A 10-inch-thick binder of highly classified raw data regarding Russian election interference went missing in the final days of the Trump administration, a new report reveals.
The loss of the massive binder, which has yet to be found two years after it was first reported missing, included details on Russian agents that informed the government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had worked to help Trump win the 2016 election, according to a sprawling CNN investigation.
The information inside was so sensitive that lawmakers and congressional aides looking to review the materials had to do so under top secret security clearances and only inside a locked safe at CIA headquarters.
The binder included a GOP report on Russian intelligence, foreign intelligence surveillance warrants on a Trump campaign adviser from 2017, interview notes with Trump-Russia dossier author Christopher Steele, internal FBI and DOJ communications, and FBI reports from a confidential source related to FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, among other documents, according to the outlet.
It was last seen at the White House.
In the waning hours of the administration, Trump ordered a host of documents, including the binder, to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for mass declassification in a scheme to prove that the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation into his 2016 campaign ties was a hoax.
Republican aides spent days scrubbing the binder, redacting the most sensitive details so that an abridged version could be released to the public, even against the behest of other top Trump administration officials who repeatedly attempted to block the former president from releasing its contents, according to the outlet.
A day before his term was set to end, Trump issued an order to preemptively declassify most of the binder’s contents well before it was ready and regardless of some of the redactions. Multiple copies of the redacted version had been created inside the White House, with plans to hand them off to Republicans and right-wing journalists. But that’s not what happened. Instead, White House lawyers scrambled, forcing an immediate retrieval of some documents that had already been sent off, and demanding that the documents be stripped down more.
“The Crossfire Hurricane binders are a complete disaster. They’re still full of classified information,” White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson recalled a White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, telling her. “Those binders need to come back to the White House. Like, now.”
With minutes to spare before Joe Biden’s inauguration, Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows hand-delivered a redacted copy of the binder to the Justice Department for a final review.
“I personally went through every page, to make sure that the President’s declassification would not inadvertently disclose sources and methods,” he wrote in his book detailing his time as Trump’s chief.
Meanwhile, the original, unredacted version had gone missing.
But Hutchinson believed she had a clue as to its location. In a closed-door testimony before the January 6 committee, Hutchinson pointed a finger directly at her old boss in relation to the possible whereabouts of the original binder.
“I am almost positive it went home with Mr. Meadows,” Hutchinson said, according to transcripts.
Meadows’s legal team has vehemently denied that he mishandled any classified or sensitive documents.
Apart from Meadows, there seem to be no obvious leads for the location of the binder, which could expose some of America’s most closely guarded national security secrets. Somehow, it was not one of the 11,000 documents discovered at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
Donald Trump’s former lawyers and co-defendants in the Fulton County, Georgia, case wrote single-sentence letters apologizing to Georgia voters for their role in trying to overthrow the 2020 election.
As part of their plea agreements in the 2020 election interference case, bail bondsman Scott Hall as well as ex-Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell were required to write letters, as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis demanded that “there needs to be real contrition.”
However, the one-line apology letters failed to walk back any of the baseless conspiracies spouted and did not include any acknowledgment of President Biden’s win in the state. In fact, they barely mentioned the crimes they were charged with at all.
“I apologize to the citizens of the State of Georgia and of Fulton County for my involvement in Count 15 of the indictment,” was all Chesebro wrote in his apology letter, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Sidney Powell also kept it insanely brief. “I apologize for my actions in connection with the events in Coffee County,” she wrote in her October 19 letter.
Hall, the bail bondsman, issued the longest apology of the three—and still, it was only eight sentences.
While Willis said the apology would not have to be long, she expects some level of sincerity.
“It doesn’t have to be pages and pages,” she told the Constitution earlier this week. “Sometimes you just need ‘I’m sorry.’ And if you get ‘I’m sorry,’ then we can move on and move past (it) if it’s a sincere apology.”
Republicans believe that their pick to replace recently expelled Representative George Santos could be a rising star on the national stage, despite her thin political résumé.
