occupied 32 of 36 beds in Yuma hospital maternity ward so that local moms had to delay induced pregnancies for two weeks,” Kennedy wrote in a Twitter post.
...
“Unfortunately, the Biden administration has let its relationship with Mexico and the Central American countries deteriorate, and we need cooperative agreements with all of them to stop the flow of immigration,” Kennedy told Breitbart News.
Such cooperative agreements with Central America, supported by Kennedy, were imposed by the former Trump administration, but Biden canceled all of them after taking office.
Can you really delay any delivery? Will the baby
ever ask you for permission to come to this world on that specific moment?
Well, Biden's team seems to think so.
Quote:Smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest on Wednesday, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, sending school recesses indoors and prompting people to fish out pandemic-era face masks.
While Canadian officials expanded evacuation orders and asked other countries for help fighting more than 420 fires nationwide, air quality with what the U.S. rates as “hazardous” levels of pollution extended into central New York, with massive tongues of “unhealthy” air extending as far as Virginia and Indiana.
In Baltimore, where officials warned residents to stay indoors when possible and limit outdoor exertion, Debbie Funk sported a blue surgical mask as she and husband Jack Hughes took their daily walk around Fort McHenry, a national monument overlooking the Patapsco River. The air hung thick over the water, obscuring the horizon as distant ships pushed slowly through the haze.
...
Canada’s wildfire season started early this year and accelerated very quickly, exhausting firefighting resources across the country, Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre spokesperson Jennifer Kamau said.
Smoke from the blazes in various parts of the country has been lapping into the U.S. since last month but intensified with a recent spate of fires in Quebec, where more than 100 fires were burning and considered out of control Tuesday.
Don't worry,
Wulfo! If you haven't seen it with your very own eyes over your city, you soon will!
Quote:Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up a major dam up water from Kherson, unleashing a flood and prompting an evacuation. Meanwhile, Russia denies responsibility and says Ukraine sabotaged the reservoir themselves.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky decried “Russian terrorists” early Tuesday morning as she published drone footage of the aftermath of a blast at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power dam on the Russian-occupied Dnipro river.
...
Both Kyiv and Moscow accused the other of having been behind the blast, and each giving reasons why the other might wish to destroy the Soviet-era hydroelectric infrastructure. Ukraine claimed the sudden unleashing of the reservoir downstream, which necessitated the evacuation of villages as the water spread, was intended to slow the progress of their army crossing the Dnipro River, reports The Times.
Notwithstanding that, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military says the blowing of the dam — which has been held by Russia since last year — won’t prevent their army from advancing on Russian positions.
Ukrainian reports say Russia blew the dam by planting explosives inside. No fatalities are reported, but residents of bordering areas, including those in the city of Kherson, are said to be heading to higher ground.
Quote:Trump said the case is "election interference" and "the greatest witch hunt of all time." Trump said he will "of course" plead not guilty to charges in federal court on Tuesday, and said he is "totally innocent."
Trump, the current front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, was indicted on federal charges Thursday evening stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's months-long investigation into the former president’s alleged improper retention of classified records at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump is listed in the indictment, which has not been unsealed, as a criminal defendant charged with at least seven counts involving obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and illegal retention of classified government material. He has been ordered to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday. The indictment remains unsealed.
...
"I did absolutely nothing wrong," he said, citing the Presidential Records Act, saying it "makes me totally innocent."
President Biden is under special counsel investigation for his alleged improper retention of classified records from his time as vice president in the Obama administration and as a senator.
When asked whether he thought Biden could, too, be charged, Trump said, "Probably not—nothing will happen."
Quote:House Republican Conference Chair Rep Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said in a statement Thursday that President Biden weaponized the Justice Department against former President Trump, amid news the GOP front-runner had been indicted on the same day it was revealed Biden allegedly received a payoff for influencing U.S.-Ukraine policy.
...
