RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
August 12 to August 18
Featured Investigation
A series of reports in RealClearInvestigations suggests that collusion was rampant in the 2016 election – not between Donald Trump and Russia, but between Clinton campaign operatives and government officials intent on finding and spreading dirt on the future president.
Lee Smith advances this story by citing evidence that strongly suggests one of the key events for those who claim the Trump campaign colluded with Russians – the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting – may have been a setup aimed at muddying Trump:
The first line of evidence includes emails, texts, and memos recently turned over to Congress by the Department of Justice. They show how closely senior Justice Department officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with employees of Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research firm reportedly paid $1 million by Clinton operatives to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign.
They reveal that then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, the fourth-highest-ranking official at DOJ, coordinated before, during and after the election with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who did work for the Clinton campaign and Russians; and with former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who was employed by Simpson [as was Ohr’s wife, Nellie]. ...
The second line of evidence reframing the Trump Tower meeting -- after the Ohr-Steele-Simpson correspondence – was first reported in June by RealClearInvestigations. It shows that, starting in March 2016, FBI confidential sources and other figures associated with Western intelligence services and the Clinton campaign approached the Trump team promising damaging information on Clinton. The Trump Tower meeting appears to have been the most successful of these approaches, since it was the one instance where the Trump campaign signaled it was willing to receive incriminating information on its opponent.
These two strands of evidence – the DOJ’s collaboration with Clinton-paid researchers and efforts to connect the Trump campaign to Russia – came together in midtown Manhattan on June 9, 2016 at Trump Tower.
The Trump Investigations: Top Articles
FBI to Strzok: You're Fired, Washington Post
Trump Pulls Security Clearance for Ex-CIA Boss Brennan, Fox News
Trump Gears Up to Strip More Clearances, Washington Post
The Weekly Standard's Ties to Fusion GPS, American Greatness
Omarosa Might Have 200 Tapes, New York Times
What Was Bruce Ohr Doing? Wall Street Journal
Other Noteworthy Articles and Series
Pa.: Hundreds of 'Predator Priests' Named in Grand Jury Report
Trib Live
“We…need you to hear this," the grand jury said. "There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic church. But never on this scale. … Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere.” The emotional words and harsh facts were from the panel's finding that hundreds of Pennsylvania's children were raped and molested by Catholic priests over several decades, during which church officials systematically covered up the abuse -- all while, equally horrifying, keeping records. A further horror is that most of the crimes will go unpunished, since they have passed the statute of limitations.
Apparently Rigged $10B Cloud Deal Shows Bezos DC Clout
Vanity Fair
How does Washington work? Consider this. The Department of Defense is accepting winner-take-all bids on a gigantic project: $10 billion to move all of its data onto the "cloud." Some are charging that the request for proposals has been rigged to favor a single provider: Amazon. According to insiders, the language contains a host of technical stipulations that only Amazon can meet. Amazon, of course, is led by one of the richest men in the world, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post – which has been harshly critical of the Commander in Chief, Donald Trump. On the other hand, one of Defense Secretary James Mattis’ key advisers in preparing the request for proposals is a former Amazon lobbyist.
Botched CIA System Led to Bloodbath of U.S. Spies in China
Foreign Policy
We have long known about one of the most successful espionage efforts in recent efforts: Beijing’s dismantling of the CIA’s network of agents in China beginning in 2010, including the execution of dozens of suspected spies. Now we may know how it was pulled off: the CIA’s mistaken confidence that the system it used to communicate with assets was impenetrable. “The CIA had imported the system from its Middle East operations, where the online environment was considerably less hazardous, and apparently underestimated China’s ability to penetrate it.”
Hatebook: Inside Facebook's Myanmar Operation
Reuters Investigates
Is Facebook leaning out when it comes to hate speech? The platform is being used as a weapon in Myanmar, this article reports, as a brutal military crackdown continues against Muslims – the Rohingya. Poisonous posts call them and other Muslims dogs, maggots and rapists, and urge they be shot or exterminated. The content violates Facebook’s rules, but the company appears to have taken little action when it was brought to its attention.
Iranians Posing as Anti-Immigrant Americans Online
Daily Caller
Iranian nationals are impersonating Americans online to demonize Indian immigrants as part of a lobbying campaign against proposed legislation in the House of Representatives. Using Twitter user names that read like foreign stereotypes of American names, they tweet obsessively at reporters and high-profile political figures about the threats they say Indian immigrants pose to America. Their efforts are aimed at defeating legislation to end the per-country cap on employment-based green cards, which would force them to wait behind Indian visa-holders, who were in line first.
Top Feminist Accused, and She Gets Muted #MeToo Backlash
New York Times
Some women are being accused of a double standard on sexual harassment after rushing to the defense a world-renowed professor at New York University, Avital Ronell, found responsible for sexually harassing a male former graduate student. One of the defenders, Judith Butler, the influential feminist author of “Gender Trouble,” signed a letter stating: “Although we have no access to the confidential dossier, we have all worked for many years in close proximity to Professor Ronell. We have all seen her relationship with students, and some of us know the individual who has waged this malicious campaign against her.”
Google Tracks Your Movements, Like It or Not
Associated Press
Google knows where you live, work and play – even when you’ve told to it to turn off location tracking. “Even with Location History paused, some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking,” the AP reports. Meanwhile, the Intercept reports that some Google employees are “demanding answers from the company’s leadership amid growing internal protests over plans to launch a censored search engine in China.”
Military-Recruit Pool: Fat, Uneducated, Convicted
American Conservative
The Army says it wants to recruit 76,500 new soldiers in 2018. But it has signed up only 28,000 in the first six months of the year. The problem, it seems, isn’t that young people don’t want to join the military. It’s that they can’t; too many of them fail to meet minimum standards. Here’s the math: One in three potential recruits are disqualified because they’re overweight, one in four cannot meet minimal educational standards, and one in 10 have a criminal history. About 71 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds -- the military’s target pool of potential recruits -- are disqualified the minute they enter a recruiting station.
America and Denmark Dominate Sperm Market
Guardian
Does size matter when it comes to semen? What we know for sure is that demand for U.S. sperm is on the rise while Danish semen remains a favorite of women around the world. Sperm from the United States and Denmark dominate the market because those countries currently have the most supply, experts say. It’s unclear whether their rivalry is serious or in jest, but U.S.-based California Cryobank and Denmark’s Cryos International each insist that their sperm repository is biggest.