Mazi Melesa Pilip, a local legislator who was born in Ethiopia and served in the Israel Defense Forces, was tapped in a secret meeting on Thursday to run as the Republican candidate for New York’s 3rd congressional district. So far, she’s curried the favor of the traditionally white Long Island Republican caucus and the endorsement of another former Long Island representative and 2016 GOP presidential candidate who once claimed there were “too many mosques in this country”—Peter King.
“She is the American success story,” King told The New York Times. “Some people have superstar capacity. She walks into the room, people notice her, they listen to her.”
In many ways, Pilip is an unlikely candidate for the Long Island seat. She is a 44-year-old mother of seven who first ran for office just two years ago. According to the Times, she has almost no experience raising money and has yet to foster relationships with the national party. She also lacks a strong platform, having yet to weigh in on issues that have decided other races, including abortion rights, gun laws, and Donald Trump’s numerous criminal trials.
This all makes Pilip a pretty bold pick, given that Democrats already have a very good chance of retaking the House seat. Santos was one of 18 Republicans representing districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
It remains to be seen if voters in the Queens-Nassau County district have been turned off the GOP. After all, it’s thanks to the local Republican officials that Santos was pushed through inauguration, even after several bombshell reports revealed that the fabulist congressman had lied about everything from his résumé to his lineage, resulting in the third expulsion in U.S. history in the post–Civil War period.
She’ll be pitted against the Democrats’ pick, former Representative Tom Suozzi, in a special election scheduled to take place February 13.
The man leading the Biden impeachment inquiry has apparently engaged in nearly identical behavior that he has hounded the president over.
In a scathing new report, the Associated Press found that a shell company held by the chair of the House Oversight Committee James Comer functioned “in a similarly opaque way” as the Biden family’s own companies.
For months, Comer has harangued the Biden family for leveraging their name to conduct business deals and for using shell companies to cloud their transactions with foreign parties and shady figures, indicting the president’s son Hunter Biden on nine tax charges related to the shell companies.
But a series of interviews and records searches conducted by the AP showed that the Kentucky Republican did something remarkably similar, transferring a six-acre parcel of land co-owned with one of his major campaign donors, Darren Cleary, to a shell company he created in 2017 with his wife.
The property has grown in value since its original purchase, jumping from a valuation of between $50,000 and $100,000 at the time of purchase to between $500,001 and $1 million, according to Comer’s financial statements obtained by the outlet. That flies in the face of not only Comer’s self-purported squeaky-clean reputation but also House rules, which require members of Congress to disclose all assets held by companies worth more than $1,000.
“This is actually a real problem that anti-corruption activists would love to get legislative reform on,” Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told the AP. “It is hard to trace assets held in shell companies. His is a good example.”
Last month, Democrats railed on the Kentucky Republican following a Daily Beast report that revealed the first inklings that Comer had engaged in his own shell company, involving intra-family business dealings. At the time, Commer snapped back that it was the kind of thing “only dumb, financially illiterate people pick up on.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz appears to be avoiding talking about the controversial abortion case in his state—by any means necessary.
The day after Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two with a fatal fetus diagnosis, was forced to leave the state to access abortion care, Cruz cruised past and skirted reporters, refusing to comment on the situation.
“Just call our press office,” Cruz told several reporters.
“I have, and I actually haven’t received an answer. So, is there anything that you’d like to say right now on this?” asked NBC News’s Kate Santaliz.
“Call our press office,” Cruz repeated.
“Call our press office.” Chicken sh*t Ted Cruz repeatedly refuses to comment on Kate Cox, the Texas woman denied an abortion by his state. (Video: MSNBC) pic.twitter.com/CmKhPwqfpJ
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 13, 2023
Cruz has never been shy to hop into the abortion conversation before. After the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson, Cruz described the decision as a “momentous moment” and a “vindication for the rule of law.” His silence now could be a sign that the ruling might impact his chance of reelection next November.
He wouldn’t be the only Republican afraid of the political blowback. On Thursday, a slew of vulnerable House Republicans made their own stances on abortion bans abundantly clear in an apparent effort to save their own election chances in Biden-won districts, snubbing the Supreme Court’s decision to take up a case that could prohibit the abortion pill, which accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., as “tone deaf.”