On Thursday afternoon, House Oversight Committee Republicans told reporters after reviewing a FBI’s informant file that an FBI informant claimed to possess two pieces of evidence that show Joe Biden received $5 million after threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine until a prosecutor probing the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings was fired.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Joe Biden is guilty of bribery 100 percent,” Rep. Anna Luna (R-FL) told reporters after viewing the document. “There was two separate transactions, one that went to Joe Biden for $5,000,000, one that went to Hunter Biden for $5 million.”
The bombshell allegations come after the FBI refused to allow House members to review the document, citing its use in an ongoing investigation. But 11 hours before the House Oversight Committee would assemble to vote on holding FBI Director Wray in contempt of Congress, the FBI agreed to permit all members of the Oversight Committee to review it.
...
Thursday evening, the Justice Department notified Trump of the indictment, nearly erasing the news of the allegations against Biden from the establishment media.
This week a couple of strange news have arrived, some didn't make it here for being real
but this one had to be published here on News of the World.
Quote:A California bill to prohibit employees from confronting shoplifters or active shooters has passed the state Senate, in spite of opposition from retailers who say it would add to the state’s escalating retail theft problem.
“With growing awareness of workplace violence, California needs smarter guidelines to keep workers safe in the office or on the job site,” said the bill’s author Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) in a press release.
Under SB 553, employers would be prohibited from forcing their workers to confront active shoplifters and would set standards for companies of all kinds to address workplace violence prevention.
According to Cortese, the bill is focused on protecting employees and does not affect private security guards. In fact, it highlights the need for dedicated safety personnel, according to his office.
The bill does not prohibit employees from stopping theft, but does prohibit employers from having a policy requiring them to confront shoplifters, according to Cortese.
...
Supporters of the bill argue that worker safety is an emergency.
What about letting the
police do their job of protecting the citizenry? If you let petty criminals steal up to US$999 of merchandise or products, how do you expect them to stop committing
thefts at all?
Quote:The FBI has arrested a Texas businessman whose links to State Attorney General Ken Paxton were central to his historic impeachment last month.
Online records show Nate Paul, a real estate developer, was booked into an Austin jail Thursday afternoon after being taken into custody by federal agents, according to online inmate records of the Travis County Sheriff's Office.
It was not immediately clear what charges led to his arrest, and the records said only that he was being held on a federal detainer for a felony.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the FBI and Paxton's lawyer for comment.
The arrest comes a day after Paul's defense presented evidence that was intended to counter bribery allegations but raised new questions about his dealings with Paxton.
Paul's troubled real estate empire has been the focus of federal scrutiny for years, and agents searched his Austin offices and palatial home in 2019.
The next year, Paxton involved his office in the federal case, a move that prompted his top staff to report him to the FBI.
Quote:Sudan said on Thursday it has notified the United Nations that it has declared Volker Peretz, the representative of the UN secretary-general and head of the UNITAMS mission, persona non grata.
Army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had previously expressed his disapproval of the envoy, and prior to the war supporters of former President Omar al-Bashir had protested in front of Peretz’ mission.
Quote:The results of the investigation into the killing of three IDF soldiers at the Israeli-Egyptian border early on Saturday will be presented in one week's time, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi announced on Sunday.
He additionally ordered to carry out a comprehensive investigation of the defense strategy and approach regarding the defense of borders with non-enemy countries like Egypt.
A senior IDF official said that Halevi had decided to turn the probe regarding the incident into a flagship investigation, Walla reported. "In the investigations, as time goes by, more painful details are revealed. I would not be surprised if heads fly in the Southern Command," he estimated. He added that a preliminary investigation shows substation gaps between standing orders and what happened on the ground at the border with Egypt.
...
Following the discovery of their bodies, additional reinforcements arrived and a search operation was carried out in order to locate the perpetrator, who was believed to have infiltrated Israel from across the border at some point during the night.
The terrorist was later confirmed by the IDF to be an Egyptian police officer. The IDF added that it and the Egyptian military were conducting a thorough investigation.
Shortly after midday on Saturday, the IDF confirmed an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and the terrorist, who was killed in the exchange.
Quote:In its latest challenge to the United States, China has reached a deal with Cuba to install an electronic spy base on the island, just about 100 miles from Florida, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed U.S. officials familiar with highly classified intelligence.
It would be close enough for Chinese intelligence services to garner electronic communications from the southeastern United States—home to many military bases—potentially including emails, phone calls, and satellite transmission data, the officials have said. They said Beijing agreed to pay Havana billions of dollars for the arrangement.
Revelation of the secret intelligence facility sparked wide concern in Washington.
...
It “reminds us we are in a New Cold War that, once again, has come to our doorstep,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said in a statement. “Our ardent diplomatic pursuit of the CCP in the aftermath of the spy balloon has only emboldened CCP aggression.”
Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said the report calls for the United States to take “long-overdue actions” to counter Beijing, including ending export licenses for chips to blacklisted Chinese telecom provider Huawei, restricting outbound investment in crucial sectors in China, closing trade loopholes that allow Chinese imports to enter the United States tariff-free, enhancing research security, and curbing Chinese land purchases near sensitive military bases.
...a spokesperson for the State Department told The Epoch Times that the department is monitoring and working to counter CCP efforts to build up military infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere.
Well, what a good job they did in Cuba!
Quote:Trump spoke to a crowd of supporters and family members hours after pleading not guilty to 37 counts of charges linked to his handling of classified documents. He decried the indictment as a political hit job meant to derail his bid for the White House.
In outlining his defense, the former president particularly focused on the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Trump suggested that the act gives the president discretion to determine which records are personal and which are presidential, and, as a result, belong to the public.
While the documents Trump is being charged with illegally retaining do not fit the criteria to be personal records under the act, Trump referred to a 2012 district court ruling in a case concerning audio tapes former President Bill Clinton kept after leaving the White House. In that decision, Judge Amy Berman Jackson concluded that even though Clinton’s tapes should have been classified as presidential records and turned over to the National Archives, the national archivist didn’t have the power to reclassify them.
“Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the president,” Jackson wrote.
Trump had previously hinted at this line of defense, jokingly referring to the lawsuit by Judicial Watch as the “Clinton socks” case, because Clinton had kept the tapes of his interviews with historian Taylor Branch stored in a sock drawer. Unlike the Clinton tapes, the documents in Trump’s possession had classification markers. It remains to be seen how the former president’s defense team will construct their argument.
Quote:The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted against the idea of censuring and condemning Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for insisting that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
In a 225-196 vote, lawmakers decided to set aside the censure resolution against Schiff, effectively killing it and preventing a vote on passage. The resolution, introduced by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., was opposed by 20 Republicans as two other GOP lawmakers voted "present" along with five Democrats.
The resolution was known to be on shaky ground with some Republicans. One expected "no" vote, Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky., said he opposed the idea of a fine against Schiff — the resolution up Wednesday recommended a $16 million fine but did not require it.
...
It wasn’t clear late Wednesday whether House Republicans might try again with a resolution against Schiff that leaves out all mentions of possible fines.
The resolution that failed on the House floor Wednesday said claims of Trump-Russia collusion were cooked up by Trump’s political opponents and pursued by the Department of Justice despite the lack of any solid foundation for suspecting collusion.
Quote:A US Army soldier on Wednesday pleaded guilty to terrorism charges for attempting to help Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Islamic State) conduct deadly ambush on US troops in the Middle East, the Department of Justice said.
The soldier, a man from Ohio, pleaded guilty to attempting to provide "material support" to a designated foreign terrorist organization and trying to help the Islamic State to attack and kill US soldiers, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Quote:US Central Command deployed its advanced F-22 Raptors to the Middle East, according to a statement released on Wednesday. The F-22 is among the most advanced air superiority fighter jets in the world, but the US has generally not had advanced adversaries to use it against over the last decades.
...