Cox has been at the center of the nation’s first major post-Roe lawsuit, riding out a legal challenge to the state’s near-total abortion ban after learning that her fetus had a fatal genetic condition that could jeopardize her health and future fertility if carried to term while being personally and repeatedly targeted by Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Last week saw a whiplash series of back-to-back decisions in the case, with a Travis County district judge ruling on Thursday that Cox could receive an abortion under the state’s medical emergency clause. But hours after the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the state’s Supreme Court to intervene and issued a statement promising to prosecute doctors performing the procedure with felony charges, even if a court permitted the procedure. On Friday night, the state’s Supreme Court blocked the lower court’s order and once again put Cox’s health in jeopardy.
Some Republicans are coming down hard on the Supreme Court for taking up a case on Wednesday that would challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill, fearing that a ban could create another vulnerability in GOP-held swing districts.
At stake is access to a drug called mifepristone, which, along with misoprostol, comprises one-half of a two-pill prescription jointly referred to as “the abortion pill.” Together, they account for more than half of all the abortions in the United States, according to a 2022 report by the Guttmacher Institute.
“I suspect they’ll rule in favor of prohibitions which is a mistake,” one vulnerable, unnamed House Republican told Axios. “The Court is tone deaf.”
New York Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican representing a district that President Joe Biden won in 2020, told the outlet that he didn’t support a national abortion ban, and that the court should stay out of issues better handled by states and the FDA.
“The Supreme Court needs to stand down,” Lawler said. “If it’s legal in a certain state, they shouldn’t be saying you can’t utilize that type of medicine.”
Other Republicans specified that they were concerned about the political blowback such a decision could have on upcoming elections.
“Quite frankly I would be concerned that the courts overly impose their will,” New York Representative Marc Molinaro told Axios.
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn abortion access at a national level proved disastrous for Republicans last November, resulting in major losses in districts where abortion was a key issue. Postelection, those raw numbers turned into some stunning platform reversals for the conservative party, with GOP consultants referring to the turning tide on the issue as a “major wake-up call.”
By and large, most Americans support abortion access. In a 2023 Gallup poll, just 13 percent of surveyed Americans said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Meanwhile, 34 percent said it should be legal under any circumstances, and an additional 13 percent said it should be legal in most circumstances.
A decision in the abortion pill case is expected by summer.
Elon Musk wants to create his own school in Austin, Texas—and he’d like you to pay to attend.
The Tesla CEO has donated $100 million to one of his charities, The Foundation, to get the venture up and running, according to a tax filing obtained by Bloomberg. The project will begin with a primary and secondary school and then move on to launching the university.
News of this filing comes after reports of X (formerly Twitter) having lost 13 percent of its users since Musk bought the platform in 2022, and of Tesla being forced to recall over two million of its vehicles over their autopilot software.
Musk’s university will seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and will be in person and also use “distance education technologies.”
“The school is being designed to meet the educational needs of those with proven academic and scientific potential,” the filing states.
The university expects to increase enrollment after accepting its first 50 students. It aims to be funded primarily through donations and tuition fees, though it could also provide financial aid to select students.
Musk’s university is the newest addition of far-right activists seeking to influence higher education in the city. Earlier this year, the University of Austin, which is backed by conservative figures such as Bari Weiss, announced it is accepting students and will officially open its doors in 2024.
Hunter Biden risked a contempt of Congress charge on Wednesday, instead showing up outside of the Capitol Building to slam Republicans for their insistence on a closed-door deposition.
“Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say,” the president’s son said in a rare public statement. “What are they afraid of? I am here.”
Hunter Biden: “I’m here today to make sure the House committee’s illegitimate investigations of my family do not proceed on distortions, manipulated evidence, & lies. I’m here today to acknowledge I have made mistakes in my life & wasted opportunities…for that I am responsible” pic.twitter.com/Wmq4ltHGxL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2023
Hunter Biden had previously voiced preference for a public hearing, fearing that information from private interviews would be selectively leaked and used to “manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public.”