"Russian forces' unsafe and unprofessional behavior is not what we expect from a professional air force. Their regular violation of agreed-upon airspace deconfliction measures increases the risk of escalation or miscalculation," said Gen. Michael Kurilla, commander of US Central Command.
"Alongside our partners and allies, we are committed to improving the security and stability in the region." The F-22s flew from Langley and America says they are here to demonstrate “the US' ability to re-posture forces and deliver overwhelming power at a moment's notice.”
...
They will integrate with other US-led coalition air assets in the region. The US has warplanes based in Qatar, the UAE and other bases in the region.
On June 8th I had informed
you about the alleged existence of a Chinese base in Cuba to spy on US. Now it's no longer a vague
rumor.
Quote:The White House stated on June 12 that the existence of a Chinese spy base in Cuba isn’t a recent development and dates to the time when President Donald Trump was in office.
During a press briefing at the White House, John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed that the Biden administration is aware of China’s intelligence-collecting capabilities in Cuba and is taking them seriously.
“We’re not going to be able to get into too much detail about our own counterintelligence efforts,” Kirby said. “As we’ve communicated over the weekend, this is not a new development that China’s been trying to achieve some intelligence gathering capabilities in Cuba and, frankly, elsewhere in the hemisphere, and that from day one, when we came in, we took this issue seriously.”
The remarks came after several media outlets reported that Beijing has been operating a spy base in Cuba since 2019.
Previously, both the White House and the Pentagon denied claims that China struck a “secret agreement” with Cuba recently to build a spy base, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
...
Kirby claimed that the report wasn’t accurate but didn’t elaborate on what was incorrect.
...
China upgraded its Cuban intelligence collection facilities in 2019, Blinken told reporters on June 12 at a briefing alongside Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
...
On his Truth Social account, Trump blamed the Biden administration for the spying facility in Cuba.
“China just, effectively, took over Cuba,” he wrote on June 12. “Would never have happened under the Trump administration!”
John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence under Trump, denied that there was a Chinese spy facility in Cuba during the Trump administration.
Quote:China now considers a politically fragmented Europe to be among its core interests, according to Andrew Small, a senior fellow for the German Marshall Fund think tank.
“I think that has been one of the big shifts on the Chinese side [in recent years],” Small said during a June 15 hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC).
...
Small said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, views European unity to be a threat to its interests. CCP leader Xi Jinping is determined to isolate European nations and encourage them to break away from working with the United States against the regime, Small said.
...
While many European nations are wary of getting involved in the U.S.-China rivalry, Small said, their hope for robust engagement with China cratered after Xi’s visit to Moscow in March. There, he and Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to unite to create change in the international system that “hasn’t happened in 100 years.”
...
“The European Council meeting that took place after the Xi Jinping trip to Moscow was characterized by real concern on the part of European leaders about what the trajectory of China-Russia relations actually was.”
Small said the CCP had determined that its relationship with Russia was more important than ties with the European Union (EU) for fulfilling its military, political, and ideological goals.
...
Whereas previous overseas propaganda efforts focused on portraying China as a great nation and Xi as a wonderful leader, new propaganda efforts seek to undermine the international order.
Throughout the EU, [Ivana Karaskova, a fellow at the Mercator Institute for China Studies] said, new CCP propaganda outlets were targeting fringe political groups and candidates on both the extreme left and right, and encouraging them to distrust their own governments and reject international institutions.
Quote:Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that he has to “be careful” in the midst of his 2024 campaign, seemingly making note of the deaths of his uncle and father.
In light of the assassination deaths of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s, podcast host Joe Rogan asked the younger Kennedy about what he might do if he were elected president. As a longtime proponent of the theory that the CIA killed former President Kennedy, he responded by saying: “I gotta be careful.”
“I’m aware of that, you know, I’m aware of that danger. I don’t live in fear of it—at all. But I’m not stupid about it, and I take precautions,” he said. JFK, he added, often spoke of being “at war” with the military-industrial complex, a term that was popularized by former President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 when he warned about what he described as collusion between defense companies and the federal government.
RFK Jr. also said that intelligence agencies in the early 1960s were trying to “trick” JFK into launching military excursions in Vietnam and Cuba. That came before his uncle proclaimed he must splinter the CIA into “thousands of pieces” and “scatter it into the winds” after the Bay of Pigs incident.
...
However, a recent HarrisX poll shows that he’s behind President Joe Biden by about 40 percentage points.
Reports have indicated that Kennedy, however, could win New Hampshire’s Democrat primary after the Democratic National Committee (DNC) named South Carolina the first primary state. It’s because Biden’s name likely won’t appear on the state’s primary ballot, leaving Kennedy and self-help author Marianne Williamson to vy for the state’s nomination.
...
On May 8, Kennedy wrote on Twitter that Biden should release all government records in connection to the assassination, claiming that the White House “is still keeping thousands of pages heavily redacted, including 44 pages related to a shadowy CIA agent and a covert program that had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald just months before my uncle was killed.”
I guess he's suspecting he could soon become another victim of his family's
deadly tradition. Well, I can't blame him for that. The CIA loves to get rid of politicians according to papers exposed on Fox News, clearly pointing the finget at the Agency.
Quote:Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has been fined roughly $475,000 for misusing public funds during his failed presidential campaign.
...
“Between May 2019 and September 2019, while serving as Mayor, Respondent was a candidate for President of the United States,” the board wrote in issuing the June 15 order (pdf). “During this time, Respondent had the City pay the travel expenses for an NYPD [New York Police Department] security detail to accompany Respondent or his spouse on 31 out-of-state trips in connection with his presidential campaign.”
De Blasio’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination lasted only four months before he called it quits. But in that time, he managed to rack up $319,794.20 in travel-related costs for the city, including airfare, car rentals, meals, accommodations, and other incidentals.
The board also said de Blasio was warned prior to the launch of his campaign that using his security detail for out-of-state travel related to his presidential campaign would constitute a violation of the law.
But as the mayor ultimately disregarded that advice, the board fined de Blasio $5,000 for each out-of-state trip—$155,000 total—and ordered him to reimburse the city for the misspent funds.
Quote:“On or before June 16, 2023, all attorneys of record and forthcoming attorneys of record shall contact the Litigation Security Group of the U.S. Department of Justice, if they have not done so already, to expedite the necessary clearance process for all team members anticipated to participate in this matter, and thereafter file a Notice of Compliance” no later than June 20, Cannon wrote.
Over the past week, Cannon has faced significant pressure and criticism from mainstream media outlets, claiming that because she was appointed by Trump, the judge would act in a biased manner that favors the former commander-in-chief. Some Democratic lawmakers, too, called on the judge to recuse herself in the case.
...
Cannon, 42, was appointed by Trump in November 2020. She was randomly selected to oversee Trump’s case, which was brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith.
...
He added: “The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponized department of injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country … this vicious persecution is a travesty of justice.”
...
If convicted on all the charges, Trump, who recently turned 77, could face up to 400 years in prison and nearly $9.5 million in fines. Trump’s aide, Walt Nauta, was also charged in the case, and court documents show that he is to enter his plea on June 27.
Before he was charged, Trump told Politico that he will continue running for president even if he’s convicted in the DOJ case.
Quote:House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said that more witnesses and sources will come forward in connection with his committee’s investigation of alleged influence peddling and bribery on behalf of President Joe Biden’s family.
“I think we’ve done as much as we could do with the obstacles we’ve had to overcome,” Comer told Fox News over the weekend. “No one thought I would get bank records. No one thought we would get access to the Treasury, Cabinet’s suspicious activity reports, but we would not take no for an answer.”
...
Comer said that he is “going to start bringing in key figures” in the Biden family’s business deals “for depositions, and I think we’re on the right track, even though we’re having to fight the FBI, fight the [Department of Justice], fight the Democrats in Congress, and fight the mainstream media.”