“I’m here today to acknowledge I have made mistakes in my life and wasted opportunities, and privileges I was afforded. For that I am responsible, for that I am accountable, and for that I am making amends,” Biden said.
“But I’m also here today to correct how the MAGA right has portrayed me for their political purposes,” he added, skewering Republicans for harassing his wife and children and lambasting his attempts to recover from addiction. “Let me state as clearly as I can: My father was not financially involved in my business.”
“During my battle with addiction, my parents were there for me. They literally saved my life,” Biden said. “To suggest that is grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond absurd.”
Even Republicans have admitted that the impeachment probe, which went ahead without a floor vote and failed to produce even one witness who could say Joe Biden did anything illegal, was meritless.
“I’m just going to follow the facts where they are, and the facts haven’t taken me to that point where I can say the president is guilty of anything,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley told CNN hours ahead of the impeachment vote.
More on Impeachment Nonsense:
Senator Chuck Grassley admitted on Wednesday that House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden hasn’t produced any facts pointing to wrongdoing on the president’s part.
“I have no evidence of it,” Grassley told CNN, just hours before House Republicans were set to vote to formalize the Biden impeachment inquiry. “I’m just going to follow the facts where they are, and the facts haven’t taken me to that point where I can say the president is guilty of anything.”
Amazing. Chuck Grassley admits “I have no evidence … the fact haven’t taken me to that point where I can say the president is guilty of anything.” pic.twitter.com/fCuVcNLTB0
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2023
The probe into Biden, which was sparked by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in September and based on debunked claims, initially went ahead without a floor vote and failed to produce even one witness who could say Joe Biden did anything illegal. Republicans repeatedly tried and failed to tie the president to the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden.
The House is slated to cast a floor vote sometime on Wednesday to formalize the impeachment proceedings into Joe Biden, though it’s expected to be close. The lower chamber’s already slim conservative majority was squeezed even tighter earlier this month after New York Representative George Santos was expelled from the chamber. The disgraced politician’s absence means that the party can only afford to lose three Republicans on any given vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Christian fundamentalism is even too much for his own family, who say that the leader of the House’s religiosity has stood between them and environmental aid, citing an instance nine years ago when Johnson outright rejected their cry for help regarding a toxic burn site just miles away from their family home.
In 2014, the future speaker’s father, Patrick Johnson, and his wife, Janis Gabriel, both turned staunch environmental activists after the elder Johnson survived a near-fatal industrial explosion, visited his son’s legal office with a plea: Stop a government-backed burn of 15 million pounds’ worth of toxic munitions at Camp Minden.
But Johnson wouldn’t hear them out, according to Gabriel. “His father and I went to him and said: ‘Mike you need to get involved in this, this is really important. Your family really lives at ground zero,’” Gabriel toldThe Guardian. “We basically begged him to say something, to someone, somewhere.”
Johnson, who was a prominent right-wing lawyer at the time, wouldn’t budge.
“It just blew my mind that he wouldn’t give five minutes of his time to the effort,” she said. “He basically shut us down.”
According to Gabriel, Johnson has never been interested in environmental causes—a political preference due to his creationist beliefs, which lead him to think that climate change is a function of the planet’s shifting cycles rather than a manmade crisis.
“The climate is changing, but the question is: Is the climate changing because of the natural cycles of the atmosphere over the span of history, or is it changing because we drive SUVs?” Johnson said to the sound of boos during a town hall in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2017. “I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”
The elder Johnson, who passed away in 2016, “certainly didn’t agree” with Mike Johnson’s “extremist stance” on Christianity, Gabriel said. The father and son also disagreed on Donald Trump.
Gabriel explained that her impetus for speaking with the outlet was to elucidate “what and who he is and how that will affect the job he’s doing for us,” and noted that she believed it was Johnson’s extreme faith that led him to spurn his father’s cry for help over the air pollution crisis in the representative’s congressional district.
“It speaks to those religious beliefs,” Gabriel told The Guardian. “‘Don’t take care of the environment because we have a finite amount of time here and God will take care of you.’ It’s crazy.”
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