His investigation is centered now on indirect wire transfers to members of the Biden family while he was vice president. Those wire transfers were made through shell companies to nine members of the Biden family, he told Fox, adding that the discovery of an FBI 1023 form means that the Justice Department chose not to investigate whistleblowers’ bribery allegations.
...
The chairman added, “So if this is the case and the FBI informant’s that credible and the FBI informant tells the FBI that the vice president of the United States took a bribe from a foreign national in exchange for foreign policy and foreign aid, then why did the FBI not investigate it?”
Again alleging that federal agencies have taken a hands-off approach to the evidence, Comer said the Internal Revenue Service would only look at possible tax evasion-related claims against Hunter Biden, the president’s son who has long been targeted by Republicans for criticism for his business dealings.
“They didn’t want to investigate the shell companies. They didn’t want to investigate the money laundering. And then we know the Department of Justice hasn’t done anything, so there’s a pattern here where the federal government, the deep state bureaucracies, have turned a blind eye to Joe Biden,” he said.
Quote:In a June 18 statement, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation confirmed “the white powder found in letters sent to Kansas legislators and public officials” and that about 100 such letters were sent to individuals across Kansas. A sample of the letters with the powder was sent to a laboratory that specializes in testing potential biological samples, officials said.
“Preliminary tests have returned from this lab indicating the substance is presumptively negative for common biological agents of concern. Further and more complete testing will be conducted on this sample, as well as on additional letters that have been collected, in an effort to determine the components of the substance. The investigation is ongoing. Nothing further will be released at this time,” the agency’s statement said, without elaborating further.
The FBI and Kansas Department of Health and Environment are now involved in the investigation, the statement continued. Currently, no injuries or illnesses have been reported so far.
State House Speaker Daniel Hawkins, a Republican, received one of the letters, according to a spokesperson, Carrie Rahfaldt, in a statement to CNN.
...
Also, Republican state Rep. Stephen Owens also got a letter with the powder, asserting that he believes that only Republicans received such letters.
Quote:Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was sued by a conservative organization in a bid to turn over prosecution records relating to the cases against former President Donald Trump, who was arrested on multiple counts earlier this year.
The Heritage Foundation think tank filed two Freedom of Information Law lawsuits against the Manhattan prosecutor, alleging that he and his office coordinated with Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), the White House, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) about the prosecution targeting Trump.
...
A second lawsuitfiled by the conservative Washington-based think tank also claimed that Bragg retained pro-bono assistance from top law firms in connection to the Trump case. They are asking a court to release requested documents to the public under the New York Freedom of Information Law and declare that Bragg hand over the documents.
...
Mike Howell, director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, told Fox News that his organization suspects that Bragg was “coordinating, or otherwise communicating” with opponents of Trump, adding that there is reason to believe Bragg is a “prolific communicator” via his phone.
...
The lawsuit further alleges that Bragg hasn’t responded to requests for communication between Bragg or his office and other parties. Heritage stated that it has the right to see those communications under New York’s Freedom of Information Law.
...
In the meantime, Trump’s lawyers are trying to move the case to a federal court or demanding that New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan recuse himself. Lawyers for the former president on Friday filed a motion asking the case to be transferred to the federal level, saying that the alleged crimes—relating to the 2016 election and his campaign—”took place while the president was in office.”
Quote:The Department of Justice (DOJ) rejected a House Republican request to disclose information connected to the FBI’s search and raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last August for alleged classified documents.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) had requested the information in a letter sent to the DOJ, asking for information about the classified materials that were discovered in the search. That included communications between the FBI’s Washington office and the U.S. Secret Service.
On Friday, the DOJ rejected Jordan’s request and argued that it couldn’t provide “non-public information about an ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution by a Special Counsel.”
“Protecting the confidentiality of non-public information regarding investigations and prosecutions preserves the American people’s confidence in the evenhanded administration of justice by guarding against the appearance of political pressure or other improper attempts to influence Department decisions,” Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte wrote in a letter to Jordan.
...
The Judiciary Committee “previously requested information and documents related to the FBI’s raid on President Trump’s residence and its subsequent investigation,” Jordan’s letter to Garland stated. “Because you have not provided this information, and in light of your appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel, we write to request an unredacted copy of the memorandum outlining the scope of Mr. Smith’s probes regarding President Trump and any supporting documentation related to his appointment as special counsel.”
Jordan sought a memo that outlines the scope of Smith’s investigation or “any other document describing, listing, or delineating the authority and jurisdiction of the special counsel,” according to his letter. He gave the DOJ until June 20 to hand over the material.
...
Uriarte also made reference to the recent indictment against Trump as providing detailed information about the investigation and the charges that were brought against him. Trump pleaded not guilty in a Miami federal courthouse last week to dozens of counts related to the classified documents case.
Quote:China has refused to resume direct military communication with Washington despite repeated efforts from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the top U.S. diplomat said on June 19 shortly after meeting with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
While he “raised repeatedly” the prospect of setting up a crisis communication line between the U.S. and Chinese militaries, “at this moment, China has not agreed to move forward with that,” Blinken told reporters at a press conference as he wrapped up his two-day trip to Beijing.
“I think that’s an issue that we have to keep working on,” he said. “It is very important that we restore those channels. If we agree that we have a responsibility to manage this relationship responsibly, if we agree that it’s in our mutual interests to make sure that the competitive aspects of the relationship don’t veer into conflict, then surely we can agree and see the need for making sure that the channels of communication that we’ve both said are necessary to do that include military-to-military channels.”
As bilateral tensions keep rising, Beijing has resisted a consistent U.S. push to open up lines of communication to mitigate the risk of a potential flare-up. Since 2021, China’s leaders have declined or ignored more than a dozen requests to talk with the Pentagon and about 10 working-level engagement invitations from the U.S. side, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed senior U.S. defense official.
...
Chinese defense minister Li Shangfu also refused an invitation for a formal meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum earlier this month.
In his first visit to China as the secretary of state, which made him the most senior Biden administration official to make such a trip, Blinken held talks with the Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang and Beijing’s highest-ranking diplomat, Wang Yi, and had a brief meeting with Xi.
Asked why Washington would want to continue engaging with China despite the apparent unwillingness to have open military communications from the other side, Blinken argued that such efforts are necessary to make changes happen.
Instead of making changes take place, it sounds like a "Yes, sir!" to me for sure.
Quote:China is making significant strides in solidifying its presence in Nigeria through the newly inaugurated administration of President Bola Tinubu, according to a national politician.
Early talks between Chinese officials and Tinubu, who took office on May 29, indicate that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is looking to expand its foothold in Africa’s largest democracy under the new government, a member of the Nigerian senate Simon Mwadkwon told The Epoch Times.
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“They have an agenda to rule the world and Nigeria is a strategic target for the attainment of those goals because of its population and influence in Africa,” Mwadkwon [the representative of Plateau North] said.
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“The immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari took loans from China without a focus, raising the level of Nigeria’s indebtedness to China beyond reasonable heights and the Chinese authorities are looking to consolidate on that,” said Mwadkwon.
On May 31, Chinese Special Envoy to Nigeria, Peng Qinghua—who also serves as the vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in China—held a crucial meeting with Tinubu at the State House in Abuja.
While the details of the discussions remain undisclosed, local media reports Qinghua informed Tinubu before the closed-door meeting that China is willing to enhance economic cooperation with Nigeria, given its crucial role in Africa and the global arena.
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During a seminar at the University of Abuja on April 5, the Chinese ambassador to Nigeria, Cui Jianchun, revealed that he had engaged in discussions with Tinubu and Vice President-elect Kashim Shettima.
Jianchun emphasized the importance of increasing productivity in Nigeria and expressed efforts to attract Chinese investment and facilitate exporting Nigerian products to Chinese markets.
The ambassador hinted at plans to expand China’s debt financing of Nigeria, acknowledging the solid foundation established by President Muhammadu Buhari for the incoming Tinubu administration.